So yes, for me, I only realized later that it was kind of weird that I was this kid sitting in his bedroom in Connecticut, listening to these British bands from the late '70s, and that for some reason, they were really speaking to me. I discovered punk in 1990 when my best high school friend gave me a mixtape, and a lot of the bands on that tape, bands like The Sex Pistols, The Ramones were getting to be basically 15 years old. KCRW: Even for you with punk, it was kind of an institution that existed before you found it. And so I wanted to write a book about that push and pull about the music we love and the music we hate and how we use those two emotions to form musical communities really, which is what genre is. With music as with people, the existence of love kind of implies the existence alongside of hate, as well. And that kind of got me thinking about all kinds of music and all the ways in which people fall in and out of love with music. In my case, it was punk rock, which was the first music I fell in love with. It's partly about me falling in love with music. Kelefa Sanneh: Like most musical stories, this is partly a love story. My guest today is New Yorker writer Kelefa Sanneh, whose new book is 'Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres.' It’s about falling in and out of love with something, isn't it? KCRW: Welcome to the treatment, the Home Edition. The following interview has been abbreviated and edited for clarity. And he sets the record straight about his infamous comparison of Beyoncé and Ashanti. Sanneh says in spite of the different genres in the music industry, musicians are often pushing up against the boundaries of the genre they’re put in.

He tells The Treatment about why he gravitated toward punk music as a teenager.

This week on The Treatment, Elvis welcomes New Yorker writer and author Kelefa Sanneh, whose new book is “Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres.” Sanneh is also a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning and was previously a music critic at The New York Times.

Kelefa sanneh major labels