Music Books

Record contracts have been the goal of aspiring musicians, but are they still important in the era of SoundCloud? Musicians in the United States still seem to think so, flocking to auditions for The Voice and Idol brands or paying to perform at record label showcases in the hopes of landing a deal. The belief that signing a record contract will almost infallibly lead to some measure of success— the “ideology of getting signed,” as Arditi defines it—is alive and well. Though streaming, social media, and viral content have turned the recording industry upside down in one sense, the record contract and its mythos still persist. Getting Signed provides a critical analysis of musicians’ contract aspirations as a cultural phenomenon that reproduces modes of power and economic exploitation, no matter how radical the route to contract. Working at the intersection of Marxist sociology, cultural sociology, critical theory, and media studies, Arditi unfolds how the ideology of getting signed penetrated an industry, created a mythos of guaranteed success, and persists in an era when power is being redefined in the light of digital technologies.

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Book SynopsisThis book presents chapters that have been brought together to consider the multitude of ways that post-2000 popular music impacts on our cultures and experiences. The focus is on misogyny, toxic masculinity, and heteronormativity. The authors of the chapters consider these three concepts in a wide range of popular music styles and genres; they analyse and evaluate how the concepts are maintained and normalized, challenged, and rejected. The interconnected nature of these concepts is also woven throughout the book. The book also seeks to expand the idea of popular music as understood by many in the West to include popular music genres from outside western Europe and North America that are often ignored (for example, Bollywood and Italian hip hop), and to bring in music genres that are inarguably popular, but also sit under other labels such as rap, metal, and punk.Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter 1 : Should Real Love Hurt? The Eroticisation of Dominance, Submission and Coercive Control in Contemporary Pop Music Chapter 2: Featuring…Nicki Minaj Chapter 3 : Misogyny and Erotic Pleasure in Bollywood’s “Item Numbers” Chapter 4 : From Pimpology to Pimpologia: A Comparative Analysis of Pimp Rap in the United States and Italy Chapter 5 : How Female is the Future? Undoing Sexism in Contemporary Metal Music Chapter 6 : See the Signs—Justin Timberlake and the Pretence of Romance Chapter 7: Immortal Technique and the Radical Reimagining of Masculinity on the Street Chapter 8 : The Initiation: Re-negotiating Masculinity in Queer Music Video Chapter 9 : Let It Enfold You: Screaming, Masculinity, and the Loss of Emotional Control in Post-millennium Emo Chapter 10 : The Power of Boy Pussy: The Dichotomy Between Liberation and Objectification in Queer Hip-Hop/Rap in the 2000s Chapter 11 : “All Of My Life, Just Like I Was One Of Them”: Trans itioning Punk Chapter 12 : Lady Lazarus: The Death (and Rebirth) of a Gender Revolutionary Chapter 13 : Like a Lollipop: Toxic Masculinity and Female Sexual Pleasure in Hip-Hop Afterword

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Book SynopsisThis open access collection deals with musical moments in film as one of the most pivotal and compelling issues of current film music research. Musical moments as defined by Amy Herzog occur when a musical number inverts the normal relationship between the image track and the soundtrack in a film in such a way that what we see is determined by what we hear. As one potential approach, this definition provokes a variety of perspectives to investigate the disruptive potential of these moments and numbers as a creative device in the production of audiovisual narratives. In this sense, the book responds to a need for an anthology that introduces students as well as scholars of cinema, musicology, media studies and cultural studies more broadly, to recent discourses in film music scholarship. The volume includes contributions by early career researchers as well as by established experts in the fields of musicology, film studies, media studies, and cultural studies, promoting cross-disciplinary collaboration in film music research. Table of Contents1. Introduction.- Part I. What the Musical Moment Can Do - Theoretical Approaches.- 2. The Musical Moment, Counter-Memory, Oblivion.- 3. The Crystal Song in four American Films from 2016 to 2018.- 4. Seriously Funny: Comedy, Performance and the Musical Moment in Toni Erdmann (2016).- 5. Experiencing Romance in Musical Moments.- Part II. How the Musical Moment was Created – Musical Numbers in Silent Cinema.- 6. Film’s First Musical Moment: The Dickson Experimental Sound Film, 1895.- 7. The Musical Moment in three Silent Films by Jacques Feyder: Narrative Vector or Emotional Catalyst?.- 8. A Waltz Dream: Musical Moments in Silent Operetta Films.- 9. Silent Movie Music(ians) on Screen: How Four Films Made Period Practices Audible and Visible.- Part III. Musical Dis/Placements – Musical Moments in Global Cinema.- 10. Musical Numbers in Bollywood Cinema's Homeland and Diaspora.- 11. Envisioning Chinese Musicals in the Era of Sound: Sound Cinema, the Songstress, and the Emergence of Mandarin Chinese Film Musicals, 1920s-1930s.- 12. De-Gendering Genre: Mayuzumi Toshirō's Avant-Garde Music in Popular Cinema.-13. Music in Nollywood Films: Schools of Thought and Performance Contexts.- 14. Redemption Songs: Musical Moments in Flora Gomes’s Nha Fala (2002) and Joseph Gaï Ramaka’s Karmen Geï (2001).- 15. “No hay nada que celebrar”: Migration, Violence, and Musical Moments in Luis Estrada’s El Infierno (2010).

