Pink Floyd: Dark side of the Moon

Still remains as one of the best albums of our times. You can still find this album floating around the charts of the Billboards top 200. It was a huge game changer for it’s time and artistically viewed from beyond this world. In the recordings you can hear the use of tape loops and multi-track recording. They also ramped up heavily the use of synths seeing that some tracks are almost completely composed of synth use. The release of this album was almost the antithesis of how record companies were promoting their artist at the time. Pink Floyd wanted nothing to do with releasing singles seeing that they wanted to write a complete cohesive album. Enlisting Storm Thorgerson to create the album art, Pink Floyd walked away with one of the simplest but daring album covers ever to exist. Their names weren’t even on the cover, but they managed to sell millions of records.

What sets the album apart is the darker feel and message of the entire album. Straying away from the pop love lyrics, Pink Floyd spoke about deeper issues. Self-reflection, thoughts about death, questioned sanity, and outlooks on life were common themes throughout the entirety of the album. It was something real that connected the artist to its listener. Also unheard of at the time was the marketing strategy. If you didn’t know what that logo on the side of the vinyl sleeve was you wouldn’t know to buy Pink Floyd’s new album nevertheless it still managed to sell millions. This was a wake up call to how the record companies ran promotions.

This as an artist makes an impression on my thoughts of music for the future. It answers my question of how to make music that will be timeless. This album serves as a blueprint of what one must do if they want to have their music remembered 40 years later. It’s not just in the musicality of the album, but the attitude of the artist who are Pink Floyd. You have to be willing to venture out and experiment. Make changes to your sound and process to make something revolutionary that people will want to remember for years to come. Five years down the road I hope from a producers standpoint that when I work with an artist I will push them to the bounds of their creativity to help them create something timeless. With my craft and input, I would like to help them not become a passing fad that flames out by the next summer.

The Fantasy Band

Imagine if you were able to mix bands or a set of performers to find a different sound.  There’s always the wonder of what if you could have this performer from the 60’s make music with this artist from the present. I have an idea for a group that would be an incredible experience.

The JB ‘s are the chosen rhythm section for this group. The JB’s consist of the phenomenal musicians Bootsy Collins (Bass), Phelps Collins (guitarist), and John Starks. They will give it that funky get up and dance sound that James Brown was most noticeable for. The main performer headline will be shared between two individuals. Prince will be chosen for the vocals while Jimi Hendrix will cast in on lead guitar and vocals. This will be a most interesting situation. Jimi’s guitar playing will fit nicely over the funk driven rhythm provided by the JB’s. The mix would create a rock funk style and with Prince’s phenomenal vocals it would be a killer.

The song would have to be an original creation. Prince would be the main vocalist, but Jimi will have some sections to sing. Since they are both phenomenal instrumentalist I would like for them to both have a little solo jam off at the end of the song. The JB’s will give it that dance feel and Prince’s powerful pop soul vocals would give it life. Jimi’s guitar playing will round it out and give it that raw energy.

As the producer my role would be to capture each performer in their essence and try mix their different styles together so that no one overshadows the other. I will keep them performing what they are best at by combining a little of everyone’s style into the song. This mainly means Jimi’s raw guitar has to be kept intact as well as Prince’s vocals, but they will play and sing in a style that matches the rhythm touted by the JB’s.

A band name is supposed to capture the heart of the group. The Prince-Hendrix Revolution Experience is a great fit. It plays off their band names already given and it keeps their names in the headlines to know who is performing. The performers names being in the title are a promotion in itself. Social media marketing is really big nowadays for the young and old. I feel it would be a great promotional tool to gather the attention of fans from all ages. For those not so caught up in computers, Radio and TV commercials will still be effective to catch fans attention. I would definitely plan on making a vague video of the group coming together. Make it kind of a mystery that goes viral to catch attention before announcing the super group. That is my fantasy band.

