This chapter introduces the key concepts and theories that undergird the book, Jazz Sells: Music, Marketing, and Meaning. I begin my providing a brief overview of the history of consumer capitalism, focusing on North America and Western Europe, followed by a general discussion of the role of music in advertising and the proliferation of consumer capitalist ideology. I highlight several central theoretical tools that figure prominently in my analysis in the remaining chapters of the book: Louis Althusser’s notions of “interpellation” and “ideological state apparatus,” Guy Debord’s work on “spectacle,” and Thorstein Veblen’s work on “conspicuous consumption.”