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Chapter 5
Sound Recording and Popular Music
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Chapter Opener: Stars of the past signed contracts with major music corporations as soon as they
had their first hit. Stars today, including Adele and Taylor Swift, have gone against this trend and
have remained with their independent labels, proving success is possible without the backing of a
major corporation.
I. The Early History and Evolution of Sound Recording
While technological advances have improved sound quality, online downloading and music
streaming have reduced music sales drastically and have forced the industry to look for
other ways to make money.
A. From Cylinders to Disks: Sound Recording Becomes a Mass Medium. Sound recording,
like most new media, passed through three stages: developmental, entrepreneurial, and
mass medium.
B. From Records to Tapes to CDs: Analog Goes Digital. Several innovations advanced the
sound recording industry: magnetized audiotape, stereophonic sound, digital recording,
and compact discs.
C. From Downloads to Streaming: Sound Recording Goes through the Digital Turn: The
rise of MP3s in the late 1990s led to illegal file-swapping. The industry realized that it
couldn’t stop illegal swapping, so it embraced legal services like iTunes. Today,
streaming is quickly becoming the music industry’s best means for controlling the
music it sells.
II. U.S. Popular Music and the Rise of Rock
Popular music today includes a diverse number of styles and has exerted a major influence
on society, culture, and politics.
A. The Rise of Pop Music. Pop music’s origins claim many influences, including Tin Pan
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1. Blues and R&B Set the Stage for Rock. Blues, which was influenced by African
American spirituals, ballads, and work songs from the rural South, and a blues-
based urban genre called rhythm and blues (R&B), led to the development of rock.
C. Rock Blurs Additional Boundaries. Rock and roll tested traditional boundaries in five
critical ways:
1. High and Low Culture. Songs like “Roll Over Beethoven” challenged the
distinction between high and low culture.
2. Masculinity and Femininity. Rock-and-roll stars such as Little Richard wore
III. The Evolution of Pop Music
In the 1960s, pop music spun off into several genres.
A. The British Are Coming! The Rolling Stones developed a gritty high-volume style that
inspired hard rock, punk, and heavy metal; the Beatles presented a softer, melodic sound
that inspired pop-rock, new wave, and alternative rock.
B. Motown: The Home of Soul. The independent Motown label from Detroit supported
black artists like Marvin Gaye and the Supremes.
C. Folk and Psychedelic: Protest and Drugs. These genres spoke to the social and political
concerns of the 1960s.
D. Punk, Grunge, and Alternative Rock: New Genres on the Horizon. Rock became part of
the mainstream consumer culture in the 1970s, but new genres such as punk quickly
arose to challenge the old styles.
1. Punk Revives Rock’s Rebellious Spirit. Punk rock revived rock’s defining
characteristics: simple chords, catchy melodies, and defiant lyrics.
E.
Hip-Hop Redraws Musical Lines. Hip-hop, which has become a major part of
mainstream global culture, draws on features of urban culture, including rapping,
cutting (music sampling), break dancing, street clothing, poetry slams, and graffiti art.
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IV. The Economics of Sound Recording
The traditional business model has broken down because of digital downloading and online
streaming, and consolidation has meant that a few large companies control about 65 percent
of the market.
A. A Shifting Power Structure. The recording industry has experienced dramatic changes in
power structure since the 1950s, going from numerous competing companies to
dominance by a six big labels, then three big labels, and most recently a new growth in
independent labels.
B. The Indies Grow with Digital Music. Downloading and streaming made indie music
more accessible and helped double the indie market share.
C. Making, Selling, and Profiting from Music. Like most mass media, the music business is
divided into several components.
1. Making the Music. Music production is a multi-step process that involves a number
of individuals. Recording companies must employ skilled people and buy
V. Sound Recording in a Democratic Society
Musical artists who push cultural boundaries face the dilemma of upholding free expression
while resisting the control of companies that want “approved” lyrics that will achieve
maximum profits. The move to streaming and downloads may present an opportunity for
more alternative voices to be heard. The issue of commercial viability will continue to be a
deciding factor.
LECTURE TOPICS
1. Discuss the developmental, entrepreneurial, and mass medium phases of sound recording.
Bring in examples of old records and recording equipment or find illustrations to show
students. Many have never seen such equipment or don’t understand how it worked. Visit the
Library of Congress National Jukebox for samples: www.loc.gov/jukebox.
2. Compare and contrast the recording industry’s reactions to the coming of radio with the
threats it is now facing in the digital age (e.g., album leaks and online piracy). Explain the
defensive strategy of the industry. Look at the possible consequences of alienating
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styles are resistant to status quo values, but also discuss how styles have changed. You could
also show how the styles of such artists evolve.
