ABSTRACT

This book offers a new theory of music as a form of social bond analogous to language as it is understood according to the Lacanian orientation in psychoanalysis. It presents contemporary examples that look at how music has become both a powerful locus of discontent and a form of orientation.

part I|74 pages

Amusia

chapter 1|2 pages

Music and the love of the master

chapter Interlude 2|4 pages

Groundhog Day: the earworm and the love song

chapter Three|10 pages

From symptom to synthomy

chapter Four|9 pages

The audio unconscious

chapter Interlude 3|3 pages

Hank Williams’s cough

chapter Five|18 pages

From Speaking Beings to Talking Heads

part II|63 pages

The Madness of Economic Realism

chapter Six|10 pages

Primal scream: dissonance and repetition

chapter Seven|12 pages

Capitalism and psychosis I: the Nash equilibrium

chapter Interlude 4|3 pages

Michel Foucault and the beauty of the absolute

chapter Eight|16 pages

Bach’s Little Fugue

chapter Nine|9 pages

Decomposing the voice

chapter Interlude 5|2 pages

American Psycho and Phil Collins

chapter Ten|7 pages

The Ride of the Valkyries

part III|75 pages

Screamadelica

chapter Eleven|16 pages

Flower of hate: the lack in The Beatles

chapter Twelve|12 pages

The murder of John Lennon

chapter Interlude 6|4 pages

Echo

chapter Thirteen|8 pages

Unlistenable

chapter Fourteen|16 pages

The braindance of the hikikomori

chapter Fifteen|13 pages

The three delusions

chapter |3 pages

Coda: The hum