Chapter 4 Sound Recording and Popular Music

Sound Recording and Popular MusicCHAPTER 4

Sound Recording and Popular Music

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ 2013 hit “Thrift Shop” was the first number 1 hit from an independent group since 1994—they did not have a recording contract

The Medium of Sound Recording

The music that helps shape our identities and comforts us during the transition from childhood to adulthood resonates throughout our lives

Throughout history, popular music has been banned by parents, school officials, and even governments under the guise of protecting young people

The Development of Sound Recording

The Development of Sound Recording

Long before the internet, the first major media convergence involved the relationship between the sound recording and radio industries

From Cylinders to Disks: Sound Recording Becomes a Mass Medium

In the 1850s, French printer Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville used a hog’s hair bristle to make different grooves on a recording cylinder. Different sounds made different patterns in the lamp black, but he didn’t know how to play back what he had recorded

In 1877, Thomas Edison had success playing back sound. He recorded his own voice using a needle to press sound waves onto tinfoil wrapped around a metal cylinder. Edison repositioned the needle to retrace the grooves in the foil. The machine he used became known as the phonograph (meaning “sound” and “writing”)


Thomas Edison was also able to envision the practical uses of his inventions and ways to market them. Edison patented his phonograph in 1878 as a kind of answering machine, or “telephone repeater”

In 1887, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter improved on the phonograph by creating more durable wax cylinders for playback. Both of these inventions only had marginal success as voice-recording machines

Emile Berliner develops flat, round discs (records) that play on a turntable, which he patented as the gramophone in 1887. He also developed a way to mass produce records and stamp them with labels


By the first decade of the 20th century, record-playing phonographs were widely available for home use

The appeal of recorded music was limited at first because of sound quality. By the 1930s (partly because of radio, partly because of the Depression) record and phonograph sales were dropping dramatically

In the early 1940s, the record industry turned to manufacturing polyvinyl plastic records, which were much more durable and less noisy, paving the way for more consumers to desire recorded music

In 1953, CBS and RCA compromise on competing formats: LP becomes the standard for albums, 45 for singles, and record players were designed to accommodate both

From Phonographs to CDs: Analog Goes Digital

Magnetic tape sound recording (audiotape) was developed in 1929 and refined in the 1930s. By WWII, audiotape found its place in music recording

Audiotape’s lightweight magnetized strands made editing and multi-track mixing possible. Instruments and vocals could be recorded separately and mixed into a master recording

Large reel-to-reel audiotape later gave way to cassettes, which people could dub at home. This also led to portable cassette players (Walkman)


Stereo permitted the recording of two separate channels, or tracks, of sound. Using audiotape, engineers could record many tracks, which were mixed down into two stereo tracks. Stereo creates a more natural distribution of sound

Thomas Stockham records audio onto computer equipment in the 1970s


Analog recording: Captures the fluctuations of sound waves and stores those signals in a record’s grooves or a tape’s magnetized particles

Digital recording: Translates sound waves into binary information stored as a numerical code

Digital recording leads to compact discs (CDs) in the 1980s. By 1987, CDs were selling twice as well as records. By 2000, CDs rendered records and cassettes obsolete

By the time CDs were dominant, a new format that would change music recording and distribution dramatically was already on the horizon……

Convergence: Sound Recording in the Internet Age

Music, perhaps more so than any other mass medium, is bound up in the social fabric of our lives

Since the introduction of the tape recorder and the heyday of homemade mixtapes, music has been something that we have shared eagerly with friends

The internet quickly became a hub for sharing music This convergence began to unravel the music industry in the 2000s

MP3s and File Sharing

MP3: A file format that enables digital recordings to be compressed into smaller, more manageable files

As the internet grew in popularity, MP3s became popular as they could be uploaded and downloaded in a short amount of time

By 1999, music files were widely available on the internet—both legally and illegally

Music companies fought the proliferation of the MP3 format with an array of lawsuits, but the popularity of the MP3 continued to increase

MP3s and File Sharing

In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the music industry and against Napster, declaring free music file-swapping illegal and in violation of music copyrights held by recording labels and artists

The music industry was able to shut down Napster, but other peer-to-peer systems once again enabled online free music file-sharing

The music industry fought illegal file sharing with lawsuits (many times against individuals) and enlisted ISPs (Comcast, Time Warner etc.) to help identify illegal file-sharers

The music industry adapted with services like iTunes, which has sold 25 billion songs. In 2013, global digital download sales fell for the first time, after the arrival of the next big digital format……..

