An overture ; The status and the potential of film-music that "Doesn't work" ; "The motion picture you're about to see is a story of music" : the migration of cinema into rock 'n' roll ; "It's not only trivial, it's bad, vulgar" : Ken Russell's composer biopics and the uneasy realignment of work and culture ; Troubling synthesis : the horrific sights and incompatible sounds of "video nasties" ; Pop stars who can't act and the limits of celebrity "flexibility" ; The problems of conclusion

A study of how certain alliances of music and film are judged aesthetic failures. Based on a wide-ranging body of film-music mismatches, and using contemporary reviews and histories of the turn to post-industrialization, the book expands the ways in which the union of the film and music businesses can be understood. Moving beyond the typical understanding of film music that privileges the score, the book also incorporates analyses of rock 'n' roll movies, composer biopics, and pop singers crossing over into acting. By doing this, it provides a fuller picture of how two successful entertainment sectors have sought out synergistic strategies, ones whose alleged failures have much to tell about the labor practices of the creative industries, as well as our own relationship to them and to work itself.