The Sound of Victory: Music, Sport, and Society - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 147984084X ISBN 13: 9781479840847

Publisher: New York University, 2026

Synopsis

Considers key socio-political moments and figures that highlight the enduring relationship between music, sound, and sport

The collisions of music and sport are so ubiquitous that they often go unnoticed as cultural phenomena. Yet the integration of sound into sport has become inseparable from the experience itself – from walk-up songs and seventh-inning sing-alongs in Major League Baseball to the halftime spectacle of the Super Bowl, the "California Sound" of surfing culture, and the percussive traditions of Brazilian Capoeira.

The Sound of Victory: Music, Sport, and Society explores these intersections through close examinations of key moments, figures, spaces, and events that reveal the deep socio-cultural significance and historical reverberations of music and sport. Bringing together interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners –filmmakers, journalists, and cultural critics—the volume investigates how sound shapes the ways sport is performed, experienced, and understood across diverse contexts from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

Across eighteen chapters organized into four thematic sections, The Sound of Victory positions the links between music, sound, and sport as a generative lens for exploring questions of power, identity, and belonging. Spanning media, technology, politics, and popular culture, contributors trace how the music, sound, and sporting industries have evolved in dialogue with one another. Together, they illuminate an enduring relationship that continues to define the affective and communal power of modern sport.

About this title

About the Authors

Perry B. Johnson is a music scholar, cultural historian, and producer. Johnson is the codirector of The Sound of Victory (with Dr. Courtney M. Cox), an interdisciplinary initiative dedicated to exploring the historic relationship between music, sound, and sport, and cohost of the PBS documentary series Outside the Lyrics. Johnson teaches in the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California.

Courtney M. Cox is Associate Professor in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon and author of Double Crossover: Gender, Media, and Politics in Global Basketball. She is also codirector of The Sound of Victory, a multiplatform digital humanities project at the intersection of music, sound, and sport. She previously worked for ESPN, the Longhorn Network, NPR-affiliate KPCC, and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.

Edition details

• Publisher: New York University
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 147984084X
• ISBN 13: 9781479840847
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 424
• Editor: Courtney M. Cox, Perry B. Johnson