From the early days of broadcasting through the rise of television after World War II to the present, music has been used more and more to sell goods and create brand identities. Since the 1920s, songs originally written for commercial purposes have become popular songs, and songs written for a famous audience are irrevocably linked to specific brands and products.

Today, musicians are moving flexibly between the worlds of music and advertising, while the line between commercial and popular music has become increasingly blurred. Timothy de Taylor has been following the use of music in American advertising for almost a century, from various shows such as The Clicquot Club Eskimos to the rise of the song, a sudden increase in consumption after the war, and the most complete integration of popular music and consumption in the 1980s and beyond.

Capitalism is the first book to tell the history of music used in advertising in the United States, and it is a true contribution to this part of our cultural history.