A new book by Liam Inscoe-Jones, Songs In The Key of MP3: The New Icons of the Internet Age, paints a picture of the sonic landscape of the last ten years, profiling five artists that are reconfiguring popular music.
In the book, which will be published by White Rabbit on 13 March 2025, Inscoe-Jones explores the work of Devonté Hynes (of Blood Orange), FKA Twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Earl Sweatshirt and SOPHIE – all artists that began their careers as obscure outsiders but have sought to re-shape pop culture in their image.
‘When I was a teenager I vividly remember having my mind blown to the music of FKA twigs, SOPHIE and Earl Sweatshirt and feeling like I must surely be living through a kind of golden age,” Inscoe-Jones commented. “I realise that all teenagers probably feel like that but, whatever, I’m an adult now, and I still feel the same way.
“Among the relentlessness and immediacy of culture in the Internet Age, I truly believe a new wave of artists working at the threshold between mainstream and the avant garde were making brilliant, timeless music as deserving of full-length writing as the well-trodden sixties, and over-done seventies.”
The artists featured in the books hail from the first generation of artists raised in the era of MP3s, iTunes, YouTube and The Pirate Bay – a period where ‘recorded music suddenly became as abundant and pliable as the air we breathe’, as a release to promote the book puts it.
As Inscoe-Jones, who has written for The Quietus, Line of Best Fit and Spectrum Culture, and interviewed the likes of Five Seconds of Summer, Dirty Projectors, Tame Impala, Lianne La Havas, Bartees Strange, Enter Shikari, Xenia Rubinos and Amber Mark, notes, music writing today is at a “critical juncture”, adding that he is delighted that White Rabbit has given him the opportunity to “explore the lives, careers and work of these boundary-breaking, genre-melding artists in the space of a full-length book.
“Prising apart the genius of their catalogues gave me the chance to put the likes of A$AP Rocky, Kylie Minogue and Phillip Glass together on the page; all part of a decade-long story which I hope captures the essence of the mad, frantic, beautiful music within it.’
Songs in the Key of MP3 will be published by White Rabbit on 13 March 2025 in trade paperback, ebook and audio. More information here.
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