Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence

(an) extraordinary new book ... There are real implications in this book for policy debates and it deserves to be widely read. It is a model of clear and sophisticated writing and a pleasure to read despite the often disturbing subject matter. Times Higher Education Brilliant Caspar Melville, BBC Radio 4 ... not only a brave book but also, given the increased incursion of sound in every day life (mobile ringtones, the hiss of iPods, telephone hold music) a timely one... the incidental pleasures of Dark Side of the Tune are many: the artful combination of anecdote and fact results in a sharp book that necessarily asks more questions than it answers. Times Literary Supplement The relationship of music to the dark, cruel and violent side of human nature has been very seldom studied. The book reminds us of a connection between humans and music that has always been part of their shared heritage, as early as the mythic song of the Sirens and the biblical accounts of Jericho. The research by Johnson and Cloonan is informed by an excellent understanding of the long history of the evolution of music. Turun Sanomat ...a thorough examination of the history of this troubled relationship...Highly recommended. All readers. Choice Dark Side of the Tune is an important and very interesting book and in no way hard to read as it gorges itself on a long chain of empirical material which is appropriately open to readers for further investigation. It is also a very broad study, still it does hold on to its goal and sticks to the proposed agenda. ... In an ethnographic reading - and also in the theoretical points set up by the authors - music is part of social life, as such integral to human organisation and therefore violence occurs in music as in real life. The book is highly recommended. Popular Musicology Online In Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan's book Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence, the authors provide one of t

Bruce Johnson is Docent and Visiting Professor, Cultural History, University of Turku (Finland); Adjunct Professor, Contemporary Music Studies, Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia); Honorary Professor, Department of Music, University of Glasgow (Scotland, UK). Martin Cloonan is Convener of Postgraduate Studies, Department of Music, University of Glasgow (Scotland, UK).

Contents: Introduction: musical violence and popular music studies, Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan; Context: the sound of music, Bruce Johnson; Music and violence in history, Bruce Johnson; Technologized sonority, Bruce Johnson; Music accompanying violence, Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan; Music and incitement to violence, Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan; Music and arousal to violence, Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan; Music as violence, Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan; Policy, Bruce Johnson and Martin Cloonan; Select bibliography; Index.