Annoying Music in Everyday Life

About the Author

Felipe Trotta is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Brazil, and Vice-Coordinator of the Post-Graduate Program in Communication. He is a musicologist who works frequently within the popular music studies field, with an emphasis on topics such as inequalities, gender and taste disputes. His work is widely recognized in Latin America, where he was Vice-President of the local branch of International Association for Study of Popular Music (IASPM-AL). He is the author of several articles and chapters, two books in Portuguese and co-editor (with Martha Ulhoa and Claudia Azevedo) of Made in Brazil: Studies in Popular Music (2015).

Matt Brennan is a Chancellor's Fellow of Music at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He has served as Chair of the UK and Ireland branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). His is the co-author (with Simon Frith, Martin Cloonan, and Emma Webster) of The History of Live Music in Britain.

Product Description

Just as music has the power to inspire, it has the power to irritate and enrage. Why does certain music annoy us? Why does it force us to leave rooms, invade our personal space and affect us on a visceral level? Based on more than 70 interviews, this book discusses the everyday challenges of living together with unwanted music. It examines issues of taste, individual rights, private and public spaces, violence and the law.

The interviews explore various relationships with forced listening and the behaviors that result. Interviewees talk about emotions and reactions to the nuisance caused by music, highlighting matters of otherness, individualism and rights. They discuss experiences with neighbors, at stores, on the street, while commuting and even in their homes - and reveal the complex social interactions mediated by music and sounds in our day-to-day lives.

Review

“In view of the increasing facilities of its production, circulation and consumption, the mobilizing capacity of music in the contemporary world is becoming increasingly evident. Inspired by the seminal work of Tia DeNora and carrying out extensive fieldwork, Trotta carefully analyses the sensitive aspects and the production of meanings that involve the daily musical and sound experiences researched. Annoying Music Everyday Life is a fundamental work for those who seek to rethink the consequences of living in an increasingly sonorous, musical and, for many, much louder world.” ―Micael Herschmann, Professor, Communications Department, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

“Annoying Music in Everyday Life is more than the engagement with 'bad' music one might expect from its title. Trotta offers a thoughtful, fascinating account of the ways in which music is bound up with nuisance, violence, social conflict and clashes of taste. The book's well-chosen examples range from 19th-century London to 21st-century Rio de Janeiro. Music's capacity to annoy is traced through lively accounts of clashes between neighbours, then explored more abstractly through rich philosophical and political reflection. A gem of a book.” ―Will Straw, James McGill Professor of Urban Media Studies, McGill University, Canada