COMM 1500 Chapter 8

Frank Sinatra (1915-1998)

"Ol' Blue Eyes" began his music career in the swing era as a boy singer with big bands and the idol of "bobby soxers," the first modern pop superstar. Sinatra then evolved from the idealistic crooner of the early 1940's to the sophisticated swinger of the 1950s and 1960s, and ended his career as the most respected pop singer of his generation, known for his ability to phrase a lyric of a song for optimum impact on the listener. Best Known Songs: "Fly Me to the Moon," "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road"), "Strangers in the Night," "My Way," "New York, New York." "His evolution from the idealistic crooner of the early 1940's to the sophisticated swinger of the 50's and 60's seemed to personify the country's loss of innocence. During World War II, Sinatra's tender romanticism served as the dreamy emotional link between millions of women and their husbands and boyfriends fighting overseas. Reinventing himself in the 50's, the starry-eyed boy next door turned into the cosmopolitan man of the world, a bruised romantic with a tough-guy streak and a song for every emotional season." Stephen Holden. New York Times obituary for Frank Sinatra.

Madonna (1958-)

"Queen of Pop" With more than 300 million records sold worldwide, Madonna is listed by Guinness World Records as the best-selling female recording artist of all time. Madonna did not originate the theatrical concert experience, which goes back at least to Alice Cooper, but Madonna can probably receive the credit for making it the norm; each of her concert tours were major operations. She also receives credit for constantly re-inventing herself, keeping her music relevant for a longer time than another other female pop artist. Best Known Songs: "Like a Virgin," "Into the Groove," "Papa Don't Preach," "Like a Prayer," "Vogue."

Chapter 8 Timeline

1. 1857 PRECURSOR: Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville records sound with his phonautograph, the earliest known device for recording sound, but cannot play it back. The device, intended solely as a laboratory instrument for the study of acoustics, transcribed sound waves an undulations in a line traced on smoke-blackened paper or glass, making it possible to view the shape of the audio wave with the naked eye. 2. 1877 INVENTION: After finding a way to record sound vibrations by indenting tin-foil stretched over a cylindrical drum, Thomas Alva Edison also figures out how to play back sound with his phonograph, recording himself reciting "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Edison was working on a system to record telegraph messages on strips of waxed paper, which led him to believe he could record telephone messages the same way. The telephone converted sound waves into an electrical current; by using an electromagnet to vibrate a steel stylus, Edison could inscribe a "record" of the original sound wave into the wax.4 Unknown to Edison, Frenchman Charles Cros described a similar concept three months later. 3. 1887 DEVELOPMENT: Dissatisfied with the level of noise and distortion produced by the vertical cut groove of wax cylinder recordings, and looking for a system that will allow mass production, Emile Berliner uses a metal master disc to create perfect duplicates and develops the gramophone to play it. The disks are easily mass produced and with a labeling system introduced, sound recording becomes a mass medium. 4. 1931 MATURITY: RCA Victor launches the first commercially available vinyl long-playing record, designed for playback at 33 ⅓ rpm. The discs have approximately 10 minutes playing time on each side. 5. 1942 Bing Crosby first records "White Christmas", which becomes the best-selling single of all time, selling an estimated 100 million copies worldwide. Crosby's song was not only #1 for eleven weeks in 1942, but returned to the top of the charts in 1945 and 1946 when it was re-released. Crosby's recording would become a perennial, reappearing annually on the pop chart another 17 times. Written by Irving Berlin, the song also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1942 after Crosby sang it as a duet with Marjorie Reynolds (whose voice was dubbed by Martha Mears) in the movie musical Holiday Inn. 6. 1950 Magnetic tape becomes the standard medium of audio master recording before the music and radio industries. Audio manufacturers start using the term high fidelity as a marketing term to describe records and equipment intended to provide faithful sound reproduction. Classical music, Broadway show tune, and movie soundtrack albums all help to make LPs a surprise hit with consumers. 7. 1956 Stereophonic sound arrives, requiring systems with two speakers. People start calling their record players their "stereos" and buy entertainment consoles which typically have a television set in the middle with speakers on either side and then on the top a record player on one side and a radio on the other, thereby meeting all of their entertainment needs. 8. 1967 The Beatles release their eighth album, Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as the number one album on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time," calling it "the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time." Years later Paul McCartney would say: "We were fed up with being Beatles. We were not boys, we were men . . . artists rather than performers." 9. 1983 Compact discs (CDs) are introduced and quickly become the dominant format for listening to recorded music. 10. 1997 Consumers can download MP3 files from the Internet. MP3 is an audio coding format for digital audio that uses a form of lossy data compression. A common audio format for consumer audio streaming or storage, it also becomes the standard for digital audio compression for transferring and playing back music on most digital audio players. Suzanne Vega's song "Tom's Diner" is used by Karlheinz Brandenburg for testing purposes in developing the MP3.

Protest Songs in the 21st Century

Bruce Springsteen has written about those in the armed services, especially those who served in Vietnam—"Born in the U.S.A." (1984) and it's B-side "Shut Out the Light" (1984)—and Iraq—"Gypsy Biker" (2007), "Last to Die" (2007) which asked "Who'll be the last to die for a mistake?"—in songs focusing on the aftermath. But in "Devils & Dust" (2005) he sets his song on Middle Eastern battlefield, asking "What if what you do to survive kills the things you love?" Green Day attacked President George W. Bush with "Wake Me Up When September Ends" (2004) and most of the songs on their album American Idiot, as did Conor Oberst in his "When the President Talks to God" (2005) and Neil Young's "Let's Impeach the President" (2006). Bruce Springsteen denounced the government response to Hurricane Katrina in "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" (2006), Radiohead tackled global warming in their anti-dance anthem "Idioteque" (2000), and the disco-punk "Standing in the Way of Control" (2006) by the Gossip protests anti-same sex marriage laws. An online study based primarily on data from Spotify users in the United States, concludes that on average, people stop discovering new music at the age of 33. The study found that: "On average, peoples' music taste evolves quickly through age 25, before reaching 'maturity' in the mid-30s." If you become a parent, then you will stop listening to new music a little earlier than your peers who have yet to procreate. Teenagers tend to listen almost exclusively to top Billboard hits, but as they turn into twentysomethings they begin exploring their musical options, with males tending to move away from mainstream artists sooner and to a greater degree than females. The study found two factors drive this transition away from popular music: "First, listeners discover less-familiar music genres that they didn't hear on FM radio as early teens, from artists with a lower popularity rank. Second, listeners are returning to the music that was popular when they were coming of age, but which has since phased out of popularity."

Parental Advisory Warning Label

In 1985, the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) was formed by four women, two of whom were Tipper Gore, wife of Democratic Senator (and later Vice President) Al Gore and Susan Baker, wife of Republican Treasury Secretary James Baker. The PMRC's stated goal was increasing parental control over the access of children to music identified as having obscene lyrics or promoting sex, violence, or drug use. Their primary proposal was for the RIAA to develop "guidelines and/or a rating system" similar to the voluntary MPAA film rating system that first went into effect in 1968. The PMRC also wanted printing warnings and lyrics on album covers, as well as for record stores to put albums with explicit covers under the counters. They also wanted television stations not to broadcast explicit songs or videos. Major department chains like Wal-Mart, Sears, and J.C. Penney removed rock music and magazines from their stores. The PMRC also released the "Filthy Fifteen," a list of songs they found objectionable, which included Madonna's "Dress You Up" (Sex), Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop" (Sex/Masturbation), Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" (Violence), Def Leppard's "High 'n' Dry (Saturday Night)" (Drug and alcohol use), and Mercyful Fate's "Into the Coven" (Occult). Later in 1985, 19 record companies agreed to put "Parental Guidance: Explicit Lyric" labels on albums to warn of explicit lyrical content. However, the labels were generic, instead of having descriptive labels categorizing the type of explicit lyrics. Also, the RIAA put the labels on selected releases at their own discretion (as opposed to movies, all of which are rated and labeled accordingly). Many stores that sold records, such as Wal-Mart, refused to sell albums containing the label or limited their sale to adults. One of the albums receiving the "Parental Advisory" sticker was Frank Zappa's Grammy-winning album Jazz from Hell, even though it was a collection of instrumental pieces and contained no lyrics (It did have a song entitled "G-Spot Tornado").