The Next Big Thing: Streaming Music

We are shifting from ownership of music to access to music The access model has been driven by streaming services such as

Spotify Users have an ad-supported free account or pay for a subscription, and

have access to play millions of songs from the internet In early 2014, Apple acquired the Beats Music streaming service for $3

billion. Apple gained a premium headphone brand as well as a streaming service to complement iTunes

The Rocky Relationship between Records and Radio

In 1924, record sales dropped to only half of what they had been the year before. Why? Because radio had arrived, providing free entertainment over the airwaves, independent of the recording industry

In 1925, ASCAP (Amercan Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) established music rights for radio, charging stations between $250 and $2500 a week to play recorded music

The recording and radio industries began to cooperate after TV came along in the 1950s and stole radio’s variety shows, dramas, and comedies, as well as ad revenue and audiences

Rock music in the 1950s provided radio with much needed new content just when it seemed like it was becoming obsolete

The Rocky Relationship between Records and Radio

After the digital turn, the mutually beneficial relationship between the recording industry and radio began to deteriorate

Now, radio groups have begun to forge agreements with Big Machine (Taylor Swift) and other music labels, paying royalties for on-air play while getting reduced rates for streaming music

U.S. Popular Music and the Formation of Rock

U.S. Popular Music and the Formation of Rock

Pop music: Music that appeals to either a wide cross section of the public or to sizable subdivisions within the larger public based on age, region, or ethnic background

U.S. pop music today encompasses styles as diverse as blues, country, Tejano, salsa, jazz, rock, reggae, punk, hip-hop, and dance

The word “pop” has also been used to distinguish popular music from classical music, which is written primarily for ballet, opera, ensemble, or symphony

The Rise of Pop Music

Late 1880s, Tin Pan Alley in New York, artists start selling sheet music—John Philip Sousa and Scott Joplin

At the turn of the 20th century, the ability to mass-produce sheet music for a growing middle class allowed for popular songs to move from being a novelty to being a major business

With the emergence of the phonograph, song publishers also discovered that recorded tunes boosted interest in and sales of sheet music

The Rise of Pop Music

As sheet music grew in popularity, jazz developed in New Orleans Jazz absorbed and integrated a diverse body of musical styles, including

African rhythms, blues, and gospel The first pop vocalists of the 20th century were products of the

vaudeville circuit. Crooners like Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée established themselves as singers of pop standards

Frank Sinatra arrived in the 1940s, and his romantic ballads foreshadowed the teen love songs of rock-and-roll’s early years

Rock and Roll is Here to Stay

As with the term “jazz,” “rock and roll” was a blues slang term for sex, lending it instant controversy

Early rock and roll was considered the first “integrationist music,” merging the black sounds of rhythm and blues, gospel, with the white influences of country, folk, and pop vocals

Only a few musical forms have ever sprung from such diverse influences, and no new sound has ever had such an impact on culture

Robert Johnson ranks among the most influential and innovative American guitarists, played Mississippi delta blues and influenced early rock and roll

Rock and Roll is Here to Stay

Blues: The foundation of rock and roll, influenced by African-American spirituals, ballads, and work songs from the rural south

Rhythm and blues: Featured “huge rhythm units smashing away behind screaming blues singers”

Although it was banned on some stations, by 1953 R&B continued to gain airtime

Trade magazines tracked R&B sales on “race” charts, which were kept separate from white record sales tracked on “pop” charts

Rock Muddies the Waters

In the 1950s, legal integration accompanied a cultural shift, and the music industry’s pop charts blurred

Black artists like Chuck Berry performed country songs Ray Charles even played in an otherwise all-white country band White DJ Alan Freed played black music for his audiences White artists crossed over and played R&B music

High and Low Culture

In 1946, Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over Beethoven” merged rock and roll (low culture) with high culture (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky), forever blurring the traditional boundaries between these cultural forms

Rock and rollers also challenged cultural norms with their behavior

Masculinity and Femininity

Rock and roll was also the first popular music genre to overtly confuse issues of sexual identity and orientation

