How Far Music Recording Has Progressed

By ROB PATTERSON

If you love music, you must watch Soundbreaking. Subtitled “Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music,” the eight-part documentary series that debuted on PBS and can now be streamed on Hulu is a revelatory experience.

It explores how music and technology have evolved since the first musical recordings in a way that makes the technological quite comprehensible to the layman. And keeps the focus on what ultimately matters: the music.

Original interviews with some 160 artists, record producers and music makers from a vast swath of styles and eras provides a range of insightful commentary. The series was also the last project in which the late producer Sir George Martin – whose work with The Beatles did much to push the envelope of recording music – was involved. Like him and his work, it’s a class act all the way.

The show’s site says that Martin “believed that the remarkable evolution of recording technology is one of the most important stories of the twentieth century that has never been told.” Just the dissemination of recorded music around the world had an immeasurable effect on popular culture.

Recording music is a subject that has long fascinated me. In college, I took a course in electronic music in which we utilized a Moog synthesizer – which I’m pleased gets its just due in the series – and four-track recorders as creative tools. In the mid-1990s I did some album production in professional recording studios, learning the minimum basics of recording music. One thing Soundbreaking accentuates is how far recording has progressed – light years, really – in the two decades since then, thanks to digital technology.

That’s one realm where Soundbreaking informs in a very positive way. One might lean towards thinking that technology has debased the art of music, given the (mainly) pop drivel that tops the chart these days. The series wisely deals with, for instance, such techniques as scratching and sampling in hip-hop in a musical rather than technical fashion. And treats the recent technologies that emerged in a way that spotlights how true talents are now using the many tools available to enhance and advance musicality.

Even live music doesn’t exist in an emotional vacuum, given the feedback loop between performer and listener. The impact and effect of sound recording and its ongoing advances has had an almost incalculable effect on humanity. Yet over its eight episodes, Soundbreaking manages to capture a cogent macro overview.

Then there’s also the micro aspects where it shines. One is the exploration of how Frank Sinatra – still and likely forever the best pop music singer ever – understood and utilized the microphone as a tool in his singer. Another is a segment in which singer Imogen Heap uses looping to create a melodic and rhythmic multi-part piece with just her voice.

Like most all technology, recording does follow the dictum of crap in, crap out, even if new tools like auto-tuning do make it possible to polish a turd. But on the other hand, the advance of recording technology does add exponential creative possibilities to the creation of music. They way “Soundbreaking” shows how it has done that with many beloved songs, albums and recordings makes this show a delight to watch. And its perspective bestows a sanguine sense of music’s future.

Populist Picks

Documentary Film: The Witness – The 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, N.Y., became notorious as an example of bystanders. Turns out the truth of the matter is not so cut and dried as discovered in this 2015 film that follows her brother as he reexamines both her death and life some 50 years later.

CD: Versatile by Van Morrison – On his 37th studio album, Van the Man continues to prove himself a singer par excellence as he takes on a number of jazz standards, revisits a few of his lesser-known but superb songs from the past, and bows a new composition. The playing behind him is, as always, red hot, and at age 72 he continues to sing with imagination, authority and deep soulfulness.

Vinyl Record Album: The Great Twenty-Eight: Super Deluxe Edition by Chuck Berry – a splendid collection of the best-known classics and more from one of the prime architects of rock’n’roll who died a year ago. And in my view, he should be heard on vinyl as he arrived many years ago and is remembered nicely in this five disc set.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email orca@prismnet.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2018

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