 

Grammy Producers

Grammy Producers

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Pro Tools: The Industry Standard

           When you think of the leading industry standard Digital Audio Workstation(DAW) the name that comes to mind is Avid’s Pro Tools. Pro Tools originally belonged to a company named Digidesign founded by Evan Brooks and Peter Gotcher. Their beginnings started out inventing a very popular chip set for updating E-MU’s Drumulator drum machine’s sounds aptly named Digidrums. Releazing the consumer market would eventually like to expand beyond just drum sounds they set out to create a basic digital audio recording and editing software for the Macintosh computer. This was the birth of Sound Designer and the name change to Digidesign. Sound Designer allowed one to edit samples but not direct recording yet. So they released an early form of today’s DAWs named Sound Tools. This eventually evolved into what we know as Pro Tools.

           There are many DAWs in existence today, but Pro Tools is still a sound engineers preferred choice. As for the music scene, it changed the way music was recorded and mixed. It made the process of recording easier, faster, and editing was far easier on the DAW then it was with old tape analog. Pro Tools is used in most major studios today for recording music, voiceovers, and engineering sounds for movies. It now has become so portable that it easily accessible for a musician who cannot afford to go to a studio thus they can create from their bedroom. With the creation of Virtual Studio Technology, artists were able to create whole compositions inside Pro Tools without having to have an actual musician play the piece. This was huge for electronic music seeing that you could now have access to all the synths, keyboards, and percussive instruments you needed without having to actually locate the instrument or even need to know how to play it. It streamlined the process of making music.

              As a person who uses Pro Tools and other DAWs on a regular basis I couldn’t dream of the process it would take to create some of the music I’ve made without these systems. It is an essential centerpiece of anyone’s studio setup and as digital sounds get closer to recording the live instrument everyday, I am looking forward to seeing how much the art of recording changes in the years to come.

Kraftwerk: Pioneers of the Electronic Movement

To understand the genius that is Kraftwerk you must listen to their discography. They are considered one of the fathers and true pioneers of the electronic movement. In their “Kling Klang” studio, they invented, created, and molded electronic sounds and instruments into musical notations and feeling.

Kraftwerk launched during a time when much of the world was still controlled by the sound of rock music. Rock songs, overdriven guitars, and bands with wild personalities, dominated the scene at this time. Kraftwerk believed they had to be different and different they were. Their image was a stark contrast to bands that were playing at this time. They wore suits and short haircuts, which were the complete opposite of the anti-establishment attitude that music was promoting at the time.

Their musical endeavors were just as interesting as their image. What can be considered as their first album and first hit song, Autobahn was a journey into a new creative genre. It was an exquisite piece of music that is supposed to emulate the feeling of road travel and journeying. The feel of the melody channels the famous American band the Beach Boys, but the most interesting fact is that most of the sounds heard are created electronically through synths and drum machines they built in their studio. By manipulating frequencies, Kraftwerk was able to create unimaginable sounds without having an actual reference instrument. By adding lyrics over top of these created sounds they were able to forge a new door into pop music. Our electronic music today runs from this same basic formula. A producer creates and mashes samples and sounds together, but to get it to fit for the catchy pop sound, we add simple lyrics to engage the audience. Radio-Activity was the bands journey into straight electronic sounds. They were going into untouched territory to expand their sound by going strictly electronic. This would be how they remained for their careers.

Kraftwerk’s next hit took a more experimental approach. Trans-Europe Express was an album ahead of its time. Long electronic compositions and elaborate art work showed the talent of Kraftwerk not only as artist, but also as true musicians. It didn’t do so well commercially when it was released, but is still valued as one of the most groundbreaking and influencing albums of electronic music.

It is easy to see Kraftewerk’s influences on electronic music overtime and still today. Afrika Bambaataa famously sampled Trans-Europe express in his Planet Rock, opening up Kraftwerk to a new type of audience. Kraftwerk paved the way for groups like Daft Punk (quite a similar group), Depeche Mode, and are still sampled quite often by big pop stars of today. When I used to be in a b-boy group growing up we’d watch videos of dancers from the 80s breaking it down to Trans-Europe Express. As a listener, I understand that we will always need groups like this to keep pushing the boundaries of music. They keep the creative art moving forward and stay influencing people for many years after.