Civil Rights Freedom Songs (Protest)

Songs sung by participants in the African American Civil Rights Movement. Also called Civil Rights anthems. Fats Waller's "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue" (1929) and Lead Belly's "The Bourgeois Blues" (1930) were some of the first examples of songs protesting racial discrimination. While earlier songs had hinted at the lynching of blacks in the South, Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" (1939) brought the subject into the light, setting a poem written by Abel Meeropol to music: "Southern trees bear a strange fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root." Marian Anderson sang "My Country 'Tis of Thee" in an open-air concert on Easter Sunday on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 at the invitation of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused Anderson permission to perform before an integrated audience in Washington DC's Constitution Hall. Several songs that began as gospel or spiritual song were transformed into what were called freedom songs. The most famous of these were "We Shall Overcome" (1948) derived from the early gospel song "I'll Overcome Someday," "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," "This Little Light of Mine," and "Go Tell it on the Mountain." However, there were new freedom songs written for the movement as well, such as Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddam" in response to the murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama killing four black children. In addition to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" and other speeches at the 1963 March on Washington, there were folk songs and freedom songs. Bob Dylan sang "When the Ship Comes In" and "Only a Pawn in Their Game," which was about the murder of Medgar Evers, then had Joan Baez and Len Chandler join him to sing "Eyes on the Prize." Peter, Paul, and Mary sang "If I Had a Hammer" and Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind." Mahalia Jackson sang the spiritual "How I Got Over" and at King's request "I've Been' Buked and I've Been Scorned" right before he took the stage, while Marian Anderson returned to sing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." The event concluded with the singing of "We Shall Overcome."10 Sam Cooke's "A Change is Gonna Come" (1964) spoke to the struggle for equal rights and became an anthem for the Civil Rights movement because of its refrain: "It's been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come."

Civil War Songs (Protest)

During the Civil War both sides had their own patriotic songs. The Union had "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (whose music was taken from "John Brown's Body"), "Battle Cry of Freedom," "The First Gun is Fired," and "We Are Coming Father Abra'am." The Confederacy had different lyrics for their own version of "Battle Cry of Freedom," as well as "The Bonnie Blue Flag," "Dixie," "Stonewall Jackson's Way," and, after the war, "The Conquered Banner." But there were also sentimental songs soldiers on both sides sang: "Just Before the Battle, Mother," "Lorena," "Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," and "Kathleen Mavourneen."

Technical Personnel

Producing an album in a recording studio essentially happens in four steps: recording, editing, mixing, and mastering. 1. Record Producer. Record producers provide creative expertise that allows artists to come up with the signature sound for an album of single, while record labels count on their business savvy to ensure an album is completed on time and under budget. They collaborate with the artist on selecting songs for the album and can be involved in the rehearsal process, selecting the studio and an engineer, negotiating recording time, and hire session musicians or background vocalists as required. When the album is completed, they are also responsible for business matters like paying studios and contract talent, and providing expense reports and receipts to the label. There are no specific college requirements for record producers, but most of them have experience as a musician and/or recording engineer, and have taken courses in music business so they understand copyright, music publishing, and entertainment law. 2. Studio Manager. The manager of a recording studio could be the owner of the company, a partial owner, or someone hired to manage the studio staff and run the day-to-day operations of the business. They are usually responsible for hiring engineers and other creative and technical staff, selecting and purchasing new equipment, as well as assigning recording and remixing engineers to specific client projects (although those selections could be up to the producer and artist). 3. Studio Technician. Recording studios have stockpiled a large inventory of audio equipment to meet the needs of their clients and the studio manager is the person who keeps it all in good working condition. Equally important, they are trained to be able to diagnose and fix any problems with equipment. In addition to training in the field, they usually have a college degree in recording arts, electrical engineering, or music production. 4. Gopher. The lowest engineer position (called a runner in the United Kingdom), this is the person responsible for doing everything that no one else wants to do, such as getting the sandwiches. But this is also an entry position where a lot of people start in the industry to learn the music business from the ground up. 5. Recording Engineer. This is the person responsible for recording and mixing the tracks. They know the techniques for microphone placement and how to record different types of instruments, from guitars to drums. The recording engineer prepares the studio for recording sessions and operates the mixing console. 6. Mix Engineer. The individual instruments and vocals are recorded independently, delivered to the mix engineer as DVD or virtual files, transferred to a mixing console, and then mixed together to create one track on an album. It usually takes an experienced mixing engineer four to 6 hours to mix one song. 7. Mastering Engineer. The mastering engineer takes the final mixed production and transfers it to either CD, cassette, vinyl, or digital. They are hired by the artist, record producer, or a record label representative to complete the audio mastering process during post-production. Their primary job is to ensure each track is balanced, set to the optimum volume, and free of distracting interferences. 8. Assistant Engineer. Responsible for setting up and doing whatever they can to help the engineer, assistant engineers basically serve as apprentices to the mastering engineer.

Censorship of Music

The censorship of music is the practice of restricting free access to musical works. Such censorship can be based on moral, political, religious, or military reasons, and it can take the form of everything from a complete government enforced legal prohibition to private, voluntary removal of content when a song is performed in public. Political censorship is not common in most democratic societies, while more authoritarian governments routinely censor music considered critical of the government or the military. Censorship by radio and television broadcasters by refusing to play certain songs on the air or by having songs edited to allow airplay are the most common forms. These practices date back to the 1950s, when ABC radio refused to play Billie Holiday's "Love for Sale" with its lyrics about prostitution, and made Cole Porter change the lyrics for Frank Sinatra's hit "I Get a Kick Out of You," from "I get no kick from cocaine" to "I get perfume from Spain." The BBC has a list of songs banned as being unsuitable for broadcasting on its radio and television stations, a list which originally included songs that offered pop versions of classical pieces, going back to "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" from the 1918 Broadway musical Oh, Look! that used Frédéric Chopin's "Fantaisie-Impromptu," but later included the works of Ewan MacColl as a communist sympathizer, the Halloween novelty song "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers, and the Sex Pistols's punk diatribe "God Save the Queen." There are numerous example of songs being altered for broadcast or public performance: The Rolling Stones changed the title of their hit song "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's Spend Some Time Together" to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show. The Kinks had to change references to Coca-Cola to "cherry cola" in their hit song "Lola" to be played on the radio, otherwise the song could be considered advertising for the soft drink. Radio stations played a version of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band where the lyric "you son of a bitch" was changed to "you son of a gun." Taylor Swift's song "Picture to Burn" had some radio stations changing the line "That's fine, I'll tell mine that you're gay" to "That's fine, you won't mind if I say." In order for songs to be played whenever possible, profanities can be censored from a song to make it suitable for airplay. On the radio you would hear Cee Lo Green singing a song entitled "Forget You," but that is not the title of the song or what is sung in the choruses on the album. Sometimes the change is just with the album cover, as when the song "Rape Me" from Nirvana's In Utero album was changed by the label to "Waif Me" in order to be distributed in Walmart and Kmart. Sometimes, there is censorship of misheard words. As when in Eminem's "Hallie's Song" the line "I'm so glad her mom didn't want her" was misheard as "I'm so glad her mom didn't abort her." Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" was censored by some radio stations that heard "reaching the fever pitch" as "reaching the fever bitch." Words sounding close to curse words are routinely changed, such as the word "ship" in 50 Cent's "Window Shopper" and "Knock You Down" by Keri Hilson featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo. There are also examples of self-censorship by artists for broadcast performances, such as Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery" and Alanis Morisette's "You Oughta Know." (click on the songs to look at the lyrics and find out why).

Protest Songs

The label "protest songs" is basically used to cover songs that have a rhetorical dimension: that seem to persuade, and not simply to entertain. Such songs are usually associated with a movement for social change (e.g., civil rights, antiwar, gay rights)

Radio Play Restrictions

The idea that radio stations would censor themselves by refusing to play certain songs became a topic of public discussion when it became known that in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Clear Channels Communications (now known as iHeartMedia) sent a memorandum to the more than 1,200 radio stations they owned listing 165 "lyrically questionable" songs.16 Songs dealing with airplanes were included on the list: AC/DC, "Shot Down in Flames"; Steve Miller Band, "Jet Airliner"; Nena "99 Luftballoons"/"99 Red Balloons"; Peter, Paul and Mary, "Leaving on a Jet Plane." A lot of songs touching on the subject of death made the list: Bob Dylan, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"; Blood, Sweat and Tears, "And When I Die"; Skeeter Davis, "The End of the World"; Buddy Holly & the Crickets, "That'll Be the Day"; Queen, "Another One Bites the Dust"; Billy Joel, "Even the Good Die Young"'; Elton John, "Daniel"; Paul McCartney & Wings, "Live and Let Die"; Don McLean, "American Pie"; Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven"; Steam, "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." Other songs included metaphors that could be connected to the attack: Carole King, "I Feel the Earth Move"; Martha and the Vandellas, "Nowhere to Run"; The Dave Clark Five, "Bits and Pieces"; Neil Diamond, "America"; Talking Heads, "Burning Down the House." Four Beatles songs were on the list, and while "Ticket to Ride," "A Day in the Life," and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" might make sense, the problem with "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" is less obvious (because the chorus talks about "how life goes on"?). The memorandum cast a wide net. "Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles made the list, presumably because most Egyptians are Muslims. Most surprisingly, several songs that would be considered inspirational or celebrating peace also made the list: Cat Stevens, "Peace Train"; Simon & Garfunkel, "Bridge Over Troubled Water"; Louis Armstrong, "What a Wonderful World."

