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“Until now, the full story of music’s digitalization had not been told. Selling Digital Music, Formatting Culture is that telling—a lively, textured, and meticulous account that challenges common wisdom and oft-repeated apocrypha. Required reading.”—Devon Powers, Associate Professor of Communication, Drexel University
“We’ve been waiting for years for a definitive account of the ‘digital moment’ in recorded music, one that draws skillfully upon a full range of social, cultural, and musical theory. That account has finally arrived in the form of Jeremy Morris’s fine, comprehensive book.”—David Hesmondhalgh, Professor of Media, Music and Culture, University of Leeds, and author of Why Music Matters
“Morris takes us to the code and user-interface levels of digital-music distribution and playback systems in a detailed and well-researched analysis. Selling Digital Music, Formatting Culture demonstrates the infinite promises and notable disappointments of the music and computer software industries as they have fought to capture and retain music fans in their online webs of influence.”—Patrick Burkart, Professor of Communication, Texas A&M University
List of contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Digital Music Commodity
1. Music as a Digital File
2. Making Technology Behave
3. This Business of Napster
4. Click to Buy: Music in Digital Stores
5. Music in the Cloud
Conclusion: Exceptional Objects
Notes
Works Cited
Index
About the author
Jeremy Wade Morris is Assistant Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the department of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has published in New Media & Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication, First Monday, and various edited collections on music and technology.
Summary
Focusing on case studies of five key technologies, this book explores how music listeners gradually came to understand computers and digital files as suitable replacements for their stereos and CD.
