Just as music has the power to inspire, it has the power to irritate and enrage. Why does certain music annoy us? Why does it force us to leave rooms, invade our personal space and affect us on a visceral level? Based on more than 70 interviews, this book discusses the everyday challenges of living together with unwanted music. It examines issues of taste, individual rights, private and public spaces, violence and the law.

The interviews explore various relationships with forced listening and the behaviors that result. Interviewees talk about emotions and reactions to the nuisance caused by music, highlighting matters of otherness, individualism and rights. They discuss experiences with neighbors, at stores, on the street, while commuting and even in their homes - and reveal the complex social interactions mediated by music and sounds in our day-to-day lives.

Felipe Trotta is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil. He is a musicologist and member of the Latin-America branch of IASPM. He is the author of the books O samba e suas fronteiras [Samba and Its Borders] (2011) and No Cear� n�o tem disso n�o: nordestinidade e macheza no forr� contempor�neo [There Is No Such a Thing in Cear�: Northeastness and Manhood in Contemporary Forr�] (2014), and co-editor (with Martha Ulhoa and Claudia Azevedo) of Made in Brazil: Studies in Popular Music (2015).