Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme that was originally created and hosted by Rukky @ Eternity Books starting in August 2019, and was then cohosted with Dani @ Literary Lion from May 2020 to March 2022. Book Nook Bits has hosted since April 2022.
This is definitely an interesting topic – I love the idea of pairing music with books, and some authors include specific playlists for their books (what a great marketing tool!). So, let’s dive in…
Let’s Talk Bookish September 13th:
Music for Books
Prompts: Last fall, one of the LTB topics was about listening to music while reading. Going more in depth with that this month, the question is if (and how) you connect music to books. Are there certain genres of music you associate with certain genres of books? Are there specific albums or songs you like to listen to while reading a particular series? A certain singer you think matches a certain author?
I do think different music genres suit different book genres – horror often makes me think of more alternative music like metal, whereas romance, well, there’s a whole genre of romantic songs, along with pop as a whole. Fantasy feels best suited to instrumental music, or folk. Sci-Fi, depending on the type of sci-fi, might match up well with more cyber-styles of music that rely on ‘tech’ more than instruments. Historical Romance…well, I’ve kind of been influenced by Bridgerton, in that I think the way they use classical covers of pop songs works so well for that genre! It also depends on the subgenres within the genres – Urban Fantasy suits more of a rock soundtrack, whereas Gothic Horror might be underscored by something more orchestral.
I don’t tend to listen to music when reading anymore, but I think sometimes it’s not about associating specific songs/albums with specific authors or series, but an individual book might make me think of a particular song. Sometimes it fits, sometimes it’s just something silly sparked off in my brain. And definitely if a book uses a song title as the book title – or a riff on it – I’ll often find myself thinking of that song when reading.
As a quick side-note, my review is coming soon, but if you love pop music and cultural writing on music, check out You’re History by Lesley Chow, which highlights twelve (+) of the ‘strangest’ women in music, and their impacts on the genre, from Kate Bush to Taylor Swift, who both – in very different ways! – have music which pairs well with reading.
Out of my recent reads, I think music is used well in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes – the ‘songbird’ of the title is Lucy Grey Baird, who uses her songs in different ways throughout the book, and there’s references, too, to music we’d recognise but that has been lost in Panam. Stephen King does something similar in The Dark Tower series, with references to things like The Beatles, giving a slight indication the world there isn’t just a fantasy alternative, but possibly a dystopian future (or parallel) to our own world.
Sometimes, the songs I link with books are what I imagine would score a film/TV version, if it was made into one – I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me would make excellent use of contrasting classical musical used in ballet, with something more modern and harsh (punk, metal, hip hop, etc). Skyward Inn would make great use of more discordant music and sounds, maybe with a touch of ‘present day’ in a similar way that The Dark Tower has.
What are your thoughts? If you listen to music when reading, do you link different artists/albums/genres with different books? Or are there particular books that make you think of specific types of music?
Unwrapping Words 