LECTURE SPIN-OFFS
From Cylinders to Disks: Sound Recording Becomes a Mass Medium
• To test his phonograph invention for the first time, Thomas Edison’s mechanic recited “Mary
Had a Little Lamb” into the mouthpiece. Early recordings of Edison are widely available on
the Web. For example, some Edison sound recordings can be accessed through the National
• When Edison found out that teenagers were turning up the speed of his cylinder phonograph
to make the music faster, he was irate. “This change of speed is far worse than any loss due to
having dance records too slow,” he wrote in his notebook. He told his machinists to install
controls so that the speed remained constant.
• Edison’s cylinders can still be found in antique stores throughout the United States. You may
be able to get hold of one to show your class (they break easily).
• Here is why cylinders were impractical as recording materials:
• They broke easily and wore out quickly.
• Emile Berliner was born in Germany in 1851 and came to the United States as a young man.
He was interested in telephones at first and actually figured out how to make sound transmit
better. After working for a telephone company as a research assistant for a short while, he
became an independent inventor in 1884.
• He at first thought that celluloid would be the best material of choice for his flat disks,
but it was too flimsy to bear repeated playing with the very big, heavy needles used in the
1890s.
From Records to Tapes to CDs: Analog Goes Digital
• The invention of the CD was both a blessing and a curse for the music industry. Fans flocked
to the music stores to replace their records with CDs, and by the early 1990s, hit albums on
CD were selling in greater numbers than were hit albums on vinyl. CDs also made it a lot
easier to copy music and gave rise to a flourishing piracy industry, however.
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From Downloads to Streaming: Sound Recording Goes through the Digital Turn
• Here’s how MP3 works (from www.mp3.com): “MP3 shrinks audio files in such a way that
sound quality is preserved, but the file size is significantly smaller than it would be as a
regular CD song file. This means you’re able to download an entire song in a few minutes.”
• Old-school downloading versus MP3: The time it takes to download a regular CD-size
file of the Beatles’ “Love Me Do” (using a 56K modem): approximately forty minutes.
• Information about illegal file-sharing:
• Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post wrote that although government could shut down
sites like The Pirate Bay for illegal file-sharing, it would be extremely difficult to
eradicate the idea that content should be free, and people will continue to download and
share content illegally. Others, like policy analyst Michelle Wein, argue that legal options
for downloading and sharing are widely available and that copyright should be protected.
• Beyond shutting down P2P Web sites (e.g., Napster, KaZaA) and suing people who have
illegally downloaded copyrighted songs and videos, the RIAA is employing a few other
counterpiracy methods in its fight to protect copyrighted content:
1. Decoys. A media company uploads files to large P2P networks (such as eDonkey or
Ares) and places a decoy (garbage or promotional content) instead of the real thing.
2. Stuck torrents. A media company uploads a file that stops loading when it is 97
percent done. The remaining parts (stuck torrents) never get released, frustrating the
• Further Reading on music piracy
Vladimir Kozlov, “‘Russian Google’ Restricts Music Service Content Amidst Piracy
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Mark Savage, “Stream-Ripping Is ‘Fastest Growing’ Music Piracy.” BBC News, July 7,
• Discuss the potential of streaming music as the future of music distribution. Take a poll in
class to find out how your students access music. Do they download songs or albums, or do
they stream music? What service do they use to stream music? Discuss the pros and cons of
downloading versus streaming music.
High and Low Culture
In the 1940s and 1950s, “cats” was the nickname for working-class white southern kids who lived
alongside blacks in the poorer sections of town and often worked with blacks at the same low-
paying jobs. The cats related more to urban black culture than to white hillbilly culture, and they
Masculinity and Femininity
Elvis entered the rock-and-roll scene at a time when the median marriage age for women was
twenty and a half years and for men was twenty-two and a half, the youngest age of marriage for
Americans in the twentieth century. Once young women, many of them teenagers, married, they
were expected to start a family, fulfill the domestic role of homemaker, and take their place in
society as the chief household consumer. Teen girls had to constantly negotiate the difficult role
Motown: The Home of Soul
The Motown (short for “motor town”) record label was headquartered in the auto-making center
of Detroit, Michigan. Motown was so successful that Detroit became known as Hitsville, USA.
Marvin Gaye appeared on the Motown scene in 1962. He was a tall, skinny singer with a
silky voice that he had honed by singing in church. Gaye had an enormous amount of sex appeal
onstage, and women regularly swooned at his concerts. He ended up marrying a woman who was
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Punk, Grunge, and Alternative Rock: New Genres on the Horizon
Five songs into the Sex Pistols’ first public performance at St. Martin’s College of Art in London
in 1975, the school’s social secretary went backstage and cut off the band’s electrical supply. The
Sex Pistols had already made their impact, however. Their act consisted of anger, energy, humor,
nihilism, and rhythm, and it energized a whole new trend in music. The Sex Pistols were a
manufactured band in the same way the Monkees were created to capitalize on the success of
male rock groups in the 1960s. British entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren almost single-handedly
The Economics of Sound Recording
• Music formats have been in a state of flux. Record labels were slow to produce their own
legal digital downloads but saw a boom in that business via iTunes. Many music listeners
now turn to streaming, which doesn’t involve owning individual albums or songs but rather
• Before his death in April 2016, Prince consistently defied the typical way music labels and
artists promote and sell their music. In 1996, he broke with Warner Brothers Records, his
label of twenty years. The falling out was highly publicized: Prince appeared with the word
Slave painted on his face and made it clear that his label was limiting his creativity. After
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• The healthiest sector of the music business at the moment is music publishing, in which a
company represents a number of songwriters (who may or may not also be performers) who
earn money when their songs are used in TV commercials, video games, or other media. The
MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES
IN BRIEF: THE PERVASIVENESS OF ROCK MUSIC
Pre-Exercise Questions: What are some of the images that come to mind when you think of rock
and roll? What might the United States be like without rock and roll?