 

“What’s Going On”

In the 1960s, Motown Records were the heart of soul records. Even in their roster of many notable famous artists a couple of them stood atop everyone. Marvin Gaye is one of those few. Marvin was a man of many talents. Most notably known for his singing, Gaye was also a musician who actually got his start out at Motown as a drummer. It wasn’t until around the time he courted Anna Gordy and met the head of Motown Records, Berry Gordy, that he finally got his chance in the spotlight.

Throughout his career, Gaye has had many different changes as an artist. Early career Marvin had to follow the traditional Motown factory sound. He was a soulful R&B pop artist always nicely dressed, clean cut, and clean-shaven. As a new artist, Marvin did not have a lot of say in the creative process for his early hits. There was a proven formula that Motown used and they were not about to stray away from it with any artist. Around the time his most influential hit “What’s Going On” was in the works the world was in a different state of chaos. Vietnam war was in full steam, mistreatment of the anti-war protestors in California was happening, and the world just seemed it had taken a left turn from the happiness being spouted from the music currently cranked from the radios of the time. Gaye and many of the artist of the time where taking notice of this change in atmosphere. Renaldo “Obie” Benson, the accredited lyricist and member of the Four Tops, was seeing this first hand and really asked “What’s Going On?” when he was inspired to write the hit song. Of course it was seen as a protest song and The Four Tops wanted nothing to do with it. At this point he approached Marvin, who at the time was experiencing the horrors of war through his brother Frankie. Marvin went back and forth with Motown on this record. Berry Gordy refused to release this song. It wasn’t the Motown sound and he believed it would ruin Marvin and Motown. Gaye so strongly believed in this record that he quit making albums for the record label until they had no choice but to release it without Berry Gordy’s approval. It turned out to be a huge success.

What made this album different from the standard Motown was not only the instrumentation and production, but also the groove and feel of the album. Gaye made a few line up changes with the session musicians for this album enlisting big-band swing drummer Chet Forest for a different groove. He also remained in the “snakepit” himself to lead the songs with him playing the piano. Background vocals were largely recordings of amateurs singing and chattering while Marvin’s soulful vocals filled in over top of them. Studio accidents made play like Marvin’s double vocals that were played over top of each other by accident. He liked the sound and kept it. It was largely a different creative kind of process than the standard Motown sessions.

What’s Going On became an iconic message to the world as well as a breakthrough in the formula for popular music in that time period. It is a beautifully well-crafted album built on pure inspiration, creativity, and talent. It will forever be locked in our memories as a masterpiece and voice for the awareness of the things going on in this world.

“Brian Eno – 40 Years of changing music”

            Brian Eno has made a name for himself as an innovator, creator, and one the most highly respected producers of our era. From playing the synthesizer in Roxy Music to producing albums for David Bowie and Talking Heads, Eno has had a hand in shaping music as we hear it today. As heard in his music, Eno has a variety of influences he pulls his creative process from. It is quite the intuitive web of music and composers from around the world. Growing up he listened to a lot of American rock music he would find at the local army base’s PX. As time grew he started listening to worldly music with African, Arabic, and Bulgarian influences. As diverse an artist he was you can hear the different styles of production throughout his discography. For example, if you compare his work on Another Green World to No Pussyfooting you’ll see they are similar in nature, but have different trains of thought. No Pussyfooting is really out there. It is less ambient and more avant-garde. It is very minimalist and also used his famous tape looping experiments. It was strange in nature and it was supposed to invoke strangeness and uncomfortably with the music. Another Green World has a little more going on in the use of instruments and has a more laidback feel. It has a more linear structure as it builds on itself, but has a more ambient feel to the music.  It’s made to invoke the feeling of peace. He intended it to either be background music or listenable to be decided by the listener. These are two albums from the same producer and are almost starkly different, but you can still see hear his touch in there. It becomes even more radical and apparent his diversity when you backtrack and listen to his progressive rock with Roxy Music. What Brian Eno’s influence does for me is show that you don’t have to be creatively limited in this world of music. Genre switching is very possible and the creative process for new music is never ending. As a producer and musician, I don’t have to be afraid to go out on a limb to make breakthroughs, because at the end of the day as long as I enjoy pushing the boundaries whose opinion matters there after?

