Mack Hagood is a scholar, writer, and creator who specializes in sound and listening. Best known for his research on the cultural origins and social effects of technologies such as noise-canceling headphones, Hagood's writing, media work, and public lectures vividly animate the world of sound. In 2024, he was awarded a Public Scholar grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Mack has been interviewed by NBC, BBC, CBC, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and many others.
Phantom Power is a monthly newsletter on sound and listening. It features essays and interviews on the culture, politics, physics, and philosophy of sound, as well as reviews of new music, film sound, sound art, and books on sound.
JOIN THE PHANTOM POWER COMMUNITY Members receive exclusive podcast content and bonus newsletters
Today we go on a listening tour with audio legend Julie Shapiro, who has helped define what radio and podcasts could be over the past 25-plus years. Shapiro co-founded the Third Coast International Audio Festival, one of the most prestigious and influential awards in audio. She was a longtime executive
The year is off to a very disturbing start thanks to ICE’s violent paramilitary incursion in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Minnesota citizens have responded with mass protests and direct action, much of it sonic in nature—with the sound of whistles alerting neighbors and making life harder on ICE. This episode,
Gabriel Saloman Mindel is a lot more than one half of the United States best known noise bands. He's also an interdisciplinary artist and a scholar whose research studies the interplay between sound and power, as he theorizes how noise can push the limits of the body in
Today host Mack Hagood is joined by three remarkable scholars whose work sits at the intersection of African music, technology, and culture. Dr. Louise Meintjes is Marcello Lotti Professor at Duke University. She's a distinguished ethnomusicologist whose groundbreaking research on South African music has transformed how we understand
Mack speaks internationally at venues ranging from music festivals to Ivy League universities. Hire Mack to speak about sound, listening, and communication at your organization.
Contact for Speaking, or See His Speaking History and ScheduleA cultural study of sound and control. What we cancel. What we keep. What we can’t hear anymore.
These newsletters are Mack's space to reflect on sound, listening, and the culture around us—plus share early thoughts, event news, and audio picks. Want in? Subscribe to stay in the loop.
Sound stirs us all
Its resonance connects us. Its noise divides. It numbs us with bombast and breaks us with the slightest whisper.
We've built instruments to make it, laws to tame it, walls to contain it, and great halls to sustain it. We've mic' it, amped it, converted and compressed it, broadcast it, mastered it, remastered it... and never mastered it at all.
Because sound is transgressive: a phantom power that refuses to be contained, canceled, or even limited to living in our ears. Sound can blur your vision, move your body, and change the taste of the food in your mouth.
But sound has a secret: It only becomes *sound* in the minds and bodies of those it touches.
Sound needs us as much as we need it.
My Story