Songs In The Key of MP3

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