History Literature / SoulMusic

** The cover illustration as seen above is a Discworld variation of Meat Loaf's original ''Bat Out Of Hell'' album cover.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Llamedos is Wales turned up to the extreme. It ''never'' stops raining.("It has rain mines!")

* PetHeir: One of Susan's first "customers" as acting Death is a grumpy old man who leaves his fortune to his cat instead of his ungrateful, parasitic relatives. Of course, he hates the cat too, so he doesn't set it up any kind of protection from said relatives.

** The AnimatedAdaptation features a FreezeFrameBonus of a list of crossed-out names rejected by the same band, including the Velvet Underpants, the Rolling Stoats, and Bunny and the Echoboys. The name they go on-stage at the Cavern with? [[spoiler:The Socks Pastels]]

** Also punning on Kirsty [=MacColl=]'s 1981 UK hit single "There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis"

** Musician's Guild enforcer [[Music/LouisArmstrong Satchelmouth]] Lemon (the last name evokes Blind Lemon Jefferson as well)

* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: The Rite of Ashkente, which in previous books was mentioned to have been refined through research to no longer needing a living sacrifice but only 3 bits of wood and 4 cc of mouse blood, has now been refined even further so Ridcully can do it with 2 bits of wood and an egg. [[RunningGag "It has to be a fresh egg, though"]].

* AdaptationDistillation: In terms of handling Susan and Death's grief, the adaptation makes it more blatant that Susan is going through the FiveStagesOfGrief, while writing actual songs for Buddy. While Susan grieved at the end of the book, in the adaptation she breaks down in the middle when [[spoiler:watching her parents die and death claiming he can't do a thing about it.]]

* AnswerSong: The song "She Won't Change Her Mind" is an answer to Music/TheBeatles song "You're Going to Lose That Girl"

* CanisLatinicus: The series shows Ridcully performing the Rite of Ashkente on camera and invents ritual words of this type for it.

[[DontExplainTheJoke This novel's title is a pune,]] [[RunningGag or play on words,]] on (of course) [[{{Soul}} the kind of African-American music that arose in the '50s and '60s and enjoys a high level of popularity in Britain today]]. According to certain Australian fans, the inspiration for the book came during Pratchett's visit to Australia, when, upon discovering that Pratchett had never seen ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', the fans promptly "abducted" him and took him to a midnight screening of the film.

** Imp's first song was called "Sioni Bod Da". Sioni is Welsh for Johnny and "Bod Da" is Welsh again for "be good". So it's [[Music/ChuckBerry "Johnny B. Goode"]].

* ForWantOfANail: Death reveals that [[spoiler:if Buddy had gone to a different city, he wouldn't have become a famous musician and died young. In the alternate timeline, he sends Buddy to a fish shop in another city, where Buddy is happier.]]

** As with ''Literature/MovingPictures'', an enormous number, particularly band names We're Certainly Dwarfs for Music/TheyMightBeGiants, Insanity for Music/{{Madness}}, Surreptitious Fabric for the Music/VelvetUnderground, The Whom for Music/TheWho, Suck for Music/{{KISS}}, Lead Balloon for Music/LedZeppelin, &U for Music/{{U2}}, and so on. One band in particular goes through about a half dozen of these, while also missing one of the greatest potential band names of all time, when a member mentions that [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand "a rolling stone gathers no moss"]].

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* NamedByTheAdaptation: Lord Selachii's fellow assissin is named Miguel Portiyo.

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep / HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: Colon and Nobby debate which of these applies to Death when they argue over whether he has a first name.

* ElvishPresley: A recurring gag for Buddy.

* BusCrash: The death of Mort and Ysabell, the lead characters of ''Literature/{{Mort}}''. Rather than being a casual way to dispose of a couple of characters, it provides the major emotional underpinning of the story, which is about ''Death actually experiencing bereavement first-hand''. It also shows the amazing amount of character development Death has undergone since we first met him in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic''. Some of the interplay between him and Susan as they both work their way through their grief is downright heart wrenching.

