The Queerness of Video Game Music

· Cambridge University Press
Ebook
146
Pages
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More

About this ebook

Video game music is a significant site of queerness where normative demands are questioned, suspended or loosened. Games resist hegemonic musical logics, challenge musical value systems and use music to complicate essentialist notions of identity. This Element proposes three areas of queerness, each representing different relationships between 'queer design' and 'queer engagement', ranging fromunintentionally resistive to explicit engagement with identity. First, this Element examines musical structures that provide queer temporal alternatives to normative linear development, and interactive systems that reframe the power relationship between musical material and listener. Second, it considers 'retro' or 'chiptune' timbres that queer notions of technological progress to be improvements, rejecting chrononormativity. Finally, the Element discusses music that queers the self/other binary of identity. Games present ways of listening to, engaging with and understanding music that provide opportunities to challenge inherited assumptions and reductive or monolithic values, practices and identities.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.