The Economics of Music in the Digital Age

The music recording industry has been an immensely profitable enterprise, but those profits have taken a hit in the digital age, where any song an artist releases can show up as a YouTube video and converted to an MP3, completely bypassing the means by which royalties are paid, music sales have taken a massive hit. In 1997, global music sales (both physical and digital) were $38 billion; but by 2009 that figure was only $17 billion, less than half. But no one was arguing that people were listening to less than half as much music as they did previously. An interesting example of the new economics for recordings is seen on Broadway, which has seen the cast album business transformed over the past two decades. Previously. only hit musicals from Oklahoma to Les Miserables were released as albums, because those were the only ones that would generate a profit. Today, virtually everything new, not only on Broadway but far Off, is available. Profits for such albums are extremely unlikely (Hamilton being the exception that proves the rule), which is why the major labels have largely abandoned such efforts. But recordings can be valuable in a different way, helping a show to be produced in the regional and amateur markets, which has led to the formation of new labels and new business models. Today it is usually the production, rather than the label, that pays for the recording, knowing that it is going to be a loss leader (where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales). Sometimes the authors themselves pay for the recording, as a record of their creative achievement.6 Today, artists wanting to make money have to do it by touring rather than by releasing albums. To get your fans to not only buy tickets but to also pick up t-shirts, posters, and anything else you are selling at the concert venue, you have to provide them something they are not going to get by downloading your music. Another significant way in which the recording industry is different today is that independent musicians can produce their own albums through fans funding artist through companies like Kickstarter. A musician can put together a budget for an album, offer backers who pledge certain amounts specific tangible rewards, and get their project funded. For example, Duluth musician Rachael Kilgour got 274 backers to pledge $15,896 (her goal was $15,000) in thirty days to fund her I'll Put My Own Self Back Together album (which was released on March 3, 2017 under the title Rabbit in the Road).7 Kilgour offered the following rewards to her backers There are limitations on some of the rewards, such as a limit of one dozen on both of the types of earring, while the guitar lesson and the serenade would be in person (within 30 minutes of Duluth, MN) or over video chat. There were only two rewards that did not receive pledges (the Midwest house concert and that final one), and with only four exceptions the rest all received multiple pledges. At any given time, there are literally hundreds of other musical artists raising money for their albums. Kickstarter has received over $2 billion in pledges from 9.9 million backers to fund over 96,000 creative projects (from almost 270,000 launched projects from music, films and stage shows to comics, video games, and technology.12 With inexpensive recording hardware and software like Pro Tools, Cubase, and Garage Band readily available, it is possible for new artists to record music and distribute it over the Internet. Maureen Droney, senior director of the Recording Academy's Procedures & Engineers Wing, notes: "In some ways we've come full circle. We've gone back to being small and entrepreneurial. People still look to commercial studios when they have something to offer that they can't do at home. But, as it is, the recording studio business started with people starting small, funky studios, often times in bedrooms and garages." In 1999 the total computer music market was just under $140 million in sales, while half a decade later it was over a half-billion dollars. It is not surprising given this shift that half of the recording facilities in Los Angeles have failed.8 The traditional lines that once exist between artist, publisher, record company, distributor, and retail are become blurred if not erased by twenty-first century technology and media.

Songs of the Great Depression (Protest)

Woody Guthrie sang hundreds of political songs dealing with his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, when he traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to California, earning himself the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." His Dust Bowl Ballads (1940) collection included "I Ain't Got No Home in This World Anymore," "Vigilante Man," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Blowin' Down This Road," "Dust Bowl Refugee," and the two-part "Tom Joad" based on John Ford's movie version of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Guthrie warned migrants they would not survive unless they had the "Do Re Mi" (1940). Woody Guthrie immortalized events in the history of the labor movement in song. Tired of hearing Irvin Berlin's "God Bless America" being played over and over on the radio, Guthrie wrote his most famous song, "This Land is Your Land" (1940). During World War II he put a sticker on his guitar that said "This Machine Kills Fascists" and wrote songs like "You Fascists Are Bound to Lose" (1944). His songs would serve as a major influence on Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, and Bruce Springsteen. Bing Crosby, Al Jolson and Rudy Vallee all recorded "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" (1930), but it was Crosby's version that became the best-selling record of its period and came to be viewed as an anthem to the shattered dreams of millions. A similar song was "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" that was recorded by Deane Janis (1933), and then sung by Constance Bennett in the 1934 film Moulin Rouge and then recorded by Deane Janis. The Carter Family's "No Depression in Heaven" (1936) offered a bleak type of optimism about the future.

Joe Walsh, The Eagles

"Records, record stores, record sales, it's all gone. And it's up to the young musicians to try and figure it out. There's no money it. There's no record companies. It's free. You can download it. Nobody gets paid, so they can't afford to make music. That's what's happening. And they're just cranking out music that is just a recipe, you know? Nobody's playing at the same time. Everybody's adding on virtual instruments that don't exist onto a drum machine that somebody programmed. And you can tell, in the music that's out now. It's all been programmed. There's no mojo. There's nobody testifying. There's not the magic of a human performance that is never perfect. And the magic of a human performance is what we all know and love in the old records, by the way they were made. And it's all gone. So we'll see what the digital age has in store."

John Denver, speaking to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing on "porn rock."

"That which is denied becomes that which is most desired, and that which is hidden becomes that which is most interesting. Consequently, a great deal of time and energy is spent trying to get at what is being kept from you."

Aretha Franklin (1942-2018)

"The Queen of Soul" began her career singing gospel at her father's church. After singing with Atlantic Records in 1967, she became the most charted female artist in Billboard history. Rolling Stone magazine put her at the top of its list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Best Known Songs: "Respect," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Think," "Chain of Fools."

Artistic Personnel

1. Composer. Creates musical scores for film, television, and computer games. They write music, score, program, and conform music to picture edits. 2. Lyricist. Writes song lyrics for performance in songs. They can work both freelance and on staffs at a publishing company. Usually, they collaborate with composers, songwriters, recording artists, and even other lyricists. 3. Songwriter. Songwriters craft songs for other artists, which is distinct from artists who write their own songs. Songwriters both compose the music and write the lyrics for their songs (although this can be done in collaboration with others). 4. Arranger. In the recording industry an arranger is a freelance artist who works to retool an existing piece of music for a particular artist's style and genre. They arrange many parts of a musical composition, taking into consideration voice, harmonic structure, instrument, tempo, rhythm, and tone balance. The arranger has to transcribe their composition for the band, orchestra, choral group, or artist to transform the song from its original style into another. 5. Song Plugger. Pitches a songwriter's composition to producers, A&R reps, managers, and music supervisors. They can represent several songwriters or be in-house at a publishing company, as well as being independent contractors. An independent song plugger represents songwriters who have not assigned the rights to their songs to a publishing company. 6. Music Supervisor. Primarily concerned with selecting songs to be placed in a film or on the soundtrack of a television show. They are familiar with the licensing process necessary to clear the rights and can help a director select the right song for a particular scene. Often in post production the music supervisor puts placeholder songs, called the temp track, into the film. Then, when the director falls in love with songs for which the production cannot afford to pay the rights, then find appropriate (and affordable) replacements.

10 Influential Singers

1. Enrico Caruso 2. Bing Crosby 3. Frank Sinatra 4. Ray Charles 5. Elvis Presley 6. Bob Dylan 7. Barbara Streisand 8. Aretha Franklin 9. Michael Jackson 10. Madonna

Art: The Elements of Music

1. Rhythm 2. Melody 3. Harmony 4. Instruments 5. Lyrics

Rolling Stone's Top 10 Songs of All Time

10. Ray Charles, "What I'd Say" (1959) 9.Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (1991) 8. The Beatles, "Hey Jude" (1968) 7. Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode" (1958) 6. The Beach Boys, "Good Vibrations" (1966) 5. Aretha Franklin, "Respect" (1967) 4. Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On" (1971) 3. John Lennon, "Imagine" (1971) 2. The Rolling Stones, "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965) 1. Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965)

#1 Songs By Decade

1900s: "Stars and Stripes Forever" 1910s: "Some of These Days" 1920s: "Swanee" 1930s: "Over the Rainbow" 1940s: "White Christmas" 1950s: "Rock Around the Clock" 1960s: "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction 1970s: "Stayin' Alive" 1980s: "Flashdance...What a Feeling" 1990s: "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" 2000s: "Lose Yourself" 2010s: "Shape of You"

Bing Crosby (1903-1977)

A crooner with a trademark warm bass-baritone voice, Crosby became the best-selling recording artist of the twentieth century, having sold over one billion recordings. Crosby has two of the best-selling singles of all-time: #1 "White Christmas" (50 million copies sold) and #3 "Silent Night" (30 million). As a multimedia star, from 1934-1954 Crosby was the top earner in record sales, radio ratings, and motion pictures, arguably making him the greatest entertainer in American history. As a crooner, Crosby was able to take advantage of the recording innovation of the microphone, which allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that would influence many of the popular singers that followed in his wake. Crosby won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role of Father Chuck O'Malley in the 1944 film Going My Way. He was also the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape, using the same tools and craftsmanship--editing, retaking, rehearsal, time shifting--used in motion picture production. Best Known Songs: "White Christmas," "Pennies From Heaven," "Swinging on a Star," "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"

