Stone Deaf Forever: Discourses of Loudness

Abstract

High volume in the form of high sound pressure level (SPL) is ingrained in the aesthetics of many forms of popular music, most obviously in rock and its associated sub-genres, but also in many other genres and styles including various forms of dance music, hip hop, reggae and electronic music. The primary site of expression of the notion of loud-as-good is in the performance of music in public spaces or venues (live, recorded or a blend of both). The reproduction of discourses of loud-as-good is woven through popular music culture, from bands in tiny rehearsal studios to the world record for “loudest” band (Deep Purple or The Who, depending on the year of publication of the Guinness Book of Records). Loud-as-good discourse has been satirised in other media: the “mockumentary”, This is Spinal Tap (1984) and Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, both of which are addressed here. This essay identifies five discourses of loudness as they appear in music journalism, and in fiction. These are: loud-as-good, loud-as-bad; loud-as-good for the audience, but bad for the journalist; loud-as-good for the journalist, but bad for the audience; loud-as-irrational.

Imperfect sound forever: loudness wars, listening formations and the history of sound reproduction

“…By no means have I been exhaustive: there are many more instances where the importance of loudness in the history of sound reproduction could be demonstrated, both during the period I have been describing and through the rest of the century. For example, loudness was privileged in certain styles of electric guitar performance as early as the 1930s; in the discourse of high-fidelity in the 1950s, volume took on a certain role in the gendered redefinition of domestic space (Keightley 1996) – not to mention the role of loudness in live sound and concert-going (Percival 2011). Additionally, there are many examples of sound quality's subordination to other concerns, from the fashion of concealed horn machines (Mackenzie 1925) to the portability of MP3 files (Sterne 2006), from intelligibility in film sound (Lastra 2000) to the fascinating but under-researched case of television sound (Negus 2006).…”