The music of motors: means of a transport

About the author:

David Cocksey,

Abstract:

As one of the means by which transportation is experienced, the sound of vehicles is a constitutive element of numerous works in English and American popular music of the late 20th century. Through either reproduction or various forms of imitation, the sonic evocation of vehicles is as much a creative process in itself as a component in more complex semiotic structures: it functions concomitantly with verbal and/or visual discourse to augment narrative or the expression of emotional states, notably the exhilaration associated with speed. The representation of vehicles in popular music thus appears as a modern example of Edmund Burke’s aesthetic of the Sublime.

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