This pop culture history serves up the soda fountain sound of the musical form that pervaded popular culture from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s: vanilla pop. The argument that vanilla, rather than being the absence of flavor, is a unique, identifiable, and underappreciated characteristic of pop music is presented. Paying tribute to vanilla pop’s mild-mannered, soft, soothing, sweet-tempered vision, the key components of this sound that freshens the ear with its extreme studio processing, high-register vocals, and sparkly acoustics are highlighted alongside its primary artists, including Frankie Avalon, Pat Boone, the Four Preps, the Carpenters, Doris Day, ABBA, and even the early-1990s balladeer Tommy Page. Beloved songs from this era such as "A Shoulder to Cry On," "A Summer Song," "For All We Know," "Johnny Angel," "Sealed with a Kiss," and "Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" are also profiled. This definitive history pays tribute to a pop music in danger of being forgotten and is a gallant attempt to challenge fashionable misconceptions and refocus the world's pop sensibility to the sounds, as well as the artists, traversing the vanilla extreme.
