Sound and Vision: The Music Video Reader

Music video is one of the most important emergent cultural forms in contemporary popular culture. It has had a profound impact both on music, fashion, and youth culture and on the codes and forms that operate across television, film, and advertising. But until now, criticism has denied the specific nature of the form and its cultural history.

Sound and Vision is the first significant collection of new and classic texts on video, bringing together some of the leading international cultural and music critics writing today. Addressing one of the most controversial forms of popular culture in the contemporary world, the book confronts simple interpretations of music television -- as promotional vehicles, filmic images, postmodern culture -- to offer a bold understanding of its place in pop music, television, and the media industries. It moves beyond such early preoccupations as whether videos are promotions, songs, or mini-films, or whether they representthe destruction or salvation of pop music. Sound and Vision acknowledges the history of the commercial status of pop music, as well as its complex relations with other media, to offer a refreshing interpretation which takes both music and video seriously. It will be an essential text for students of popular music and popular culture.