Tune out: music, soundscapes and the urban mise-en-scene

This paper focuses upon the intersection between the MP3 player and the city. In particular it takes issue with arguments concerning the ways in which mobile music devices enable a ‘recomposition’ of the urban soundscape. Drawing upon Michael Bull's work on the management of the experience of the time and space of the city, as facilitated through various mobile music reproduction devices, this piece questions Bull's central claim that these devices may be used to screen out the urban soundscape. Here it is argued that these mobile music systems merely enable users to tune out of the immediate soundscape – by prioritizing the musical information overlay over the physicality of the urban environment – but that this is often interrupted by the complex imbrications of the pervasive sounds of the city