From jingles to synths to popular music, Making Wheels Spin Faster investigates how the the sounds and language of car advertisements reflect changes in capitalism over the last sixty years. Starting from the 1950s and progressing to the car ads of today, this piece chronicles the sonic move from ensemble-based compositions and old-time jingles through to the electro-intensity of the 1980s and finally to the refined digital sounds that now accompany car advertisements.
Making Wheels Spin Faster places sound within an economic context: rather than viewing sound as a neutral or transcendent force, the radiophonic work examines how sound can underpin capitalism while also reinforcing its neoliberal rhetoric.
Head to the ABC Radio National website to listen to the piece.
Tiarney Miekus 