Early rock and roll attracted mainly male performers, but Mick Jagger claims the most intriguing thing about Elvis was his androgynous appearance

Little Richard was the first “rock and roll drag queen,” blurring the lines between masculinity and femininity

He chose this identity to remain “harmless” and not become an overt sex symbol to white audiences

The Country and the City

Rockabilly: A combination of country music, southern gospel, and Mississippi delta blues

A blurring takes place between country music and urban music Although rock lyrics in the 1950s were not especially provocative or

political, record sales and crossover appeal of the music represented an enormous threat to long-standing racial and class boundaries

The North and the South

Rock and roll combined northern and southern influences Many people had migrated north after the Civil War and during the early 20th

century. This led southern cultural flavor to appear in the North Audiences in the North had absorbed blues music as their own, eliminating the

understanding of blues as a southern style Rural southern artists—such as Elvis and Buddy Holly—were fascinated by black

urban styles (much like today) The key to record sales and the spread of rock and roll (according to famed

record producer Sam Phillips) was to find a white man who sounded black “White rockabillies like Elvis took poor white southern mannerisms of speech

and behavior deeper into mainstream culture than they had ever been taken”

The Sacred and the Secular

Although mainstream adults in the 1950s complained that rock and roll offended God, many early rock figures had close ties to religion

Jerry Lee Lewis attended a Bible institute in Texas Ray Charles converted an old gospel tune into “I Got a Woman” Little Richard and JLL were both sons of southern preachers, and both

became convinced they were playing the “devil’s music” By 1959, Little Richard left music to become a preacher The lines have continued to blur, with many churches using rock and roll

to appeal to “the youths” and some Christian-themed rock groups recording music like heavy metal

Battles in Rock and Roll

Getting rock and roll accepted by the masses was tricky because of the blurring of racial lines

Cleveland DJ Alan Freed (who coined the phrase rock and roll) played original black recordings from the “race charts” on his station

Philadelphia DJ Dick Clark believed that making black music acceptable to white audiences required cover versions of black songs by white artists

Black artists found that their music was often undermined by white cover versions

White Cover Music Undermines Black Artists

By the 1960s, black and white artists routinely recorded and performed one another’s original tunes

Black R&B artists working for small record labels saw many of their popular songs covered by white artists working for major labels

Little Richard wrote “Long Tall Sally” in a way that he thought white artists would not be able to replicate, he was mostly right (his version was more successful)

In 1962, Ray Charles covers “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” a white country song. This is the first time a black artist covering a white song became a number 1 pop hit

Payola Scandals Tarnish Rock and Roll

Payola: Record promoters paying DJs or radio programmers to play particular songs

Although it was considered bribery, it was not illegal Congressional hearings followed, partly to address bad business

practices, partly to try and blame DJs and radio for rock and roll’s supposedly negative impact on teens by portraying the music industry as corrupt

Many DJ’s careers ended after they were found to accept bribes Congress eventually passed a law prescribing a $10,000 fine and/or a

year in jail for each violation

Fears of Corruption Lead to Censorship

Since it’s beginning, the perception was that rock and roll was to blame for juvenile delinquency, which was statistically on the rise in the 1950s

Looking for an easy culprit rather than considering factors such as neglect, the rising consumer culture, or the growing youth population, music was blamed

By late 1959, many rock and roll figures had been “tamed.” JLL was exiled as “white trash” for marrying his 13 year old cousin, Elvis was drafted into the army, Chuck Berry was jailed for gun possession and transporting minors across state lines, Little Richard left to be a preacher and sing gospel music

1959 Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper all died in a plane crash—memorialized in “American Pie” as “the day the music died”

A Changing Industry: Reformations in Popular Music

A Changing Industry: Reformations in Popular Music

As the 1960s began, rock and roll was tamer and “safer,” but it was also beginning to branch out

The success of all-female groups challenged the male-dominated world of early rock and roll

Rock and roll and other popular music styles went through cultural reformations that significantly changed the music industry, including the “British Invasion,” the development of soul and Motown, the political impact of folk-rock, the experimentalism of psychedelic music, the rejection of music’s mainstream by punk, grunge, and alternative artists, the reassertion of black urban style in hip-hop, and the transformation of music distribution

The British Are Coming!