1. Description. List five to ten ways in which rock and roll has had a positive impact on
American society since the 1950s. In a second column, list five to ten ways in which rock and
roll has had a negative impact on American society.
IN DEPTH: YOUR ROLE IN THE MUSIC BIZ
Pre-Exercise Question: What does it mean when a musical artist is a “sellout”? In this Critical
Process exercise, analyze your own recording collection and connect it to issues in “the
economics of sound recording.”
1. Chart your recording collections by the major labels and their subsidiaries or as independent
labels. To figure out the parent company of a label, look at the fine print. (iTunes and Google
Play both identify the label in the copyright statement.) For example, the Warner Music
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record label profits (which will go to pay costs like promotion, design and/or packaging, and
recording costs).
Now go back and calculate the percentage of your collection that was obtained for free. What
is the cost of free music to the musician? How about the songwriter and record label?
Discuss the following questions:
a. Is there a qualitative difference between independent label recordings and major label
recordings in your collection?
Suggestion: This exercise needs a few days of preparation for students to analyze their
collections. Consider stating a minimum number of songs they need to analyze as digital
music collections can be very large.
CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES
VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS
Almost Famous (2000, 122 minutes). Cameron Crowe’s fictionalized story of his own work as a
teenage correspondent for Rolling Stone.
Don’t Look Back (1968, 96 minutes). Notable documentary by cinéma vérité filmmaker D. A.
Pennebaker, who follows Bob Dylan on tour in 1968.
The Filth and the Fury (2000, 88 minutes). Documentary about the Sex Pistols. Directed by
Julien Temple.
A Hard Day’s Night (1964, 90 minutes). The first film starring the Beatles, this
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RECORDINGS
LaVern Baker: “Tweedlee Dee,” Soul on Fire: The Best of LaVern Baker, 1991, Rhino.
Chuck Berry: His Best, Vol. 1, 1997, Chess.
Pat Boone: “Ain’t That a Shame,” His Greatest Hits, 1995, Laserlight.
Ray Charles: “I Got a Woman,” The Best of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years, 1994, Rhino.
Eric Clapton: “I Shot the Sheriff,” Cream of Clapton, 1995, Polydor.
Sheryl Crow: “Love Is a Good Thing,” Sheryl Crow, 1996, A&M.
Crew Cuts: “Sh-Boom,” The Best of the Crew Cuts: The Mercury Years, 1996, Mercury.
Fats Domino: “Ain’t That a Shame,” Crescent City Soul: The Sound of New Orleans, 1996, EMI.
WEB SITES
One of the most comprehensive online music resources on the Internet, providing
extensive knowledge of every musical style from opera to alternative rock.
A source for some of the best-known music charts.
Music rights organization.
Offers links to a variety of vintage sound recordings.
Research and music industry trends.
Archive to preserve recorded sounds.
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Information about the UK music industry.
“The most trusted voice in music.”
Professional organization, representing top record labels.
Official publication web site, consumer publication.
Site for buying and selling royalties.
Official music corporation web site.
Official publication web site, consumer publication.
Official music corporation web site.
Official music corporation web site.
FURTHER READING
Alderman, John. Sonic Boom: Napster, MP3, and the New Pioneers of Music. Cambridge, MA:
Perseus, 2001.
Berry, Chuck. Chuck Berry: The Autobiography. New York: Fireside, 1987.
Coleman, Mark. Playback: from the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money.
Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2005.
Erlewine, Michael, ed. All Music Guide: The Best CDs, Albums, and Tapes. San Francisco: Miller
Freeman, 1994.
George, Nelson. Where Did Our Love Go?: The Rise and Fall of the Motown Sound. Urbana, IL:
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Palmer, Robert. Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta.
Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1986.
Rachlin, Harvey. The Encyclopedia of the Music Business. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.
Radbill, Catherine Fitterman. Introduction to the Music Industry: An Entrepreneurial Approach.
New York: Routledge, 2017.
Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan UP, 1994.
Taylor, Timothy. Strange Sounds: Music, Technology, and Culture. London: Routledge, 2002.
Toop, David. Rap Attack 2: African Rap to Global Hip Hop. London, New York: Serpent’s Tail,
1991.
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