Music in Audio books

So for years audio books have existed in their simplest forms, just people reading the words of the author as they were written, telling the story as it was meant to be. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I always thought that was enough.

I have a wonderful job that allows me to listen to audio books while I work, and I have noticed a recent trend to add a soundtrack or sound effects to a book. This seems completely unnecessary to me. That’s right James Patterson, I’m talking to you. The fight scenes in the Maximum Ride series are not enhanced by the strange hyper techno music played in the background, and the helicopter landing scene definitely doesn’t need background music.

To me the music in audio books just feels forced, it also is a bit insulting/ a cop out. It’ s like just because we like giant action movies with crazy special effects and emotional music cues they we can’t appreciate a well written work without adding those same things to it. A cop out because it feels like they didn’t think the author’s words were good enough on their own to create the excitement that music would make a reader feel. With a well written book there is no need for any such music. Take “The Forest of Hands and Teeth” by Carrie Ryan, that book was terrifying to listen to without any sounds added and it would have been easy to add threatening music to it. Thankfully, no one decided to do that.

Books are words, let’s leave them that way.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *