An Eye for Music

"""This book unveils the 'audiovisual surreal,' a key emerging tendency in digital audiovisual culture. In zeroing in on his subject in ways both exacting and generous, John Richardson invites the reader to participate in the heady pleasures of theorizing with a bustling crowd that includes Sigmund Freud and Simon Frith, Michel Gondry and Tsai Ming-Liang, Susan Sontag and Georges Bataille, T.W. Adorno and Madonna."" --Claudia Gorbman, author of Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music ""A breathtakingly interdisciplinary study of contemporary media-music forms. Using the lens of neo-surrealism, Richardson guides us through digital culture, music video, online mashups, and films that reroute traditional musical meaning, function and sense. Required reading for anyone interested in tapping the rich potential of contemporary audiovisual culture.""--Caryl Flinn, author of Strains of Utopia and Brass Diva ""This book opens up an exciting area for audiovisual analysis. It abounds with original perspectives that will sustain the attention of scholars who have an eye for contemporary and popular forms of musical expression."" --Stan Hawkins, author of Settling the Pop Score and The British Pop Dandy ""Explores the cinematic, spatial and visual aspects of music today; topics include the music of Philip Glass and the films Waking Life and Be Kind Rewind, by Richard Linklater and Michael Gondry.""--The Chronicle Review ""[A]n articulate, dense, theoretically driven text saturated with references to musicology, art, film, and cultural criticism."" --Twentieth Century Music"