Anonymous Sounds

"This cross-disciplinary collection provides the first comprehensive study of library music practices in the 1960s and 1970s. Library music was inexpensive, off-the-shelf music available to license for a small fee. It was widely used in television and film as a cheaper alternative to commissioned soundtracks. This book addresses questions about creativity, authorship and agency: How and in what conditions were library music tracks written, recorded and disseminated? Why has anonymity traditionally been such an important aspect of library music? How can we interpret the contemporary revival of library music and the phono-archaeological practices of collectors, reissue record labels, musicians and DJs?"--

Nessa Johnston is Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture at the University of Liverpool, UK and author of The Commitments: Youth, Music and Authenticity in 1990s Ireland (2021). Her research is in sound and music in screen media, cult cinema, media technologies, and media industries. She is co-investigator on the Leverhulme funded research project 'Anonymous Creativity: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s' and a 2020 Fellow of the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas (Austin).
Jamie Sexton is Associate Professor in Film and Television Studies at Northumbria University, UK with research interests in music and media, and cult cinema. Recent publications include Freak Scenes: American Indie Cinema and Indie Music Scenes (2022).
Elodie A. Roy is a media and material culture theorist with a specialism in the history of recorded sound. Her publications include Media, Materiality and Memory: Grounding the Groove (2015) and (with Eva Moreda Rodríguez) the edited collection Phonographic Encounters: Mapping Transnational Cultures of Sound, 1890-1945 (2021).