ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that music is used to 'hit' people and certainly to cause them pain. It also shows how music itself can become both the site and agent of violence. Moreover, music can be delivered by and within a socio-political order in a way that functions to humiliate, disturb, disorient and to torture. The chapter shows that sound is potentially an instrument of both power and violence, and that this potential has expanded dramatically through technological developments throughout the twentieth century. It demonstrates that musical violence is inherently political. The ambiguity of the relationship between musical preference and pain is acted out in fans who eagerly expose themselves to music that is physiologically harmful though (sub)culturally agreeable – that is, the music of their choice. At the same time sonic and musical weapons are now circulated freely throughout civil society.