Music Royalties

Royalties in the music industry are different from other forms of intellectual property in that they have strong links to the individual songwriters and composers who own the exclusive copyright to their music. Recording companies and performing artists who create sound recordings of music enjoy a separate set of copyrights and royalties from the sale of the recordings and from their digital transmission. Recording artists and songwriters do not earn royalties in the same way. While recording artists can earn royalties from the sale of their recordings on CDs, they do not earn royalties on public performance (e.g., when their music is played on the radio or in a bar). However, songwriters and publishers do earn royalties in these instances, along with a small portion of the recording sales. 1. Performance 2. Mechanical 3. Master

Vietnam Protest Songs (Topical)

Some of the most famous antiwar songs of the 60s were actually released before President Lyndon Johnson sent US combat forces to Vietnam in March of 1965. "Masters of War" (1963) is an unrelenting screed attacking the military-industrial complex and all others responsible for the Cold War arms race. It ends with Dylan hoping that all the masters of war die, die soon, and promising "I'll stand over your grave / 'Til I'm sure that you're dead." Donovan's "Universal Soldier" (1965), a cover of a Buffy Saint-Marie song, and "I Ain't Marching Anymore" (1965) by Phil Ochs, argued against old men sending young men off to die in war, without specifically mentioning Vietnam. John Fogerty wrote Creedence Clearwater Revival's furious hit "Fortunate Son" (1969) in response to the wedding of then-President Richard Nixon's daughter Julie Nixon to David Eisenhower, the grandson of former President Dwight Eisenhower. Fogerty knew that well-connected young men would have nothing to do with the escalating war in Vietnam, which would leaving the fighting to young men who were less fortunate. Edwin Starr's anti-Vietnam rant "War" (1970) had a more universal quality, answering its own question, "War. What is it good for?" with a resounding "Absolutely nothing (Say it again)." Country Joe and the Fish mocked the war with their "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" (1967), immortalized in the movie Woodstock with the infamous "Fish Cheer." Pete Seeger had audiences help him sing "Bring Them Home" (1966) in concerts, but when he wanted to sing "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" (1967) on the popular Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the CBS censors initially refused. For later having Seeger do that song, singing Ochs's "Draft Dodger Rag" (1966), and relentlessly criticizing the Vietnam War and the Johnson administration, the Smother Brothers would see CBS cancel their series. Lots of hit songs were implicitly or explicitly about boys going off to Vietnam, although they were not overly protest songs, although the possibility, if not the actuality, of getting killed in combat was a part of the emotional resonance of such songs such as "Last Train to Clarksville" (1966) by the Monkees, "Galveston" (1969) by Glen Campbell, and "Daniel" (1973) by Elton John. There were also a fair number of what could be called antiprotest songs: not simply songs that supported the war in Vietnam, but songs that attacked those attacking the war: Stonewall Jackson, "The Minute Men Are Turning in Their Graves" (1966), Pat Boone, "Wish You Were Here, Buddy" (1966), and Dave Dudley's "Vietnam Blues" (1966). The song best capturing these sentiments was probably Merle Haggard's "Fightin' Side of Me" (1969), where he sang: "If you don't love it, leave it / Let this song I'm singin' be a warnin' / If you're running down my country, man / You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me." Then there was "The Ballad of the Green Berets" (1966) by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler, a special forces medic who had been wounded in Vietnam. The lyrics were written in honor of Green Beret James Gabriel, Jr., who was executed by the Viet Cong while on a training mission in 1962. Sadler debuted the song on The Ed Sullivan Show and it became the #1 hit in the U.S. for five weeks and the best-selling single for 1966. Ex-Beatle John Lennon promoted peace in several well-known songs, "Give Peace a Chance" (1969), "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" (1971), and, most notably, "Imagine" (1971). Even though the Vietnam War was never mentioned, such songs were antiwar simply by virtue of being pro-peace. While in the wake of the Kent State shootings, Neil Young wrote "Ohio" (1970) for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, warning "Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming. We're finally on our own."

Hip-Hop Music (Topical)

A music genre consisting of stylized rhythmic music accompanying rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted rather than sung. Also known as rap music. More recently, several critics have observed that all music is protest. "The Message" (1982) by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five was about the struggle of living in the Bronx during the administration of Ronald Reagan. The hip-hop group N. W. A., one of the earliest and most significant gangsta rap groups, reflected the rising anger of urban youth in their Straight Outta Compton album. Their controversial song "F*ck tha Police" (1988) protested racial profiling and police brutality with an abrasive intensity never heard before in a song, while "Gangsta Gangsta" (1988) presented the worldview of inner-city youth. Public Enemy's anthem "Fight the Power" (1989) explicitly rejects racial integration. 2 Live Crew's "Banned in the USA" (1990) made them unlikely champions of free speech. Rage Against the Machine's debut single "Killing in the Name" (1992), uses a fusion of rap and rock in a song that rages on about racism, police brutality, and defiance. Queen Latifah's "U.N.I.T.Y." (1993) addressed issues of street harassment, domestic violence, and slurs against women in hip-hop culture. Because of its message, many radio stations played the song without censoring the words "b*tch" and "h*es," which appeared often in the lyrics. "Dear Mama" (1995) by 2Pac, was added to the National Recording Registry in 2010 for being "a moving and eloquent homage to both the murdered rapper's own mother and all mothers struggling to maintain a family in the face of addiction, poverty and societal indifference."

Topical Songs

A song that comments on political and/or social events, typically offering a mix of narrative and commentary. Connect to current events and therefore not always part of a larger movement Phil Ochs, who wrote and sang what he termed "topical songs" instead of protest songs, was a passionate vocalist who wrote numerous songs about civil rights: "Too Many Martyrs," "Here's to the State of Mississippi," "In the Heat of the Summer," "Talking Birmingham Jam." One of his albums was titled All the News That's Fit to Sing" (1964) and his "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends," "There But for Fortune," and "When I'm Gone" spoke of his commitment to a host of other political issues. The less specific Dylan was in his lyrics, the more successful and popular his protest songs became. Both "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (1964), refrain from presenting specific references to events or issues that would tie either song to a particular time or place. This served to make them universal standards for advocates of social change. The only protest song to reach #1 in the 60s was Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" (1965), which captured the angst of the Cold War and the looming threat of what was almost seen as inevitable nuclear destruction: "The eastern world it is exploding / Violence flarin', bullet loadin' / You're old enough to kill but not for votin' / You don't believe in war but what's that gun you're totin'? / And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin' / But you tell me / Over and over and over again my friend / Ah, you don't believe / We're on the eve of destruction." Stephen Stills was inspired to write Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" (1967) by the Sunset Strip riots, which was about "hippies" protesting a curfew on going to clubs and music venues along the Strip. But it became something of an all-purpose protest song because of the ambiguity of its lyrics: "There's something happening here / What it is ain't exactly clear." The chorus—"I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound / Everybody look what's going down"—was also abstract enough to apply to a lot of social problems. It avoiding specifics, Stills was duplicating what Dylan did with some of his most popular protest songs.

Piracy of Music

A study by the Institute for Policy Innovation puts the annual cost of music piracy at $12.5 billion dollars in losses to the US economy as well as more than 70,000 lost jobs and $2 billion in lost wages to US workers. Citing the staggering volume of music acquired illegally without paying for it and the resulting drop in revenues, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) published a list of "Common Examples of Online Copyright Infringement": -You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it. -Even if you don't illegally offer recordings to others, you join a file-sharing network and download unauthorized copies of all the copyrighted music you want for free from the computer of other network members. -In order to gain access to copyrighted music on the computers of other network members, you pay a free to join a file-sharing network that isn't authorized to distribute or make copies of copyrighted music. Then you download unauthorized copies of all the music you want. -You transfer copyrighted music using an instant messaging service. -You have a computer with a CD burner, which you use to burn copies of music you have downloaded onto writable CDs for all of your friends. -Somebody you don't even know e-mails you a copy of a copyrighted song and then you turn around and e-mail copies to all of your friends.

Economics: Making Money Off Music

According to the Association of Independent Music (AIM), a major label is defined as a multinational company that has more than 5 percent of the world markets for the sale of records and/or music videos. Consolidation in the music industry has seen the number of major music labels cut in half from six in 1988, to only three today: -Universal Music Group: The largest music corporation in the world, UMG operates as a subsidiary of Vivendi, a Paris-based French media conglomerate. Major labels: Interscope-Geffen-A&M, Capitol Music Group, Republic Records, Def Jam Recordings, Universal Music Group Nashville, Universal Music Latin Entertainment, the Verve Music Group, Universal Music Classical, Universal Music Enterprises, Show Dog-Universal Music, Eagle Rock Entertainment, and Universal Music UK. -Sony Music Entertainment: A subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Sony Corporation, and the world's second largest music company having merged with Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) in 2004. Main labels: Columbia Records, RCA Records, Epic Records, and RED Associated Labels. -Warner Music Group: The largest American-owned music conglomerate worldwide, WMG is the third largest in the global music industry. Originally owned by Warner Bros., today WMG is owned by Access Industries. Main labels: Atlantic Records Group, Warner Bros. Records, Parlophone Label Group, Rhino Entertainment, Warner Music Nashville, and Warner Classics. Additionally, there are independent record labels, which is where many musical artists begin their careers in hopes of being signed by a major label. For example, Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee, played an important role in the development of rock & roll music by signing Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Carl Perkins. An independent label focuses on releases aimed at small, but devoted, audiences. Artists are usually given more artistic freedom and room for experimentation than with a major label, where the impulse is toward standardization. Sometimes, major artists have set up their own independent labels—as the Beatles did with Apple Records—only to see their commercial ventures be swallowed up by a major label. Today Apple Records is part of Capitol Records, which, as you can see above, is an owned subsidiary of the Universal Music Group.

