ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nexus of cars, sound, and popular music in cultural mediums and as expressions outside those immediately connected to the automotive and popular music industries. Film and television, for example, have long exploited the combination of cars and popular music as cultural markers to narrate identity—often, as will be discussed, by employing anthropomorphic talking cars to advance dystopic visions rooted in human reliance on technology. This chapter also addresses spiritual aspects of the relationship some car owners and drivers develop with their vehicles, as well as the roles that automotive culture and popular music have played in delineating various locations and places. Across America particular roads, for example, have come to be defined by the merging of popular music and automotive culture: e.g., Los Angeles’ “The Strip”; Detroit’s Gratiot Avenue, often considered the birthplace of techno and nicknamed “Electric Avenue”; and the iconic “Route 66”. This chapter argues that roads and streets themselves are spaces that have a complex sonic component that is made up of, among other sounds, footsteps, conversations, and the noise of traffic passing. Finally, the chapter discusses how cars and music have intersected in the world of modern art, usually as various expressions of environmental concern, and how carmakers often sponsor art and musical events to connect to and integrate themselves into the communities in which their factories and headquarters are located.
