Why Sound Matters

The Unboxing

Why Sound Matters is my new book, published by Yale University Press.

Preorders are available for release October 21 in North America, and January 27 in the UK and EU.

However, as promised to readers of this newsletter: “Subscriptions are free or paid. Paid subscriptions gain access to paywalled content. Founding Members also receive signed first editions of any books developed from these posts.” That applies to Why Sound Matters, and these copies are going out now from the first advance boxes I’ve just received.

Also receiving advance copies are my amazing blurb crew, with huge thanks for reading the manuscript early and being so generous with words about it. Short versions of their blurbs appear on the back of the book jacket, but here they are in full:

Why does sound matter? This book will tell you. Things you will learn: The community theory of value; Herbie Hancock has a good memory; the audience completes the work; how and why modern corporations are making life worse. Damon Krukowski explains how the music business became the first casualty of the connected world - but is now the first business to find a possible way out of this modern mess. Does that interest you? It should. There’s always more to life than meets the eye - and there’s certainly more to life than meets the ear. Read this book to find out exactly how much more. It’s a modern masterpiece.
– Jarvis Cocker, Pulp

In Why Sound Matters, Damon Krukowski brilliantly ties together many things that I haven’t yet seen put into words, centered around the acknowledgment of sound as a material that has value. It’s an inspiring guide for how to envision change in a world of noise pollution and music devalued by the corporate algorithm. This is a crucial read for every musician today and for anyone who cares about music.
– Julia Holter, singer-songwriter

An urgent dive into the tangibility of sound and community. As a mastering engineer, I hear, feel and see sound daily on various oscilloscopes and meters but it remains an almost impossible task to explain why something you can’t physically touch or see offers so much immeasurable wealth to our lives. Damon captures that brilliantly and connects the dots between sound, the natural world and the systems that exploit both. Today, music is at its most accessible in the form of playlists that cater to every mood known to man. Musicians and their labor, so often dismissed, are the last to be compensated in a multibillion-dollar industry that profits and exploits their work while streaming corporations continue to erode the value of recorded sound. As the natural world faces a sixth extinction, Damon reminds us of the important role of preservation and the labor behind it. Writer and archivist Paul Bowles once said, “Unlike the other arts, music, once it is gone, is gone forever.”
- Heba Kadry, Mastering Engineer

In his work as a musician, activist, publisher, and writer, Damon Krukowski has always been an inspiration. This book is no exception.
– Jeff Mangum, Neutral Milk Hotel

Why Sound Matters explores the state of the music economy today—dystopian—with suggestions for possible improvements. The vocation of music is the original gig economy, in many ways forecasting the future of the wider world. The internet imperils copyright and every occupation downstream of it. Streaming services are every songwriter’s nightmare. The pandemic made live concerts impossible for a few years. And yet people still want to make music! What is to be done? Well, organization and solidarity, it turns out, as Krukowski proposes in his hopeful and upbeat final chapter. Musicians tend to be pretty good at forming groups (such as bands, orchestras, and scenes), so maybe the outlook is not as bleak as we thought.
– Stephin Merritt, The Magnetic Fields

To understand why music matters, we have to also understand why sound matters. Damon Krukowski has a singular skill for connecting dots — between tour stories and deep research, musicians voices and cultural context — and here, his braided narratives on sound as material culture, environmental concern, and art form raise big ideas and urgent questions on the current sonic situation. Why Sound Matters convincingly argues that issues of music and creative labor today are rooted in a general misunderstanding of the value of sound — a vital contribution to the conversation on where music and audio culture goes from here.
- Liz Pelly, author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist

“Clear thinking on a cloudy subject, Why Sound Matters chases sound’s elusive and immeasurable value through the studio process, live performance, the economics of streaming, field recording, the precariousness of being a working musician, and a dozen other areas. At a time when music teeters somewhere between a gift beyond price and literally worthless, Damon Krukowski insists on sound as a material force in the world – something that can harm and heal, a resource that’s exploited but that could be liberated. The questions raised and answers offered will reverberate through your mind long after you close the book.”
- Simon Reynolds, author of Futuromania: Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines and Tomorrow’s Music Today

Cheers all. Thank you for your support through reading this newsletter. And thank you to those who choose to take out paid subsciptions, helping sustain my work as a writer.