Claim #1 (Adorno) Popular Music is Standardized

Adorno found that once a particular type of music proved successful in the marketplace, it became standardized in the industry. If Big Band music is popular, then record companies start putting out even more Big Band music. Adorno believed that in order to cover up this standardization, record companies would create the illusion of individuality by making minor adjustments to the structures and sounds of a song, but that basically the songs would remain the same so that consumers would continue to get essentially the same product as before. A group like the Beatles, so popular and (more importantly) so successful that they could do what they wanted, would be the rarest of exceptions and break the chains of standardization and come up with a songs like "Yesterday," basically a solo performance by McCartney backed by a string quartet, and "Eleanor Rigby," a #1 hit in 1966, which used a classical string ensemble as the instrumentation. By the time they released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 the Beatles were elevating pop music to the level of fine art. Adorno vehemently criticized what popular music had become in the twentieth century, denouncing the standardized, repetitive structure and declaring "popular music constitutes the dregs of musical history." We can certainly disagree with Adorno's deeply negative assessment of popular music, but it is difficult to dismiss his claim that standardization is the norm in the recording industry when you look at how different types of music such as disco and hip-hop become the industry norm. Standardization can be found in other mass media as well, when book editors look for the next young adult trilogy, or movies start churning out science fiction films in the wake of Star Wars, or television networks look for the next version of a situation comedy like Friends or a cult classic drama such as Lost. Everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon, but eventually somebody comes along who heads off in a new direction, which, if it proves successful, becomes the next bandwagon for people to jump on.

Stats on Reading Level of Song Lyrics

An analysis of over 200 #1 songs in the genres of pop, country, rock, and R&B/hip-hop from the last years reveals that on average the lyrics of these songs represent a third grade reading level. Country music has the "smartest" lyrics average a reading grade level of 3.3, pop and rock tie at 2.9, while R&B/hip-hop earned a low of 2.6

Audio Format War #3: Wax Discs vs Shellac Discs (1920s)

Around 1895 a shellac-based compound (typically about one-third shellac and two-thirds mineral filler) was introduced and became standard for making disc records. The one advantage that cylinders had, was that they could be used for home recordings. The production of shellac records would continue until the end of the 78-rpm format in the late 1950s.

Claim #3 (Adorno) Popular Music Operates as Social Cement

Because Adorno was a Marxist, concerned with how the dominant class maintained power in the world, he thought popular music acted as "social cement," brainwashing the masses into accepting their unhappy lives. So when popular music function as "social cement," this is a bad thing because it is keeping people in a place they should not want to be. The fact that it does so by making them happy, listening to music, is therefore disturbing. Whereas the ancient Egyptians kept slaves placated by feeding them a combination of bread and beer, and the Roman Empire distracted its citizens with by providing "Bread and Circuses," today the same effect is achieved by giving the masses songs like "Happy" and "Uptown Funk" to keep them content.

Bob Dylan (1941-).

Bono said: "Bob Dylan did what very, very few singers ever do. He changed popular singing. And we have been living in a world shaped by Dylan's singing ever since. Almost no one sings like Elvis Presley anymore. Hundreds try to sing like Dylan. When Sam Cooke played Dylan for the young Bobby Womack, Womack said he didn't understand it. Cooke explained that from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth." Dylan always repudiated the idea he was the spokesman for his generation, but his most celebrated work from the early 1960s became anthems for the civil rights and antiwar movement. When Dylan went electric in 1965, the moment created a deep divide in his musical career, but his greatest legacy may well be as a poet. Since 1996, academics had lobbied for Dylan to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and to the surprise of many Dylan was awarded the prize in 2016. Best Known Songs: "Blowin' in the Wind," "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall," "The Times They Are a-Changin'," "Like a Rolling Stone," "Just Like a Woman," "All Along the Watchtower," "Tangled Up in Blue."

Songs About Child Abuse and Domestic Violence (Topical)

Both Pat Benatar's "Hell is For Children" (1980) and Suzanne Vega's "Luka" (1987) addressed the issue of child abuse, although Vega's approach, using lighter music as an ironic counterpoint to the subject matter saw her song getting far more credit than Benatar received. Joni Mitchell's "Not to Blame" (1994) told the story of a woman who committed suicide because of abuse, while Tracy Chapman's "Behind the Wall" (1988), sung without instrumentation condemned people who feel they cannot get involved in domestic disputes. "Goodbye Earl" (1999) by the Dixie Chicks was about spousal abuse, but critics were troubled by its using murder as the solution. Arrowsmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" (1989) covered similar territory, with a young girl who shoots her father because of sexual abuse. Nirvana's "Polly" (1991) was inspired by a fourteen-year-old girl who was abducted, and played by the group at benefits to help rape victims, such as the "Rock Against Rape" concert in 1993. Other powerful songs about domestic violence: Till Tuesday, "Voices Carry" (1985); Sonic Youth, "Shoot"; Pearl Jam, "Rearviewmirror" (1993) and "Better Man" (1994) ; Green Day, "Pulling Teeth" (1994); R. E. M., "Bang and Blame" (1995); Wilco, "At Least That's What You Said" (2004); and Florence + The Machine, "Kiss With a Fist" (2009). Grizzly Bear covered "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)" (2007) from the 1960s girl group the Crystals, and gave it a whole new meaning.

Technology: The Format Wars

During the analog age, the history of the recording industry consisted of a series of format wars, where competing ways of recording music engaged in a struggle until either consumers made a decision or the industry came up with a new and improved format, one that usually provided both better sound and lower costs. Time and time again, the music industry resists new technology. Usually, but not always, the new technology wins, making the old technology obsolete. The two competing formats are listed chronologically within each format war, and the winner is inevitably the second format. However, in the failed format wars, it is the original that maintains its superiority over the challenger.

Audio Format War #1: Tin-Foil Cylinders vs Wax Cylinders (1880s)

Edison's phonograph cylinders, commonly called "records," were the original commercial medium for recordings. Enjoying their greatest popularity from 1896 to 1915, these were hollow cylindrical objects that had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface. This could then be reproduced when they were played on one of Edison's cylinder phonographs. However, there was an unacceptable level of background noise, no way to adjust the volume level of either the recording or the playback, and a problem with the shape of the cylinder becoming distorted after just a few replays. One of the people looking for a more successful recording medium was Alexander Graham Bell, who used ozokerite, a wax-like substance, instead of tin-foil. When used with an incising stylus, sound vibrations could be cut, rather than indented, into the wax. Edison adapted wax to his cylinders, but there was still a problem in that there was no way to mass produce cylinders: recording involved setting up a bank of machines, up to twenty at one time, which meant you could only record twenty master cylinders at a time. Even when a process was developed to duplicate cylinder, only about two-dozen copies could be made, which would add up to around 500 cylinders in total. Edison's improved hard wax cylinders, marketed as Edison Gold Moulded Records, could be played with good quality over 100 times.

Theodor Adorno

German sociologist and composer known for his critical theory of society, is considered one of the twentieth century's foremost thinkers on aesthetics, the branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of art, beauty, and taste. Adorno was especially interested in musicology, and in particular the differences between serious (i.e., classical) music and pop (i.e., popular) music. Although his writings of music have come increasingly under attack by modern critics (his sweeping criticism of jazz are held in low regard), his work on popular music gives us a starting point for considering the relationship between music and society. In his writing it is abundantly clear that Adorno preferred classical music as the only true form of music that actively challenged and engaged the mind. Unlike mass produced popular music, classical music was not forced to conform to a standard pattern (e.g., verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus). Adorno was even worried that something bad happened to classical music when it was conveyed by means of mass media, asking "Does a symphony played on the air [radio] remain a symphony?" Made three claims about popular music

Claim #2 (Adorno) Popular Music Promotes Passive Listening

Hearing is the physiological act of your ears picking up sound vibrations, whereas listening is the psychological process of making sense out of the sounds you hear. Consequently, to listen you have to pay attention and interpret sounds. Effective listening requires you to be active than passive. Adorno complained that popular music wants you to be a passive rather than an active listener. With passive listening, which is how we usually listen to music, you sit quietly without responding to what you are hearing. Music is something to have on in the background, and you are probably not really listening to the words, which explains why sometimes people are surprised to find out what a song is really about once they are shown the actual lyrics. Radio made it possible for people listening to music while doing other things: working in an office, making dinner in the kitchen, reading the newspaper in the living room, or doing homework in your bedroom. This suggests that people can listen to music to relax, but chances are in your own experiences listening to music that you have also used it as a sort of stimulant, picking songs that are loud with a driving beat, without any regard for what the song is about.

