Anonymous Sounds: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s

by Nessa Johnston (Editor), Carol Vernallis (Editor), Jamie Sexton (Editor), Lisa Perrott (Editor), Elodie A. Roy (Editor)

Overview

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. The book pays attention to the different individuals, groups, organisations and institutions involved in making library music, as well as to its transnational sites of production (from continental recording studios to regional cutting rooms). It addresses questions of distributed creativity, collective authorship, and agency.

Combining empirical and theoretical research, the book unveils the modus operandi of a highly secretive yet enduringly significant cultural industry. By drawing attention to the cultural ubiquity and intersectionality of library music, the collection also shifts emphasis from individual film and TV composers to the invisible community of music publishers, writers, and session musicians. It argues that the latter were collectively responsible for fashioning much of the sonic identity of 1960s and 1970s film and television. As well as providing a nuanced understanding of historical library music cultures, the collection shows how they continue to inform contemporary audiovisual cultures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765109861
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/06/2025
Series:	New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Carol Vernallis is Affiliated Researcher in Music at Stanford University and Visiting Professor of Music at University of California, Berkeley. She is author of Experiencing Music Video (2004) and Unruly Media (2013). She is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aesthetics (2013) and The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media (2013), and on the editorial board of The Journal of Popular Music Studies.

Lisa Perrott is Senior Lecturer and Researcher in Screen and Media Studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. She is co-editor, with Holly Rogers and Carol Vernallis, of the Bloomsbury book series New Approaches to Sound, Music and Media, and the collected volume Transmedia Directors: Artistry, Industry and New Audiovisual Aesthetics. Lisa is also co-editor, with Ana Cristina Mendes, of David Bowie and Transmedia Stardom. Her interests include music video, animation, documentary and transmedia, with an emphasis on the relations between sound, music and visual media. Lisa is currently completing her second Bloomsbury monograph David Bowie and the Transformation of Music Video (1984-2016 and Beyond).

Holly Rogers is Professor of Music and Director of Research at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, where she runs the MA Music (Audiovisual Cultures). She is author of Sounding the Gallery: Video and the Rise of Art-Music (2013) and co-author of Studying Twentieth-Century Music in the West (2022). She has edited several books on audiovisual culture, including Music and Sound in Documentary Film (2014), The Music and Sound of Experimental Film (2017), Transmedia Directors: Artistry, Industry and New Audiovisual Aesthetics (Bloomsbury, 2019), Cybermedia (Bloomsbury, 2021), YouTube and Music (Bloomsbury, 2022) and Remediating Sound (Bloomsbury, 2023). Holly is one of the founding editors for Bloomsbury book series New Approaches to Sound, Music and Media and the Goldsmiths journal “Sonic Scope: New Approaches to Audiovisual Culture”..

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Carlo Nardi and Elodie A. Roy. 'Industrial Panorama: Visualising Labour Practices in Library Music.'
2. Maurizio Corbella. 'Film Music Publishing and the Rise of Library Music Records in Italy: Between Authorship and Anonymity.'
3. Niccolò Galliano. 'These Titles Do Not Mean Anything: Meaning-Making as Industrial Practice in Italian Library Music Records from the 1970s.'
4. Kaarina Kilpiö. '“Towards this Western, American set-up”: Library music in Finnish commercials of 1968.'
5. James Leggott. 'The Benny Hill Waltz and the Blackmail Theme: Library Music and Television Comedy in the 1970s.'
6. Hussein Boon. 'The Sweeney – Library Music Use, Re-use and Cultural Association in the British TV Police Procedural.'
7. Nessa Johnston. '“Funky Fanfare”, a Cult Library Music Track.'
8. Alexis Bennett. 'Avant-Stock: Bernard Estardy, Tele Music, and Experimentation in French Library Music.'
9. Mark Goodall. 'Empty Horizons: Library Music and the Occult.'
10. Jamie Sexton. 'Sampling the Obscure: The Recontextualization and Increased Value of Library Music.'
11. Júlia Durand. 'Golden Age Genius and Nameless Hack: Contemporary Views on Past and Present Library Music.'
Endnotes

Editorial Reviews

I have dreamed of a book like Anonymous Sounds for years. This collection approaches the fascinating phenomena of “library music” with a powerful combination of rigorous research and theoretical insight. The international scope of the book is very welcome and each chapter is a gem of sharp analysis and fascinating detail.” —Will Straw, Professor of Urban Media Studies, McGill University, Canada

“Anonymous Sounds: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s contains a treasure trove of information about the use of library music in film and television around the globe and provides essays on library music's use in a variety of genres and styles. It will doubtless be my go-to reference source on the topic.” —Reba Wissner, Associate Professor of Musicology, Columbus State University, United States

“This book is very welcome! As a significant addition to the small amount of critical writing about library music, Sexton, Roy and Johnston have assembled a rich and varied collection, addressing a form of music that everyone will have heard although very few will have registered its origin. For far too long, library music has been considered insignificant for those analyzing modern music and audiovisual culture, but this collection goes a long way toward remedying that, helping us to understand music as recording rather than idealized notes and highlighting the crucial importance of production modes and procedures, in almost invisible industries making low prestige music.” —Kevin Donelly, Professor of Film and Film Music, University of Southampton, UK

“Anonymous Sounds offers an outstanding collection of essays on a vital yet unjustly overlooked-even maligned-musical oeuvre: library music. The editors have brought together an impressive roster of experts, who shed light on the composition, applications and cultural significance of this music in its connection to moving images. Through in-depth studies of companies, recordings, catalogs and composers, the volume uncovers how library music has invisibly supported screen narratives for over a century, with special attention to the “golden era” of the late 1960s and the 1970s. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the “anonymous” music that fills our screens on a daily basis.” —James Deaville, co-editor of Music and the Broadcast Experience (2016)

From the Publisher