Boon, H. 2025. Forthcoming. The Sweeney – Library Music Use, Re-use and Cultural Association in the British TV Police Procedural. in: Nessa Johnston, Jamie Sexton and Elodie A. Roy (ed.) Anonymous Sounds: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s London Bloomsbury Academic.
| Chapter title | The Sweeney – Library Music Use, Re-use and Cultural Association in the British TV Police Procedural |
|---|---|
| Authors | Boon, H. |
| Editors | Nessa Johnston, Jamie Sexton and Elodie A. Roy |
| Abstract | This chapter investigates cop show soundtracks and the pivotal shift in the perception of 70s library music from a budget-friendly option to a marker of cultural legitimacy. The British TV crime drama The Sweeney provides the initial focus for this chapter. The show is an excellent example of leveraging well-established associations and conventions of cop show soundtracks. This close alignment with a particular type of sound object, 'cop show' music, a specific production rationale to use library music carrying these sonic markers. Cues used in the show were later used in the Blaxploitation film homage Black Dynamite, to capture the sound of the seventies cop show. This locates these library tracks in close proximity to the original music of that time, revealing a shift in the perception of library music, particularly the 70s, from an inferior alternative to a bespoke soundtrack to one that provides musical and cultural support. |
| Keywords | media production systems |
| soundtrack | |
| blaxploitation | |
| culture | |
| economy | |
| African Diaspora | |
| Book title | Anonymous Sounds: Library Music and Screen Cultures in the 1960s and 1970s |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 06 Feb 2025 |
| Place of publication | London |
| Edition | First |
| Series | New Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media |
| ISBN | 9798765109861 |
| 9798765109854 | |
| 9798765109878 | |
| File | File Access Level Open (open metadata and files) |
| Web address (URL) | https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/anonymous-sounds-9798765109854/ |