Harmony

If melody is the horizontal presentation of pitch, then harmony is the verticalization of pitch, as in combining pitches into chords: several notes played simultaneously (the photo shows the C Major chord played on the piano). We often describe harmony in terms of its relative harshness. If we have a smooth-sounding harmonic combination, then we call that consonance. But if we have a harsh-sounding harmonic combination, then we call it dissonance. Additionally, we can talk about harmony when instead of notes being played simultaneously on one or more instruments, we have different voices singing notes at the same time. Obviously if there is only one person singing, absent something like double-tracking the vocals, you are not going to have vocal harmony. But you can have harmony between the lead vocal and an instrument, something Kurt Cobain liked to do with Nirvana's songs.

Failed Auto Format War B: 12-Inch Single vs 45s

In early 1970, Cycle/Ampex Records test-marketed a 12-inch single in an attempt to energize the struggling singles market. The idea was that this longer format single, which offered 7 minutes per side, would appeal specifically to DJs looking for dance mixes to play in clubs. In the 1980s, several artists released 12-inch singles with longer, extended, or remixed versions of the actual track being promoted by the single. But the format never moved beyond this specialty niche.

Enrico Caruso (1873-1921)

Italian operatic tenor who sang to great acclaim in major opera houses in Europe and the Americas. In the infancy of sound recordings when such devices were available primarily to the elite, it was not surprising that an opera singer was the best known singer in the United States. Caruso made almost 300 recordings, the first of which helped to spread his fame throughout the English-speaking world. In the United States he signed, a lucrative financial deal with the Victor Talking Machine Company. Because of his "phonogenic" voice, "manly and powerful, yet sweet and lyrical," and the tremendous popularity of his phonograph records, Caruso became one of the first examples of a global media celebrity, whose name and fame have endured to the present day.

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

Jackson became "The King of Pop" in the early 1980s, driven in part by his use of music videos for his songs. Thriller is the best-selling album of all time and the winner of a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984, including Album of the Year. Seven on the nine tracks on the album were released as singles, all of which reached the Top 10. Best Known Songs: "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "Thriller," "Bad," "Man in the Mirror."

Portable Audio Format War #2: CDs vs MP3s

Just as phonograph technology evolved from the first cylinder recordings to 78-rpm records, then 45s, and finally LPs, CD technology has continued to improve because of the changing nature of laser-disc high fidelity. However, the CD has been supplanted by the MP3 audio file in the format war to end all format wars, because with the victory of the MP3 over the CD, format has been made immaterial. Almost literally. (You can even made a CD filled with MP3s of all of the songs by the Beatles or Led Zeppelin.)

Master Royalties

Record labels collect royalties from the use of a specific recording of a song that is used in a film, television program, advertisement, streaming service, or other medium. Radio stations do not typically pay master royalties because playing a song over the radio has traditionally been viewed as free advertising for a recording. For example, when a new album from an artist who is signed by one of the big labels becomes available for on-demand streaming from Rhapsody, Spotify, or Beats, the money flows in three directions. First, royalties for the performance of a composition go to the appropriate performance royalties organization, which then distributes it to the songwriter and the publisher. Second, 10.5 percent (minus payment to the appropriate PRO), goes to publishers form the streaming mechanical royalties, which also go to the songwriter. Third, royalties for the licensed use of sound recording go to the record label, with 10-50 percent—depending on the terms of the contract as well as whether digital sale is classified as a sale or a license—going to the artist/band.

Freemium: A New Business Model

Many of the subscription services such as Pandora, Spotify and Slacker Radio now available online operate on the freemium business model. Subscribers can receive some content for free, but if they want to take full advantage of the website then they need to pay a monthly subscription. Some subscription services have advertising-supported content for the free service, but the ads disappear when you pay for the premium service.

Melody

Melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm that creates a sequence of pitches in succession. On a musical staff, the melody is the horizontal (or linear) presentation of pitch. Many famous musical works from Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" to Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" have memorably melodies (if we are talking about an instrumental classical work, the term theme is usually used instead of melody). When you sing a song, you sing the melody—or as close as you can get.

Instruments

Musicians have a choice as to which instruments are used to play their music. A musical instrument is any object that can produce sound. Different instruments allow music to have tone color because of the variations in register and range, so the decisions regarding the instrumentation of a particular song can make a significant difference in how it sounds to listeners. The four commonly recognized families of instruments are: 1. Brass family: This group is made up of two types: (a) valved—trumpet, French horn, tuba; and (B) slide—trombone 2. Strings family: violin, viola, cello, double bass, guitar, sitar, electric bass, banjo, mandolin, ukulele, bouzouki 3. Woodwind family: This group is divided into two main types: (a) flutes—flute, piccolo, panpipes, ocarinas; and (b) reeds—clarinet, saxophone, oboe, bassoon, bagpipes 4. Percussion family: timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, glockenspiel, xylophone You can use the instruments above to come up with the standard configurations of a rock band or a symphony orchestra. However, there are other ways of group musical instruments, one of which is to focus on how the range of instruments reflects the different singing voices: -Soprano instruments: violin, flute, piccolo, soprano saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, oboe -Alto instruments: viola, alto saxophone, French horn, English horn, alto horn -Tenor instruments: guitar, tenor saxophone, trombone, tenor drum -Baritone instruments: cello, baritone saxophone, baritone horn, bass clarinet -Bass instruments: double bass, bass guitar, bass saxophone, tuba, bass drum A string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello) represent three of those voices, with a string quintet adding a fifth instrument (double bass) and a fourth voice. Timbre, also known as tone quality or tone color, refers to the quality of sound that distinguishes one particular instrument (or voice) from another. We can describe the sound of a musical instrument with terms such as "bright," "dark," "warm," or "harsh." Consequently, we can talk about a trumpet sounding "brassy or bright," while a French horn sounds "dark, thick, and warm" and a violin could be called "light and delicate."18 Another aspect of music we should consider here is dynamics, which has to do with the degree of loudness or softness of a piece of music. Composers make notations, using abbreviations or symbols, to tell musicians the loudness of a particular note or phrase (e.g., p or piano means "soft," while f or forte means loud). A crescendo is when the volume grows louder, while a diminuendo is when it gradually becomes softer.

Crooner

Name given to male singers of jazz standards, mostly from the Great American Songbook, usually backed by a full orchestra, big band, or piano. The term was originally meant ironically, denoting an emphatically sentimental and often emotional singing style made possible by the use of microphones.

Ray Charles (1930-2004)

Nicknamed "The High Priest of Soul," Charles pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues. He was so successful he became one of the first African-American musicians to be granted artistic control by a major record company. Rolling Stone ranked Charles as #10 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time," and #2 on their list of the "100 Greatest Singers of Al-Time." Best Known Songs: "What'd I Say, Pts. 1 & 2," "I Got a Woman," "Hit the Road Jack," "You Don't Know Me," "Georgia on My Mind."

Elvis Presley (1935-1977)

One of the biggest cultural icons of the twentieth century, Elvis was called "the King of Rock and Roll," and then, more simply, "the King." Sam Phillips, the boss of Sun Records, had been saying for years, "If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars." Philips wanted a singer who could bring to a broader audience the sound of the black musicians who were the main focus on the Sun label. Presley had that sound, and eventually the door would be opened for black music to thrive on its own terms. Presley had ten #1 albums and 18 #1 singles, including 11 in a row in 1956 starting with "Heartbreak Hotel." Best Known Songs: "Hound Dog," "Jailhouse Rock," "It's Now or Never," "Are You Lonesome Tonight," and "Suspicious Minds."

Introduction: The Nature of Popular Music

Popular Music used to be defined by "The Top 40." You had American Top 40 Originally as determined by the Billboard charts but now based on data from Mediabase, which monitors radio airplay. Radio stations with a "Top 40" format that pretty much restricted themselves to playing those singles and when you went to the record store the section devoted to 45s usually had a display of those hit songs numbered 1-40. As much as anything, each of the past eight decades of American history has been defined by the musical artists who were most popular during each decade: Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Eminem.

