Music Book Review: Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music by David Hollander

Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music
by David Hollander (Music 781.542 Hol)

Let’s talk about a unique, treasure-filled microgenre of music called “library music.” No, “library music” isn’t the CDs you find at the library! Instead, library music is a kind of music produced to be used by film, TV, animation and other video production companies as incidental soundtrack music. Even radio stations sometimes had use for it, as background or incidental music during talking segments or radio plays. It’s also known as “stock music,” much like the stock photography one can find and purchase on line nowadays, “mood music,” “production music,” “cue music,” and the like. “Library Music” came to be a common way of referring to this material, as many video production companies would purchase these albums for in-house sound libraries. Or they could consult the companies producing this material by inquiring for music appropriate for particular moods or events, in which case the companies would consult their own libraries of produced music.

Music pre-made for film like this has been around in some fashion since “talking pictures” and television became commonplace, but the music we’ll talk about here dates mostly to the 60s, 70s, and 80s, when creating this material became a more structured practice. There were a few North American companies that began to produce library music in those decades, but it was interestingly a mostly-European industry, with major “libraries” being developed by companies in England, Germany, France, and Italy.

This music provided a unique combination of limitations and freedom for its creators: in one sense, the material has to be written in anticipation of certain kinds of mood-specific applications common in television shows and movies. And it can’t draw too much attention to itself, knowing that it’s likely to be used as background music in most situations, so it has to have a certain “generic” quality that keeps it from demanding too much of the foreground. On the other hand, when you compare the myriad potential “moods” one might write library music for to the kinds of predictable song forms, durations, and arrangements in popular music of those decades, there is actually some degree of compositional freedom afforded to library music work. Without the constraints of popular taste, composers could write music for all kinds of potential situations where something strange, chaotic, or maybe futuristic might be happening on-screen. Or one could write period music for shows set in previous eras. Some music might need to be subtle, minimalist, and atmospheric, while other needs might call for large, dramatic musical resources. In the right hands, taking this kind of open attitude to the work could lead to very interesting and unusual music, indeed!

In 60s through the 80s, most library music was still being produced and sold to video production companies on vinyl records. This changed to compact disc and now digital archives in the ensuing decades, of course. When these records were sold, they tended to be made in small numbers—the audience is video production companies and not the general public, of course. And when they were sold, the prices per record or CD were quite high, since you were ostensibly paying both for the music itself and the copyright clearance to use it in your video production without having to pay an additional fee. Because of those circumstances, library records themselves remain quite rare. When the dominant format switched from LP to CD, many of these records were simply thrown away, rather than ending up in used record stores. The simple scarcity of these contributed to a certain kind of attraction for rare record collectors.

Then there are the album covers: while many library records were issued with simple generic covers, some companies opted for unique covers for each of their products, trying to achieve visual impressions that might evoke feelings about the kinds of music found inside. These fantastic covers, many of them quite strange and psychedelic-looking on library records of the 60s and 70s, also contributed to their eventual collectability.

All things considered, vintage library records would probably have remained a very quiet phenomenon, unknown to all but the most intense record collectors who had already conquered their other areas of interest in hunting vinyl. But then came the massive wave of illegal music downloading in the Oughts: we remember those years the most for how much they shook up the big corporate players in the music industry, but it wasn’t just wildly popular, successful music being shared online. There were also lots of folks who suddenly shared kinds of music that would be almost impossible for anyone to find out in the wild via new blogs dedicated to lesser known micro-corners of the musical world: private press outsider music, NYC avant-garde “loft jazz” from the 1970s, forgotten albums from belly-up record labels around the world, small pressings of international records rarely heard outside of their native territories, and indeed, library records! By 2005, many more music enthusiasts were familiar with library music, and the first book on the subject, “The Music Library” by Jonny Trunk, appeared. That book focused primarily on the album art found among vintage library records, and had only sparse information on the origins of the material. It did have a sample CD, however, which helped to whet the appetites for even more potential listeners.

While some download blogs did a bit of historical research on these records and their composers, there still hadn’t been a more comprehensive book documenting the world of library music until recently. David Hollander’s Unusual Sounds: The Hidden History of Library Music has finally filled that gap, and you can check it out for yourself at the Polley Music Library. The book is divided first by country of origin, and dives further into details about specific production companies and composers, including interviews with those involved where possible. There are all kinds of fascinating details, from the working conditions of composers who made the music, to unusual musical quirks discovered for particular kinds of on-screen musical needs. And there are plenty of photographs of wild library record covers here, too.

I think some of the music found in the “vintage library music” genre is absolutely wonderful, and in some cases, this kind of work proved to be a supplemental or alternative form of musical employment for musicians and composers who also worked in more conventional musical communities: bachelor pad composer Les Baxter, for example, also produced some library music, as did classical/electronic composer Tod Dockstader. And even well-known film composers like Ennio Morricone did a bit of library music, influencing others along the way. But in many cases, this music is far from generic: it’s full of a unique kind of anticipatory imagination, scoring films that have yet to be made.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Blood on Black Wax by Aaron Lupton and Jeff Szpirglas, Torn Music: Rejected Film Scores, a Selected History by Gergely Hubai.]

[ publishers official Unusual Sounds web site ]

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

Check out this, and all the other great music resources, at the Polley Music Library, located on the 2nd floor of the Bennett Martin Public Library at 14th & "N" St. in downtown Lincoln. You'll find biographies of musicians, books about music history, instructional books, sheet music, CDs, music-related magazines, and much more. Also check out Polley Music Library Picks, the Polley Music Library's e-mail newsletter, and follow them on Facebook!

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