Pop Music Technology and Creativity - Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution

This title was first published in 2003.This highly original and accessible book draws on the author’s personal experience as a musician, producer and teacher of popular music to discuss the ways in which audio technology and musical creativity in pop music are inextricably bound together. This relationship, the book argues, is exemplified by the work of Trevor Horn, who is widely acknowledged as the most important, innovative and successful British pop record producer of the early 1980s. In the first part of the book, Timothy Warner presents a definition of pop as distinct from rock music, and goes on to consider the ways technological developments, such as the transition from analogue to digital, transform working practices and, as a result, impact on the creative process of producing pop.

Pop music: Characteristics of pop music; Pop and rock; Pop as a format - the single; Short and sweet; The art of the familiar; Simplicity and repetition; Round and round, like a record; Machine aesthetics; Pop and television; Pop and commerce; Pop and fashion; Let's dance; Image; Mixed media. The production of pop music - An aural art: The recording studio as resource; From analogue to digital; Using technology; Multitrack recording; Signal processing; MIDI sequencing; Sound synthesis and sampling; Recording the voice; The fade-out. The record producer: Technology and creativity - Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles; The ghost in the machine; Music; Lyrics; Production and arrangement; Disco killed the radio star; Buffalo Gals by Malcolm McLaren - A charismatic manager; From manager to artist; Applied cultural theory; The anthropological connection; Stylistic collage; Buffalo Gals; Structure; Timbre; Half-heard words; Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes - Yes, from prog. rock to chart pop; 90125; A new image; Live/recorded; Chart pop music; Owner of a lonely heart. Form: repetition and suspension; Timbre and gesture; The artificial guitar; The multitracked vocal; Machine drums. Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Zang Tuum Tumb; Another band from Liverpool; The image; Too much, too young?; The making of Relax; Remix, re-use it; Banned; The sound of Relax; A novel approach to musical form; What's the hook?; Repetition in Relax; Who's afraid of the Art of Noise?: What's in a name?; Who's afraid of the Art of Noise?; Cover imagery; Sampling; Recording records; Listening to samples; Sampling and the Art of Noise; Studio made; Timbre; Space; Jewel, Duel and Jewelled by Propaganda: Recordings revisited; Propaganda; A Secret Wish: pretentious packaging; From engineer to producer; The music of A Secret Wish. Jewel/Duel/Jewelled: Jewel/Duel/Jewelled - the structure; Jewel/Duel/Jewelled - the sound; Technology and Propaganda; Slave to the Rhythm by Grace Jones: Slave to the fashion; Slave to the image; Slave to the cliche; Slave to the Rhythm; Re-written by machine; Concerto for Synclavier; Slave to the sampler; Space; Spatial orchestration; Words; Slave to the remix; Conclusion. Appendices Interview with Trevor Horn; Trevor Horn discography.

Warner, Timothy