Ubiquitous Listening Affect, Attention, and Distributed Subjectivity [Hardcover]

How does the constant presence of music in modern lifeon iPods, in shops and elevators, on televisionaffect the way we listen? With so much of this sound, whether imposed or chosen, only partially present to us, is the act of listening degraded by such passive listening? InUbiquitous Listening,Anahid Kassabian investigates the many sounds that surround us and argues that this ubiquity has led to different kinds of listening. Kassabian argues for a new examination of the music we do not normally hear (and by implication, that we do), one that examines the way it is used as a marketing tool and a mood modulator, and exploring the ways we engage with this music.

Anahid Kassabianis the James and Constance Alsop Chair of Music at the Institute of Popular Music and the School of Music at the University of Liverpool. She is the author ofHearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music.
 

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Ubiquitous Listening
2. Listening to Video Art and the Problem of Too Many Homelands
3. The Sound of a New Film Form
4. Musicals Hit the Small Screen: Attention, Listening, and TV Musical Episodes
5. Improvising Diasporan Identities: Armenian Jazz
6. Would You Like Some World Music with Your Latte?: Starbucks, Putumayo, and Distributed Tourism

Conclusion

Works Cited
Notes
Index

Anahid Kassabian offers us a way of thinking about listening that is dynamic, unique, timely and original. Kassabian reimagines listening for our age; she constructs new objects and asks fresh questions.Ubiquitous Listeningoffers a new foundation for understanding music in contemporary life . Jonathan Sterne, author ofMP3: The Meaning of a FormatandThe Audible Past: Origins of Sound Reproduction

[This work] is an important study of a phenomenon that has a wide-rangingl#)