Multimedia Presentation Brian Eno

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Revolver

If you want to talk about changing your sound as a band this album shows you perfectly how and what could happen. Revolver is the 7th studio album by the great band The Beatles. A revolutionary album for The Beatles as it was the starting journey from “Beatlemania” Beatles to the experimental artist “The Beatles”. Before this album they were the go to pop band that everyone loved for their funky feel good vibes and unrequited love songs. The albums, themes, and lyrics before the Revolver album where more lighthearted and centered on the same themes most pop music was singing at that time. On the Revolver album The Beatles open up and show their truer artistic colors and dig deep into their creative minds to change the pop scene as it was known.

This album features many instruments and arrangements that were not seen in pop music in this era. The sitar was used extensively and arrangements like Eleanor Rigby’s string orchestra were strange new additions to this world of pop. The Beatles also experimentally heavily with psychedelic drugs throughout the making of this album. Songs like Tomorrow Never Knows and lyrics throughout the album where induced from trips of LSD. Their many trips around the world and interaction with different cultures also helped to round out some of their songs giving some of them heavily eastern sounds. George Harrison decided to learn the sitar from his trips to India and wrote “Love You To” as a result of it. George Martin and the studio engineers also became very innovative in the studio with The Beatles by ushering in new techniques like Automatic Double Tracking (ADT) which gave you the feel of double tracked vocals without having to record vocal lines on top of each other. To get John Lennon’s strange vocals on Tomorrow Never Knows they recorded him through a Leslie rotating speaker whose original use was in a Hammond Organ. Some pretty innovative things were getting done throughout the creation of this entire album.

I personally like when an artist whose career is structured to be specific gets the chance to finally open up, change directions, and put out music from their heart, mind, and soul. The Beatles got the chance to do that on this album and succeeded in making an instant classic album. As a listener and engineer it’s awe inspiring to  hear the things that could be done in the studio that long ago. They didn’t have all the bells and whistles we have today and still manage to sound better musically then most of the stuff on our radios today. As an industry professional it goes to show you have to let your artist grow and develop or you will not receive anything from them like this. Seven albums it took when today as an artist you’d be lucky to make it past two.

Pet Sounds

The Beach Boys’ album “Pet Sounds” was the greatest album ahead of it’s time. It was a turn in a different direction musically for the Beach Boys, whom had built a more carefree pop image over their earlier albums. They were the California kids who sung about surfing and fun in the sun. This album would take them on a different path as we hear them take on a more serious tone and a massive sonic change in Brian Wilson’s production.

Pet Sounds created from the mind of Brian Wilson. As the co-lead singer and producer, Brian was the very influence of the bands sound. He created most of the album while the rest of The Beach Boys where still on tour in Japan. Brian noted that the “Rubber Soul” album by the Beatles influenced him in his new creation and Phil Spectors’ work inspired his recording techniques. Brian Wilson felt “Rubber Soul” is how an actual album should sound. It contained no filler tracks and it sounded as one continued story. He believed in this idea and went forth to try it on Pet Sounds. It took the rest of the band a while to come around to this new sound he was influencing, but eventually they gave in and made a classic that is more revered today then it was at the time. Like the Beatles, Brian started experimenting with different sounds and instruments not regularly heard in pop music. He was likened to a dictator throughout the recording process, because he knew the sound he wanted and would re-record tracks until they were done specifically as he’d asked. The lyrics contained in this album where also a stray from pop music at the time. The words often times spoke less about “young fun” and more about heartache, life, and self identity.

I was not huge in depth fan of The Beach Boys before hearing this album. I knew of them, but I wouldn’t say I knew everything of their discography. That being said, even though Pet Sounds charted poorly it turned out to be a breakthrough album for music in general. The quality of recording techniques and arranging skills featured on the album where ahead of the time period. It wasn’t the type of music that was selling at the time, but you can’t deny the genius of the album. Listening to the mono and then going back through on the stereo, I find myself leaning more towards the stereo recordings. I believe it achieved the spacious sound and depth Brian Wilson was going for. The music is spread around the vocals and the sound envelopes you more. You come closer to feeling the frequencies and harmonics Brian was trying to capture in the original recordings.

This Beach Boy Brian Wilson solo project is a great testament to a great band and sound of an era. It goes to show great work becomes timeless when done right the first time.