Soundtracked Books From The Acoustic Era To The Digital Age

Offering both a short history and a theoretical framework, this book is the first extended study of the soundtracked book as a media form. A soundtracked book is a print or digital publication for which a recorded, musical complement has been produced. Early examples were primarily developed for the children's market, but by the middle of the twentieth century, ethnographers had begun producing book-and-record combinations that used print to contextualize musical artifacts. The last half-century has witnessed the rapid expansion of the adult market, including soundtracked novels from celebrated writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Kathy Acker, and Mark Z. Danielewski. While often dismissed as gimmicks, this volume argues that soundtracked books represent an interesting case study in media consumption. Unlike synchronous multimedia forms, the vast majority of soundtracked books require that audience activity be split between reading and listening, thus defining the user experience and often shaping the content of singing books as well. Mapping the form's material evolution, this book charts a previously unconsidered pathway through more than a century of recording formats and packaging strategies, emphasizing the synergies and symbioses that characterize the marriage of sound and print. As such, it will be of value to scholars and postgraduate students working in media studies, literary studies, and sound studies.

In a time when music streaming has become the dominant mode of consuming music recordings, this book interrogates how users go about listening to music in their everyday lives in a context where streaming services are focused on not only the circulation of music for users but also the circulation of user data and attention. Drawing insights directly from interviews with users, music streaming is explained as never merely a neutral technology but rather one that seeks to actively shape user engagement. Users respond to streaming platforms with some relishing these aspects that provide music to be drawn into daily activities while others show signs of resistance. It is this tension that this book explores. This unique and accessible study will be ideal reading for both scholars and students of popular music studies, communication studies, sociology, media and cultural studies.

This study provides a history of sound recording from the acoustic phonograph to digital sound technology. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

A Rolling Stone-Kirkus Best Music Book of 2020 The definitive account of pop music in the mid-eighties, from Prince and Madonna to the underground hip-hop, indie rock, and club scenes Everybody knows the hits of 1984 - pop music's greatest year. From "Thriller" to "Purple Rain," "Hello" to "Against All Odds," "What's Love Got to Do with It" to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go," these iconic songs continue to dominate advertising, karaoke nights, and the soundtracks for film classics (Boogie Nights) and TV hits (Stranger Things). But the story of that thrilling, turbulent time, an era when Top 40 radio was both the leading edge of popular culture and a moral battleground, has never been told with the full detail it deserves - until now. Can't Slow Down is the definitive portrait of the exploding world of mid-eighties pop and the time it defined, from Cold War anxiety to the home-computer revolution. Big acts like Michael Jackson (Thriller), Prince (Purple Rain), Madonna (Like a Virgin), Bruce Springsteen (Born in the U.S.A.), and George Michael (Wham!'s Make It Big) rubbed shoulders with the stars of the fermenting scenes of hip-hop, indie rock, and club music. Rigorously researched, mapping the entire terrain of American pop, with crucial side trips to the UK and Jamaica, from the biz to the stars to the upstarts and beyond, Can't Slow Down is a vivid journey to the very moment when pop was remaking itself, and the culture at large - one hit at a time.

In a major expansion of the conversation on music and film history, The Routledge Companion to Global Film Music in the Early Sound Era draws together a wide-ranging collection of scholarship on music in global cinema during the transition from silent to sound films (the late 1920s to the 1940s). Moving beyond the traditional focus on Hollywood, this Companion considers the vast range of cinema and music created in often-overlooked regions throughout the rest of the world, providing crucial global context to film music history. An extensive editorial Introduction and 50 chapters from an array of international experts connect the music and sound of these films to regional and transnational issues—culturally, historically, and aesthetically—across five parts: Western Europe and Scandinavia Central and Eastern Europe North Africa, The Middle East, Asia, and Australasia Latin America Soviet Russia Filling a major gap in the literature, The Routledge Companion to Global Film Music in the Early Sound Era offers an essential reference for scholars of music, film studies, and cultural history.

In light of climate change and humanitys increasingly complex and nuanced relationship with the natural world, this book serves as an accessible point of entry into complex ideas. Miller uses Antarctica as a point on entry for contemplating humanitys relationship with the natural world.

Digital technology has profoundly transformed almost all aspects of musical culture. This book explains how and why.

Sound for Moving Pictures presents a new and original sound design theory called the Four Sound Areas framework, offering a conceptual template for constructing, deconstructing and communicating all types of motion picture soundtracks; and a way for academics and practitioners to better understand and utilize the deeper, emotive capabilities available to all filmmakers through the thoughtful use of sound design. The Four Sound Areas framework presents a novel approach to sound design that enables the reader to more fully appreciate audience emotions and audience engagement, and provides a flexible, practical model that will allow professionals to more easily create and communicate soundtracks with greater emotional significance and meaning. Of obvious benefit to sound specialists, as well as motion picture professionals such as film producers, directors and picture editors, Sound for Moving Pictures also provides valuable insight for others interested in the subject; such as those involved with teaching soundtrack analysis, or those researching the wider topics of film studies and screen writing.