In the late 1950s, the young Rolling Stones listened to Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, and the young Beatles tried to imitate Chuck Berry and Little Richard

American artists regularly had hits in Great Britain, but no British artist had had an American top 10 hit

This all changed in 1964

The British are Coming!

With the British Invasion, “rock and roll” unofficially became “rock” Popular music went in two very different directions:1. The Rolling Stones influenced generations of musicians emphasizing

gritty, chord-driven, high-volume rock2. The Beatles influenced countless artists interested in a more accessible,

melodic, softer sound in genres such as pop-rock, power pop, new wave, and alternative rock

The British Invasion showed the recording industry how older American musical forms, especially blues and R&B, could be sold around the world

Motor City Music: Detroit Gives America Soul

Black musicians countered the British invaders with powerful vocal performances

Mixing gospel and blues with emotion and lyrics drawn from the American black experience, soul contrasted sharply with the emphasis on loud, fast instrumentals and lighter lyrics that characterized rock music

Motown Records, started in 1959 by Berry Gordy, had a string of hits that rivaled the British Invasion

Folk and Psychedelic Music Reflect the Times

Popular music has always been a product of its time The social upheavals of the Civil Rights movement, the women’s

movement, the environmental movement, and the Vietnam War naturally brought social concerns into the music of the 1960s and 1970s

By the late 1960s, the Beatles had transformed themselves from a relatively lightweight pop band to one that spoke for the social and political concerns of their generation, and many other groups followed their trajectory

Folk Inspires Protest

The musical genre that most clearly responded to the political happenings of the time was folk music

Folk music: Songs performed by untrained musicians and passed down mainly through oral traditions

Bob Dylan was the most influential folk artist; influenced by the blues and rock, Dylan’s change inspired the formation of folk-rock artists

Rock Turns Psychedelic

The links between alcohol, drugs, and music became much more public in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when authorities busted members of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles

The psychedelic era saw the use of LSD during musical performances Musicians believed artistic expression could be amplified through mind-

altering drugs A negative light was cast on drug use after the Charles Manson

murders, and a number of the movement’s greatest stars died from drug overdose in rapid succession

Punk, Grunge, and Alternative Respond to Mainstream Rock

By the 1970s, rock music was increasingly viewed as just another part of mainstream consumer culture

Rock music was packaged and sold to audiences—primarily white, middle-class teens

Some artists (Springsteen, Elton John, David Bowie) kept the rock-dream alive, but “faceless” supergroups dominated the airwaves (Boston, Styx)

Rock could only be defined by what it wasn’t: Disco

Punk Revives Rock’s Rebelliousness

Punk attempted to return to the basics of rock and roll: simple chord structures, catchy melodies, and politically or socially challenging lyrics

The punk movement took root in the small dive bar CBGB in NYC around bands such as the Ramones and the Talking Heads

Punk was not a commercial success in the U.S., where it was shunned by radio, however it did spread to the U.K.

Punk did introduce frontwomen like Joan Jett and Debbie Harry

Grunge and Alternative Reinterpret Rock

In the 1990s, grunge took the spirit of punk and updated it Nirvana was the first grunge bank to break through, leading the way for

bands like Green Day and Pearl Jam A key dilemma for successful alternative performers is that their

popularity results in commercial success, ironically a situation their music criticizes

Hip-Hop Redraws Musical Lines

With the growing segregation of radio formats and the dominance of mainstream rock by white male performers, the place of black artists in the rock world would be diminished from the late 1970s onward

Hip-hop: Urban culture that includes rapping, cutting (sampling), breakdancing, street clothing, poetry slams, and graffiti art

In the same way that punk opposed commercial rock, hip-hop music stood in direct opposition to the polished, professional, and less political world of soul

Hip-Hop Redraws Musical Lines

The music industry initially saw hip-hop as a novelty However, by 1985, hip-hop had exploded as a popular genre with the

commercial success of artists like Run-DMC and LL Cool J On one hand, rap made a forum in which performers debated issues of

gender, class, sexuality, violence and drugs. On the other hand, hip-hop (like punk) draws criticism for lyrics that degrade women, espouse homophobia, and advocate violence

Gangster rap drew attention in 1996 with the death of Tupac Shakur (then 1997, Notorious B.I.G.)

