, Reader in Film Studies at the University has recently been awarded the聽 in the category of Film/Television聽for his book,聽聽Magical Musical Tour: Rock and Pop in Film Soundtracks.
Magical Musical Tour is the first sustained and focused survey to engage the intersection of film and music on both an aesthetic and industrial level. The chapters include historically-inspired reviews discussing numerous films and musicians, whilst others feature more concentrated and detailed case studies of individual films.
Exploring the history of the intimate bond between film and music, Kevin charts the upheaval that rock鈥檔鈥檙oll caused in the mid-1950s to the more technical aspects regarding 鈥榯racking鈥� and 鈥榮coring鈥�, running from David Bowie鈥檚 鈥榮core that never was鈥� for The Man Who Fell to Earth to censored rap music in Bad Lieutenant.
Published in 2015, the book is highly regarded among film academics:
鈥楤y syncing 鈥�1, 2, 3, 4!鈥� with 鈥淟ights, Camera, Action!鈥�, Donnelly offers an illuminating recontextualization of cinema鈥檚 pop aspirations and pop imagination 鈥� from the classics to the curate鈥檚 eggs. Magical Musical Tour is one of the precious few studies to venture out into that contested interzone of vinyl and celluloid, and film criticism and liner notes, and across paralleled galaxies of star systems. Donnelly mediates deftly between the projected visualities of pop music soundscapes, and the bootleg mixtapes embedded in feature films.鈥櫬� said Benjamin Halligan, Director of Postgraduate Research Studies for the College of Arts and Social Science, University of Salford, UK and author of Desires for Reality: Radicalism and Revolution in Western European Film.