Songs In The Key of MP3, Liam InscoeJones
Songs In The Key of MP3, Liam InscoeJones
List: $31.99 | Sale: $22.40
Club: $15.99

Songs In The Key of MP3
The New Icons of the Internet Age

Author: Liam Inscoe-Jones

Narrator: Gemma Lawrence, Liam Inscoe-Jones, Rori Hawthorn, Sam Crerar

Unabridged: 12 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: White Rabbit

Published: 05/09/2025

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

It's 2013 and a new digital frontier awaits. Music is changing: the way it sounds, the way it's made, the way we hear it. Suddenly, just about anything feels possible.

'A fascinating read' Lauren Laverne
'Impossible not to love' Jacqueline Crooks

In Songs in the Key of MP3, Liam Inscoe-Jones explores five artists who broke the old rules of sound, style and the music industry at large: Devonté Hynes (of Blood Orange), FKA Twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Earl Sweatshirt and SOPHIE. Each began their careers as outsiders but, over time, they helped re-shape pop culture in their image. Through these five extraordinary figures and an eclectic supporting cast of dozens more, Inscoe-Jones paints a picture of the sonic landscape of the last ten years, exploring the influence of their dazzling music on pop culture, the internet and ourselves.

An unorthodox mix of criticism, biography and music history - and featuring interviews with the likes of Caroline Polachek, Daniel Lopatin and Nicolás Jaar - this is a book of endless curiosity and wonder, a salutary attempt to define pop culture in a fast and ephemeral age.

'A total breath of fresh air' Huw Stephens, BBC Radio 6
'Tremendous, crisp writing' Richard Dawson

About Liam Inscoe-Jones

Liam Inscoe-Jones is a music and fiction writer who has written for The Quietus, Line of Best Fit and Spectrum Culture. He has released playlists of the best new songs from each month, every month, since 2018. Songs in the Key of MP3 is his first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jasmin on June 28, 2025

I found this book in my local indie book shop and was very much drawn in by the prospect of a Caroline Polachek interview. The book takes you through the musical journeys of 5 musicians (Devonté Hynes, FKA Twigs, Oneohtrix Point Never, Earl Sweatshirt and SOPHIE) all up and coming artists with massi......more

Goodreads review by Jai on February 10, 2025

'Songs In The Key of MP3' is an incredibly well-researched and eloquent account of how the internet has changed the way in which artists can write, produce, collaborate and release music in the 21st century, all through the lens of five contemporary and cutting-edge musicians. Whereas other authors......more

Goodreads review by Camiel on June 11, 2025

I loved this book. Part music criticism part response to mark fisher’s cultural pessimism part biographical all killer no filler. Next time someone says there is no good music now you can shove this book in their mouths.......more

Goodreads review by Joshua on May 13, 2025

Can’t wait to see who will stand as the pioneers of music in 2023-2033......more

Goodreads review by Beth on May 01, 2025

I wouldn’t normally pick up a book like this but I’m so glad I did…eloquently written, captivating, and it has opened my eyes to a lot of new music. Thoroughly enjoyed!......more


Quotes

Nothing sweets me more than a music book that breaks the mould. This vibrant read amplifies here-and-now talents, featuring some of my favourite artists . . . It defies categorisation and captures the essence of what makes these musicians so captivating. Impossible not to love it Jacqueline Crooks

A daring book that affords the multifarious music of the modern streaming age and its most innovative - and successful - creative outliers with the deep, long-form analysis usually reverentially reserved for the dust-covered past. An important and fascinating cultural document Benjamin Myers

Tremendous, crisp writing. Liam strikes a perfect balance between the infectiously enthusiastic and the surgically thorough Richard Dawson, musician

A beautifully researched and deeply engaging exploration of the boundary-pushers who redefined music and identity in a fast-moving, ephemeral era, laid out with such clarity and passion that this book feels as essential to understanding our present as Mystery Train and As Serious as Your Life were to theirs Algiers

Fascinating Telegraph

A modern take on five fascinating musicians and the worlds which created them. Insightful, beautifully told and as exciting as listening to your favourite music. A total breath of fresh air Huw Stephens

A great primer [with] a deeper sense of mission . . . Twenty-first century culture can often seem glutted, but this book serves as a rejoinder not to get bamboozled by the algorithm blizzards into thinking it's nothing but simulacra and ghosts Wire

This is speedy, enthusiastic stuff . . . Songs in the Key of MP3 impresses most in the sheer excitement with which its author views his subject The Tribune

One of those books where you'll find yourself shocked that it didn't exist before: it's a mapping out of the modern musical landscape on terms defined by the artists who've come to define it The Arts Desk