P. Diddy leads gangster rap to a more danceable hip-hop that combined rapping and singing with musical elements of rock and soul

The Reemergence of Pop

After waves of punk, grunge, alternative, and hip-hop, the decline of top 40 radio, and the demise of MTV’s TRL, it seemed as though pop music and the era of big pop stars was waning

However, the era of the digital download has made singles more popular than albums, which has helped the reemergence of pop

The Business of Sound Recording

The Business of Sound Recording

The relationship between music’s business and artistic elements is often an uneasy one

The lyrics of hip-hop or alternative rock often question the value of commercial music

However, the business needs artists who are provocative, original, and appealing to the public

Both sides need to make a lot of money from the relationship

Music Labels Influence the Industry

File-sharing peaked in 2005 and has been declining ever since U.S. music sales were about $7 billion in 2013 The U.S. market accounts for about 1/3 of the global market Oligopoly: A business situation in which a few firms control most of an

industry’s production and distribution resources

Fewer Major Labels and Falling Market Share

From the 1950s through 1980s, the music industry consisted of a large number of competing major labels, along with numerous independent labels

Over the years, large labels have swallowed up or purchased smaller labels. By 2012, only three major labels remained: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and Warner Music Group

These 3 companies control about 65 percent of the music market However, independent labels are on the rise

The Indies Grow with Digital Music

With the advent of digital downloads, indie music labels became much more successful because the music became more accessible

Indie (independent) labels only require a few people to operate them These labels have produced some of the best-selling artists in recent

years, including Big Machine Records (Taylor Swift, Rascal Flatts), XL Recordings (Adele), and Cash Money Records (Drake, Nicki Minaj)

Making, Selling, and Profiting from Music

Like most mass media, the music business is divided into several areas, each working in a different capacity

1. Making the music2. Selling the music3. Dividing the profits

Making the Music

A&R agents: Artist and repertoire, the talent scouts of the music business, who discover, develop, and sometimes manage artists

Scan online music sites, listen to demos, and decide who to sign and which songs to record

A&R executives naturally look for artists they think will sell well, and are often forced to avoid artists with limited commercial possibilities or to tailor artists to make them viable for the recording studio

Selling the Music

These days, general retail outlets (Wal-Mart, Target) offer considerably less variety in selling CDs. Why?

CD sales are now only about 35 percent of the market Digital sales have grown to capture almost two-thirds of the market The advent of advertising-supported streaming services has satisfied

consumer demand for free music, and weakened interest in piracy and illegal file-swapping

Dividing the Profits

If a CD costs $18, the retail profit is around $5, the record company gets around $10, and the artist gets around $2

For a digital download (iTunes) that costs $1.29, Apple gets about $0.40, the songwriter gets about $0.09, record company gets around $0.60, artists might get around $0.20.

Spotify reports that each stream is worth about $0.007 (seven-tenths of one cent). Spotify says that 70 percent of revenue goes to the label, performers, and songwriters, and keeps about 30 percent for itself

Example: contemporary cellist Zoe Keating (an independent recording artist) says she earned just $808 for 201,412 Spotify streams

Dividing the Profits

Internet radio: About $0.002 (two-tenths of a cent) per play, per listener. 50 percent goes to the music label, 45 percent to the featured artists, and 5 percent to nonfeatured artists

YouTube and Vevo: $1 per thousand video plays (87 million views means about $87,000 in revenue). In 2012, it was decided that publishers would be paid 15 percent of advertising revenues generated by music videos licensed for use on YouTube and Vevo

Alternative Voices

A vast network of independent labels, distributors, stores, publications, and internet sites devoted to music outside of the major label system has existed since the early days of rock and roll

Independent labels have become even more viable by using the internet as a low-cost distribution and promotional outlet

Artists at major labels need to sell 500,000 albums to make a profit. Independent artists can recoup costs and make a profit after about 25,000 copies

Some artists shun labels altogether and use the internet to go straight to their fans

Sound Recording, Free Expression and Democracy

The battle over music’s controversial aspects speaks to the heart of democratic expression

Like other art forms, music has a history of reproducing old stereotypes: limiting women’s access as performers, fostering racist or homophobic attitudes, and celebrating violence and misogyny

Music often reflects the personal or political anxieties of a society It breaks down artificial or hurtful barriers better than many

government programs do “Popular music always speaks, among other things, of dreams

—which change with the times”

Education

Chapter 4 Sound Recording and Popular Music