* CallForward: Dibbler, regaling the Band about the prospects for future tours, mentions the Counterweight Continent as a possibility ("They're talking about discovering it again real soon"). It's a safe bet that Pterry was already planning ''Literature/InterestingTimes'' when he wrote that line.
* CausedTheBigBang: The first thing ever heard in the universe was "One. Two. One, two, three, four." and then the big bang happened, thanks to "Music with Rocks In", the main theme of the book [[spoiler:the music is alive, and wants to be played, no matter the cost to the player]]. This is in contradiction to earlier books, but Discworld is famously loose with its origin stories.
** When Rincewind and {{Literature/Eric}} are at the Beginning, there is a noted "harmonius twang" as everything comes into being. Could be they weren't paying attention when the Creator was counting it in.

** As with ''Literature/MovingPictures'', an enormous number, particularly band names We're Certainly Dwarfs for Music/TheyMightBeGiants, Insanity for Music/{{Madness}}, Surreptitious Fabric for the Music/VelvetUnderground, The Whom for Music/TheWho, Suck for Music/{{KISS}}, Lead Balloon for Music/LedZeppelin, &U for Music/{{U2}}, and so on. One band in particular goes through about a half dozen of these, and on one occasion a member buys for the group a [[Music/DefLeppard leopard with hearing problems]]... They also miss one of the greatest potential band names of all time, when a member mentions that [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand "a rolling stone gathers no moss"]].

** Scum, one of the members with Crash's band is assigned to get leopard-skin trousers. He manages to buy a live leopard, which was cheap, because it has hearing problems.

* CompositeCharacter: The three wizard students helping Ponder are combined into one single student who gets their combined lines, the appearance of Skazz and the name of "Big Mad Drongo" Adrian Turnipseed. This is the basis for a joke where Ridcully, upon first meeting Big Mad Drongo, angrily demands "Who let a student into my University?!" before changing his mind and deciding "I suppose ''one'' student won't be too much of a problem."

Was made (along with ''Literature/WyrdSisters'') into an AnimatedAdaptation. The L-space entry is [[http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/soul-music.html here]], and explains the numerous sly references to famous bands and songs. A fan-created expanded version is [[http://wiki.lspace.org/wiki/Book:Soul_Music/Annotations here]] and picks up the slack since the official annotated Pratchett file has not been updated for several years.

** Princess Gloria Thogsdaughter attends an all-girls school and openly identifies, presents and is addressed as female; in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' it's a really big deal that Cheery choses to start identifying and presenting as female. (Then again, considering Gloria's parents sent her to a ''human'' school, it might just be that they're incredibly liberal and progressive.)

** Gloria Thogsdaughter attends an all-girls school and openly identifies, presents and is addressed as female; in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' it's a really big deal that Cheery choses to start identifying and presenting as female. (Then again, considering Gloria's parents sent her to a human school, it might just be that they're incredibly liberal and progressive.)

* SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll: Spoofed right at the very beginning. There's no drugs, and the closest to sex is a brief tangent about groupies and hints of Susan having a thing for Buddy. But there's plenty of Music with Rocks In It, and thirty-three percent's not bad.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: There's a brief mention of Dorfl the golem (who will make his first proper appearance in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' and become a recurring character). Glod, who has apparently been buying sausages from him for years, is astonished to learn he's a golem. While some versions of the golem legend have them taking on human appearance while active, Dorfl will later be established to look like a very obvious clay statue with glowing red eyes, meaning either this was retconned or Glod is extremely unobservant. Cliff also states that Dorfl's holy word is carved on his head; his later appearances have it written on a chem, which is kept ''inside'' his head.

* UnderlingWithAnFInPR: Ridcully and Stibbons are trying to study the "music with rocks in" phenomenon, which they do by trapping the music in a box. Unfortunately, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler (the biggest and least successful conman on the Disc) sees them, and Stibbons starts explaining what they're doing "[[NerdsAreInnocent with the undirected excitement of the true discoverer and idiot]]", despite Ridcully stomping repeatedly on his foot.

** As with ''Literature/MovingPictures'', an enormous number, particularly band names We're Certainly Dwarfs for Music/TheyMightBeGiants, Insanity for Music/{{Madness}}, Surreptitious Fabric for the Music/VelvetUnderground, The Whom for Music/TheWho, Suck for Music/{{KISS}}, Lead Balloon for Music/LedZeppelin, &U for Music/{{U2}}, and so on. One band in particular goes through about a half dozen of these, and on one occasion a member buys for the group a [[Music/DefLeppard leopard with hearing problems]]... They also miss one of the greatest potential band names of all time, when a member mentions that [[Music/TheRollingStones "a rolling stone gathers no moss"]].

* BlindingBangs: Skazz, wizard student.