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Book SynopsisThis book presents accounts of creative processes and contextual issues of current-day and early-twentieth century women composers. This collection of essays balances narratives of struggle, artistic prowess, and of "breaking through" the obstacles in the profession. Part I: Creative Work – Then and Now illuminates historical and present-day women’s composition and various iterations and conceptions of the “feminine voice”; Part II: The State of the Industry in the Present Day provides solutions from the frontline to sector inequities; and Part III: Creating; Collaborating: Composer and Performer Reflections offers personal stories of current creation in music. A Century of Composition by Women: Music Against the Odds draws together topical issues in feminist musicology over the past century. This volume provides insight into the professional and compositional procedures of creative women in music and stands to be relevant for composers, performers, industry professionals, students, and feminist and musicological scholars for many years to come.Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction: Composing Women’s (Very) Long 100-year Fight: Evolutions, Illuminations, Solutions, Linda KouvarasPart I Creative Work—Then and NowChapter 2 Synaesthetic Associations and Gendered Nature Imagery: Female Agency in the Piano Music of Amy Beach, Sabrina ClarkeCChapter 3 “Australian Bush Songs” as Multimodal Discourse: The Remarkable Collaboration of Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Annie Rentoul, and Georgette Peterson, Johanna SelleckChapter 4 The 1940s Australian Ballet that “Far Outstripped ... ‘Swan Lake’ in Popular Appeal”: Esther Rofe’s Ground-Breaking Ballet, Sea Legend, Emma TownsendChapter 5 Italians, Indians and Indigenous People: Innovative Themes and Materials Found in the Operas of Early-C20th Australian Women Composers, Jeanell CarriganChapter 6 “Conjuring Up the Magic”: Helen Gifford’s Compositional Passage to the Creation of Fable for Solo Harp, Jacinta DennettChapter 7 Of Broken Trees and Elephant Ivories: The Revivification of the Colonial Piano Manifested Through a New Work by Catherine Milliken, Gabriella SmartChapter 8 Beyond Exploitation: Feminist Satire in Jennifer Walshe's XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!!, Jaslyn RobertsonChapter 9 Hildegard’s Daughters: Women Composers “Overcoming Their Astonishment”, Natalie WilliamsChapter 10 Is the Category of the “Woman Artist” Still Helpful?, Susan Best.- Part II The State of the Industry in the Present DayChapter 11 “Dear Women Composers in Australia (and Beyond):” (A Letter from a Music Critic), Rosalind ApplebyChapter 12 Programming Orchestral Repertoire by Women Composers: Challenges and Opportunity, Joanna DrimatisChapter 13 Troubleshooting Gender in the Australian Screen Music Industry: An Insider Perspective, Felicity WilcoxChapter 14 Programming with Gender Parity in Call-Based New Music Festivals, Alice BennettChapter 15 Mentoring Emerging Women Composers, Maria GrenfellChapter 16 Content Targets Work: A Practical Example of Changing Behaviours and Processes in Programming Women Composers, Naomi Johnson and Matthew DeweyChapter 17 Working Towards Gender Equality and Empowerment in Australian Music Culture, Cat Hope.- Part III Creating; Collaborating: Composer and Performer ReflectionsChapter 18 The Book of Daughters and The Sonic aGender Guitar Project: Inclusivity as Guiding Principle, Lisa MacKinneyChapter 19 When We Speak: Creating (“Something Personal”) in a Three-Level Collaboration, Lisa CheneyChapter 20 “It Gently Makes Itself Known...”: A Composer and a Violist Discuss their Collaboration on Cranes, Phoebe GreenChapter 21 Children’s Opera in the Twenty-First Century: The Child-Centred Approach to Writing, Emma JayakumarChapter 22 Making Music in A Chorus of Women, Glenda Cloughley and Johanna McBride

