Listening to the Unconscious: Adventures in Popular Music and Psychoanalysis

Product Description What happens in our unconscious minds when we listen to, produce or perform popular music? The Unconscious – a much misunderstood concept from philosophy and psychology – works through human subjects as we produce music and can be traced through the music we engage with. Through a new collaboration between music theorist and philosopher, Smith and Overy present the long history of the unconscious and its related concepts, working systematically through philosophers such as Schopenhauer, psychoanalysts such as Freud or Lacan, to theorists such as Deleuze and modern Post-humanists. The theories offered are vital to follow the psychological complexity of popular music, demonstrated through close readings of individual songs, albums, artists, genres, and popular music practices. Among countless artists, Listening to the Unconscious draws from Prince to Sufjan Stevens, from Robyn to Xiu Xiu, from Joanna Newsom to Arcade Fire, from Joy Division to LCD Sound System, each of whom offer exciting inroads into the fascinating worlds of our unconscious musical minds. And in return, theories of the unconscious can perhaps takes us deeper into the heart of popular music. About the Author Kenneth Smith is Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool, UK, and its Institute for Popular Music. He is also president of the Society for Music Analysis. His first book, Skryabin, Philosophy and the Music of Desire was published in 2013. In addition to his interest in Western art-music from the turn of the twentieth century, Kenneth specializes in music theory. He is author of Desire in Chromatic Harmony (2020), apsychological model of twentieth century harmony that examines works by a range of composers, setting these into theoretical and philosophical contexts.Stephen Overy is a teaching fellow at Newcastle University, UK. He specializes in philosophy of the unconscious and desire. His research interests, stemming from his PhD (completed 2015) are in libidinal philosophies of drive and desire and their relation to materialism, considering a line of philosophers comprising Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, Deleuze and Guattari, and Lyotard.