Promotion (The Business Model)

Press coverage would be the second most important way of promoting music. This involves everything from getting the cover of a magazine like Entertainment Weekly, having a story about the artist in Rolling Stone, giving an interview to a radio station, or having an album reviewed by a nationally syndicated columnist or writer for a local paper. The third key component would be performing the music, not only in concert, but also on television shows. Traditionally, the latter would mean showing up on The Today Show or The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon or a music award show like the Grammy Awards and performing the song, but today it is possible that an artist's song could be sung by some other performer. A contestant on The Voice or American Idol might sing a song, or it could be lip-synched by Jimmy Fallon, Emma Stone, or some other celebrity. Then there are the dozens of cover versions of a song posted by people on YouTube. Music videos became an important way for promoting music, especially during the early years of MTV when music videos actually constituted the majority of programming on the cable network. Artists can also have their music be part of the soundtrack for a motion picture. Having a song play during a key scene in a movie becomes its own sort of music video, so getting a song in a movie can be a big deal. Today an artist getting their music on video games or even as a ringtone are all ways of getting music to a wider audience. Stores can promote albums by setting up displays and having their sales staff list recommendations or personal favorites.

Copyright of Music

Songs are automatically copyrighted as soon as they exist in a tangible form, such as a recording or printed sheet music. However, in order for a songwriter to sue for copyright infringement the song should be registered with the copyright office at the Library of Congress. That registration should be completed before the song is released in the public domain by becoming available to hear on a website. There are different types of copyright involved with music: Public Performing Right — The exclusive right of the copyright owner to authorize the performance or transmission of the work in public. Public Performance License — On behalf of the copyright owner or their agent granting the right to perform the work in, or transmit the work to, the public. Reproduction Right — The exclusive right of the copyright owner to authorize the reproduction of a musical work in a record, cassette, or CD. Mechanical License — Granting a record company the right to reproduce and distribute a specific composition at an agreed upon fee per unit manufactured and sold. Additionally, there are synchronization licenses that grant the right to synchronize the musical composition with audiovisual images and a digital performance right in sound recordings to authorize Internet streaming. Consequently, pretty much every way that music can be performed, recorded, reproduced, or listened to be covered by copyright law. Once the song has been recorded and distributed publicly, "compulsory listing" comes into play and anybody who wants to can cover (record) it you song versus you song. Those who do so pay a statutory royalty rate, supply notice that they are going to release it, and send monthly royalty statements. However, cover artists are not allowed to make any changes to the words or melody or change the "fundamental character of the song" without the copyright owner's approval. However, such permission from the artist is not required when doing a parody of a song, since parodies are covered user fair use guidelines. In 1996, when "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded "Amish Paradise" as a parody of the hip-hop song "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio featuring L. V. (which was itself a reworking of "Pastime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder), he was told by his record label that Coolio had given his permission. Yankovic's practice has been to secure permission from the artists he parodies, even though he is not legally required to do so. Coolio later claimed that he had never given such permission and publicly stated he felt Yankovic's parody "desecrated the song." This created something of a controversy and it was never clear if Yankovic's label had lied to him or if Coolio had actually given permission and then changed his mind about being parodied. Yankovic wrote a sincere letter of apology to Coolio and years later Coolio said in an interview that his decision at that time to refuse the parody was "stupid," and that he found the parody to be "funny."

Labor Songs (Protest)

Swedish immigrant Joel Hägglund became a labor activist in America, better known as Joe Hill. A popular songwriter for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, also known as the "Wobblies"), his most famous songs included a parody of the hymn "In the Sweet By-and-By" entitled "The Preacher and the Slave" (1911), "Casey Jones—the Union Scab" (1911), "The Rebel Girl" (1911), and "There is Power in a Union" (1913). Following Hill's controversial execution in 1915 for murder, a poem entitled "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night" was turned into a song known simply as "The Ballad of Joe Hill" (1936), famously sung by Joan Baez at Woodstock. After Hill's death some of the most notable pro-union songs were "Bread and Roses," commonly associated with the successful textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912, "Solidarity Forever" (1915), and "Dump the Bosses Off Your Back" (1916). Also, on the eve of World War I, "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier" (1915) was one of the first protest songs arguing against American involvement in the European war. "1913 Massacre" was about the Italian Hall Disaster when 73 men, women, and children, mostly striking mine workers and their families, were crushed to death when somebody falsely shouted fire. "The Ludlow Massacre " told of a 1914 attack by the Colorado National Guard and Colorado Fuel & Iron Company camp guards on a tent colony of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families at Ludlow, Colorado where two dozen people, including wives and children, were killed.

Political Criticism

Ten years after the PMRC got its warning labels, politicians including not only President George H.W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle but also Tipper Gore, attacked Time Warner, accusing the corporation of supporting rap music with degrading and offensive lyrics. The main target of the politicians was the rapper Ice-T for his song "Cop Killer" on the 1992 self-titled debut album of his band Body Count. The song's lyrics were sung in the first person as a character fed up with police brutality. "Cop Killer" was met with strong opposition from critics, ranging from President Bush to law enforcement agencies, who demanded the album be taken off the shelves.

Portable Audio Format War #1: 8-Tracks vs Compact Cassette

The 8-track cartridge offered an endless loop tape, providing four programs of two (stereo) tracks each. If you had a single LP record with six songs on each side, track A would have songs 1, 2, and 3 from the first side; track B would have songs 4, 5, and 6 from the first side; track C would have songs 7, 8, and 9 from the second side; and track D songs 10, 11, and 12 from the second side. Switching programs during the playing of song 1 on track A would get you to song 4 on track B, song 7 on track C, and song 10 on track D. The popularity of the format was tied to the booming automobile industry. In 1965, the Ford Motor Company introduced both factory-installed and dealer-installed 8-track tape players as an option on three of its 1966 models (Mustang, Thunderbird, and Lincoln). A year later, all of Ford's vehicles offered the tape player upgrade option. Initially, these were separate players from the radio, but dashboard mounted 8-track units in combination with AM radio or AM/FM receivers were offered as well. Home players were introduced as well in 1966. Compact cassettes came in two forms: prerecorded or as a full recordable "blank" cassette. Originally designed for dictation machines, they became a portable format that could work with a tape deck player in an automobile or combined with a turntable and radio as part of a home stereo system likely to be found in a teenager's bedroom. Such systems made it very easy to make "mix tapes" or just record entire albums to be played elsewhere.

Failed Audio War C: CDs vs Mini CD

The Mini CD (also known as pocket CDs) was pretty much dead on arrival when it started showing up in stores. Most tray-loading CD devices have two "wells," one sized for a regular 120-mm CD or DVD, and a smaller, deeper well where Mini CDs will fit. There was a problem with the packaging, since the album art, linear notes, and lyrics were not going to work with the Mini-CD. More importantly, consumers simply did not want a CD that could not play very long, even if it was small enough to put in your shirt pocket.

Barbra Streisand (1942-)

The best-selling female artist of all time (the only female in the top ten and the only non-rock 'n' roll artist), with 33 top-ten albums (including a number-one album in each of the last six decades), Streisand achieved an unmatched level of artistry as a singer. Whitney Balliett of The New Yorker describes her as "a contralto with a couple of octaves at her command, and she wows her listeners with her shrewd dynamics (in-your-ear soft here, elbowing-loud there), her bravura climbs, her rolling vibrato, and the singular Streisand-from-Brooklyn nasal quality of her voice-a voice as immediately recognizable in its way as Louis Armstrong's."14 Best Known Songs: "Happy Days are Here Again," "People," "Don't Rain on My Parade," "The Way We Were," "Papa, Can You Hear Me?"

Business Model

The business model for the recording industry has remained essentially the same, even the impact of digital technology and the Internet, consisting of three main stages: creation, promotion, and distribution. 1. Creation. Traditionally, major record labels sign artists and then back them financially in creating and recording their music. You got a sense of how this process works in the previous section looking at the personnel making up the music industry. Because of that financial investment, the record labels have historically received the majority of the financial rewards, while the artists receive royalty payments of approximately 10 percent of gross (overall) sales. 2. Promotion. To make money, albums have to be bought by customers, so promoting artists and their music are the crucial part of the second stage. Being played on the radio has been the primary way of promoting music, which is one of the reasons major labels have enjoyed a huge advantage over the indie labels in getting their artists airplay (we will talk about the dark side of getting music played on the radio in the next chapter when we cover the payola scandal of the 1950s). 3. Distribution. Whatever the dominant format has been, record labels have made copies of the music and sent albums or CDs to local retail outlets that sell them to consumers. There are also online stores, such as Amazon, that can ship CDs to the customer's home (and many artists have websites where they can do the exact same thing, cutting out the middleman). Of course now you can immediately download an album from these websites and not have to wait for a physical copy of the album to arrive in the mail.

Audio Format War #2: Wax Cylinders vs Wax Discs (1900s-1910s)

The earliest disc records were made of various materials, including hard rubber. In the 1910s, wax discs, the first of the competing disc record systems, emerged as the winner in the marketplace and then became the dominant commercial audio medium once their sound quality was improved. Actually, "wax" discs were not made of wax, although Montan wax was part of the recipe. 10-inch discs that could play for 3 minutes were introduced in 1901, followed by 12-inch records that played for 4 minutes in 1903. Although Edison introduced Amberol cylinders with a maximum playing time of 4½ minutes, discs decisively won this format war.

