Petrocultures is a fast growing sub-discipline in the humanities which contends with the ways fossil fuels shapes our interpersonal, social and cultural lives. There has been little attention yet paid, however, to the relationship between energy culture and music. What Stephanie LeMenager calls the ‘aesthetics of petroleum’ holds a particularly strong resonance with 20th and 21st century music culture. Understanding the ways oil culture has structured ways of life requires attention to the music that exemplifies, glamorises and critiques petromodernity.  From a Western angle in oil-guzzling regions of the United States, we can recall Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’, AC DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’, or Tracy Chapman’s more melancholic ‘Fast Car’, and most recently the petro-feminist soundtrack to the Hollywood motion picture, Barbie, Charli XCX’s ‘Speed-Drive.’ These tracks reveal the petro-capitalist ideologies embedded in cultural notions of freedom and liberty behind which lies widespread ecological and social devastation.  To put it another way, we could consider how the ‘extraction zones’ in regions of the Global South and elsewhere have determined music culture across the world.

This roundtable at the ASLE-UKI conference at the University of Galway will examine the meaning of oil in different music cultures from country and folk music to modern hip hop and rap, and more. We invite you to present a ten-minute analysis of a song that explores energy culture and music in interesting and diverse ways as part of a roundtable discussion on this area of petro-sonics.

Selected areas of discussion may explore

-       Oil culture and mobility aesthetics

-       Petromasculinity and Petrofeminism

-       Motown and Oil

-       Hip Hop/Rap and Energy

-       Folk and Country Music and Cars

-       Extraction Zones and Music

-       Automobility and Techno Music

-       Queer Ecologies and Oil Music

-       Public Transport and Music

-       Mines, Coal, and Music

-       Subcultures, Punk and Oil

-       Heavy Metal, Rock and Driving

-       Disco and Driving

-       Camp, Drag, and Petroculture

-       Girlboss Aesthetic and Oil Products

The conference will take place at the University of Galway 12-14 August, 2025. Please send 200 word abstracts of your idea to John Miller (john.miller@shef.ac.uk) and Josie Taylor (josie.taylor@ucd.ie) by December 1st, 2024.