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Book SynopsisPart 1: Avant-Gardes Revisited.- Chapter 1:On Listening to the Avant-Gardes: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Listen to the Colour of your Dreams: Lettrism, Isou and the Hypergraphic Novel.- Chapter 3: Adorno, Dada and Music.- Chapter 4: Postmodernism, Avant-Garde and Neo-Dadaism: The Legacy of Boguslaw Schaeffer.- Chapter 5: Alberto's Greco Vivo-Dito, Lettrism and the Prophecies of the Proper Name.- Chapter 6: Gothic as the First Avant-Garde Art.- Part 2: Transatlantic Avant-Gardes and Countercultures.- Chapter 7: Eugene Jolas and the Revolution of Language.- Chapter 8: Dark Night of the Universal: transition (1927-28) as Region of the Modern.- Chapter 9: Dada Countercultural Practices at the University of Iowa.- Chapter 10: Sunbird Records: From Subculture to Post-subculture.- Part 3: New Poetic Languages, Technology and Cinema.- Chapter 11: Variations on 4: The Verbivocovisual Sophistication of Dieter Roth's Non-Semantic Poetry.- Chapter 12: Aurality and Cyborg Poetry.- Chapter 13: On Anti-Viral Music.- Chapter 14: Ciao Manhattan: The Rise and Fall of the Underground.- Chapter 15: Hidden Influences in Music Technology: An Approach to Coding Practice.- Part 4: Politics and Aesthetics of Invisibility.- Chapter 16: Invisible Environments: CAyC and Countercultural Cybernetics.- Chapter 17: Diário da República: Heavy-metal as a Territory of Ideological Emancipation .- Chapter 18: Spillane, by John Zorn: Aural Cinema and the Lettrist Legacy.- Part 5: Music, Sound and Literature.- Chapter 19: Concrete Voices and Resonant Bodies.- Chapter 20: Music, Literature and Cinema: When the Score Guides the Narrative.- Chapter 21: The Politics of a Voice: Demetrio Stratos .- Chapter 22: Sound as Model: Lucier versus Murail.- Chapter 23: Gravitas: An Audiovisual Cadavre Exquis for Times of Lexical Reduction.

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Book Synopsis1. Introduction: Music, Sound and Identity in Video Games.- 2. “A Few Billion Timelines Might Take a While”: Temporality, Disruption, Folklore and Fantasy in Assassin’s Creed.- 3. Musical Representations of Tudor England in Video Games.- 4. Mixed identities: Picturing Spanish Music in World-travelling Games.- 5. Gaming the Lonely Road of Americana: Authenticity and Identity in Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.- 6. (Re)Packaging Japanese Musical Identity in Ghost of Tsushima, Genshin Impact and Okami.- 7. Immersive Environments in Video Games as a New Stage for Popular Music Performance.- 8. Spatializing Music in VR Experiences.- 9. Uncanny Landscapes and Cosy Dungeons: from Sonic Spaces to the Musical Narratives of Elden Ring and Dark Souls.- 10. Dehumanization through Sound: Musical Representations of Fantastic Cultures in World of Warcraft.- 11. Queering Cloud: Music, Gender and Sexuality in Video Games.- 12. Music and Masculinities in Game Space.- 13. Voice of the Fembot: An Analysis of the Subservient and Sinister Vocal Depictions of the Gynoid in Sci-Fi Games.- 14. “I’ll Show You”: K/DA and the Role of the Virtual Popstar in the Games Industry.

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Book SynopsisPart 1-Theoretical and Historical Mappings.Chapter 1-Defamed but seized: contradictory approaches of Nazi music politics to Neue.-Chapter 2-A plurality of (metaphorical) languages: Neue Sachlichkeit under the prism of multilingualism.-Part 2:Decentering Neue Sachlichkeit.-Chapter 3-New Objectivity in interwar Catalonia: reception and influence.-Chapter4-Neue Sachlichkeit and the beginnings of modern Slovak music.-Chapter5-: Neue Sachlichkeit in Sweden? On the search for a modernist aesthetics.-Chapter6-The complexity of banality: Neo-classicism and Popular Music in Pauline Hall’s Suite for Wind Quintet.-Part 3:Institutional Foundations of Neue Sachlichkeit in Europe.-Chapter 7-The most objective music: the ascendancy of Neue Sachlichkeit as norm in Swedish church music.-Chapter 8-A Lost Imagination? New Objectivity and the Swedish Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISSM) 1923–1939.-Chapter9-Between Expressionism and Neue Sachlichkeit? Transformations of the Händel opera revival in the light of artistic networks.- Part 4-Sachliche” Practices Through New Media and Technology.-Chapter 10-New attitudes of professional music listeners in Hungary in the 1920s and 1930s.Chapter 11-Kajsa Rootzén and the record review: Solitary listening to die Sache selbst.Chapter 12-The performer and the machine: unexpected parallels between Neue Sachlichkeit and Italian Neo-Idealism in the interwar years.-Chapter 13-Between Sachlichkeit and sentimentality: the medial qualities of early Danish music radio programming.

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