Failed Audio Format War A: 33LPs vs Reel-to-Reel Tape (Late 1950s-1960s)

The earliest tape recorders used the reel-to-reel format and their primary use in the music industry was to record artists in the studio. However, in 1952, EMI started selling prerecorded tapes in Great Britain and RCA Victor joined the reel-to-reel business in 1954. Unlike an LP, where you could easily find the particular song you wanted to listen to on an album by counting the gaps in the grooves to get to the proper song. With reel-to-reel tape you had to fast forward and stop periodically to see where you were on an album. A tape recorder had a counter, but its reliable for gauging where songs were on a tape was suspect. People who were serious audiophiles invested in reel-to-reel tape libraries and the cumbersome threading of open-reel tape. There were limitations in that what was re-recorded was primarily classical music, soundtracks, original cast albums, and major pop stars. There were also Tape Clubs, where you could go and make copies of other tapes or record albums. But the format never became popular with the general public.

Campaign Songs (Protest)

The political nature of songs in the United States began with campaign songs, used in presidential contests, beginning with "The Hunters of Kentucky," used for candidate Andrew Jackson in 1824 and 1828. In 1840, Alexander Coffman Ross, wrote new lyrics for the minstrel song "Little Pigs" to create "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" for the Whig candidates William Henry Harrison, hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe, and John Tyler. Setting new words to established melodies like "Yankee Doodle" or "O Tannenbaum" became a standard practice. Franklin Roosevelt adopted "Happy Days Are Here Again" for his 1932 campaign, while John F. Kennedy had Frank Sinatra record a version of "High Hopes" for his run in 1960. In the 1960s songs were actually being written for candidates—Jerry Herman, who did the music for Mame and Hello Dolly! on Broadway wrote "Hello Lyndon" for Johnson in 1964, and four years later "Nixon's the One" was written for Richard Nixon. The last presidential campaign in which songs were written for the candidates came in 1976, with "Ode to the Georgia Farmer" for Jimmy Carter and "I'm Feeling Good about America" for Gerald Ford. In 1988, George H.W. Bush actually used Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land," while his opponent Michael Dukakis went with Neil Diamond's "America." On election night in 1992, Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" was played over and over again at the Clinton-Gore victory celebration. In the 2012 election, Mitt Romney went with "Born Free" by Kid Rock and "It's America" by Rodney Atkins, while Barack Obama countered with "We Take Care of Our Own" by Bruce Springsteen. However, more recently the stories about campaign songs have usually been about candidates appropriating songs only to have the artists publicly complain. The most famous example of this came in 1984, when columnist George Will praised the chorus of Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.," and President Ronald Reagan gave the song a shout out in a campaign speech, only to have Springsteen point to the lyrics of the verse as evidence the song did not mean what the candidate thought it meant. In 2015, the pro-union punk band Dropkick Murphys sent a message to candidate Scott Walker, who was using there "I'm Shipping Out to Boston"—the lyrics for which came from a poem by Woody Guthrie—tweeted "@ScottWaker @GovWalker please stop using our music in any way . . . we literally hate you!!! Love, Dropkick Murphys."9 At the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Donald Trump used "We are the Champions" by Queen for his entrance to introduce the speech by his wife Melania, his daughter Ivanka played "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles as she took the stage, and the celebratory balloon drop at the end of the convention played out to "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones. Both Queen and the George Harrison estate objected to the use of their songs, and the media covered the controversy, but without noting the irony that all three songs played at the American political convention were by British bands.

Timbre

The quality of a musical note, sound, or tone that distinguishes different types of voice and musical instruments, even when they have the same pitch and loudness. Also known as tone color or tone quality.

Rhythm

The rhythm of a piece is the element of time in music. If you tap your foot in time to the music you are "keeping the beat," which means you are following the structural rhythmic pulse of the music. There are three important aspects of rhythm: 1. Duration: how long a sound (or silence) lasts. 2. Tempo: the speed of the beat. In classical music, where Italian terms are often used as tempo indications, music can range from Largo (slow, 40-65 beats per minute), to Moderato (108-199), to Presto (very fast, 168-208 beats per minute). 3. Meter: beats organized into recognizable and/or recurring accent patterns. The tempo can speed up and/or slow down in a particular song. "Unplugged" music is obviously defined because of a change in instrumentation, primarily in moving from electric guitar to acoustic guitar, but often there is a corresponding decrease in the tempo of the song as well. For example, take the Beatles song "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and slow down the tempo, and suddenly it is not a happy song anymore, as Roger Ebert noted when that is what happened to the song in Across the Universe: "When Prudence sings 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' for example, I realized how wrong I was to ever think that was a happy song. It's not happy if it's a hand you are never, never, never going to hold. The love that dare not express its name turns in sadness to song."

Lyrics

The words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The meaning of lyrics can be either explicit or implicit. The words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. This practice can be traced back to ancient times (the term "lyrics" derives via Latin from the Greek adjectival form of "lyre"). Obviously, music does not have to have lyrics. Ludwig von Beethoven got all the way to the final movement of his final symphony without using lyrics and there have been many #1 songs that were instrumentals: "The Stripper" (1962), "Frankenstein" (1973), "Miami Vice Theme" (1985), and, most recently, Baauer's "Harlem Shake" (2013), although it does include samples of growling-lion sounds and Plastic Little's 2001 song "Miller Time" for the vocal "then do the Harlem Shake" (but while these are obviously words, they do not constitute "lyrics"). Dozens of websites feature the lyrics to your favorite songs, however, since many of these sites included copyrighted lyrics provided with the permission of the holders, the Music Publishers' Association (MPA) launched a legal campaign against such websites in 2005. Yahoo!, MetroLyrics and Lyrics.com are among those sites who have obtained licenses to publish lyrics.

Audio Format War #5: 78s vs 45s and 33LPs (1948-1951)

The7-inch 45-rpm record was introduced in 1949 by RCA as a smaller but more durable and higher fidelity replacement for the 78-rpm shellac discs. The first of these 45s were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. But as stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45-rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s. Columbia records introduced the long play (LP) or 33⅓-rpm vinyl record in 1948, and it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry, and has remained the standard format for vinyl albums to this day. Whereas 12-inch 78s had a laying time of less than 5 minutes per side, the new discs could play for more than 20 minutes, giving it a total advantage over shellac discs. The LPs were more expensive than the 45-rpm discs or the older 10-inch discs that survived until about 1955; a 45 single typically cost a dollar or less, while an album was priced at four dollars or more. Obviously, LPs were not intended for singles, which had been the main product of the music industry since its conception. The longer format proved idea for not only classical music, but also Broadway show tune and movie soundtrack albums. It turned out that when record companies discovered a song had become a hit on the radio, they would only issue it on an LP instead of a 45, forcing the public to buy the whole album to get the hit song.

Performance Royalties

These are the fees music users pay when music is performed publicly. This includes not only concert performances but also playing music over the radio, in a restaurant or bar, or over an online service like Pandora or Spotify. Performance rights organizations (PROs) such as Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI), American Society of Composers, Artists and Producers (ASCAP), and Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC), collect songwriting performance royalties from music users and then pay the publishers (songwriters and rights holders). Songwriters and rights holders can be two separate entities. For example, Michael Jackson bought the Beatles catalog. So while Paul McCartney and the estate of John Lennon receive performance royalties as the songwriters, the estate of Michael Jackson would receive the performance royalties as rights holders.

Mechanical Royalties

These are the fees paid to songwriters and artists when their music is licensed to appear on a CD or vinyl record, but also when music is streamed on-demand on providers like Spotify.

#1 Best Selling Album

Thriller by Michael Jackson

Audio Format War #6: Vinyl Discs vs CDs (1982)

Vinyl records did not break easily, which was why they were seen as being superior to shellac discs, but because they were made of soft material they were easily scratched and could be warped by heat or exposure to sunlight, as well as by improper storage. The CD is a digital optical data storage format that can hold up to about 80 minutes of uncompressed audio. When they were first introduced in 1982, a CD had a greater capacity that the hard drive on a personal computer (by 2010 hard drives would commonly have capacities exceeding that of CDs by a factor of several thousand). Unlike vinyl discs but similar to people using audiocassettes to make "mix tapes," CD technology allows consumers to "burn" their own discs. There were also rewritable CDs (CD-RW), which used a metallic alloy instead of a dye to record the music (the design life is from twenty to hundred years, depending on the quality on such factors as the quality of the discs, the quality of the writing drive, and storage conditions). In 1988, CDs accounted for just 22 percent of album sales. However, by 2001, that percentage was up to 91 percent and CDs had clearly won this format war.

Audio Format War #4: Shellac Discs vs Vinyl Discs (1940s-Late 1950s)

With the move from shellac to vinyl discs, the recording industry moves from the elite to the popular stage of development. The major problem with shellac discs was that they were brittle and had to be handled carefully, otherwise they would break. This happened a lot, although if the pieces were still loosely connected by the record's label they could still be played (until the needle passing over the cracks eventually broke the record player's stylus). Vinyl discs not only avoid breaking easily, they could have up to 260 groove walls per inch, whereas shellac discs were limited to 80-100 grove walls.