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Chapter 4 – Sound Recording & Popular Music
Bands like Radiohead, Amanda Palmer and Ok Go distribute albums and music videos online,
thereby reaching fans without the assistance of a record company.
I. The Development of Sound Recording
Before the Internet, the first major media convergence involved the relationship between the
sound recording and radio industries.
A. From Cylinders to Disks: Sound Recording Becomes a Mass Medium. Sound recording, like
most new media, passed through three developmental stages. The novelty stage involved
experimenting with hog’s-hair bristle as needles, connected to a vibrating membrane. In the
entrepreneurial stage, Thomas Edison envisioned the phonograph as a kind of answering
machine. In the mass medium stage, the gramophone and technology for record duplication
allowed people to collect and play back recordings.
B. From Phonographs to CDs: Analog Goes Digital. Several innovations advanced the sound
recording industry: magnetic audiotape, stereophonic sound, digital recording, and compact
discs.
C. Convergence: Sound Recording in the Internet Age. While music’s convergence with radio
saved the radio industry in the 1950s, music’s convergence with the Internet began to
unravel the music industry in the 2000s.
1. MP3s and File Sharing. The rise of MP3s in the late 1990s led to rampant illegal
downloading and file-swapping, which resulted in copyright lawsuits by artists and record
companies. The recording industry is now adapting its business to the digital age by
embracing legal downloading.
2. The Future: Music in the Stream, Music in the Cloud. New technologies may challenge
the prominence of the MP3 player, for new music formats, devices, and distribution
channels are in development.
D. The Rocky Relationship between Records and Radio. The free programming of radio
threatened the recording industry. The marriage of the two media eventually enabled both
to prosper.
II. U.S. Popular Music and the Formation of Rock
Popular music today includes a diverse number of styles.
A. The Rise of Pop Music. Pop music’s origins claim many influences, including the piano craze
of the early twentieth century, jazz, blues, and vaudeville.
B. Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay. Rock and roll hit in the 1950s and was considered the first
integrationist music in the United States.
1. Blues and R&B: The Foundation of Rock and Roll. Development of two musical
genres: blues and rhythm and blues.
ANTHONY J. HOOS, Adjunct Faculty | [email protected]
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2. Youth Culture Cements Rock and Roll’s Place. Rebellious teens in the 1950s are
attracted to rock music.
3. Racial Integration Expands Rock and Roll. A significant factor in the growth of rock
and roll was the breakdown of racial barriers between white and black cultures.
C. Rock Muddies the Waters. Rock and roll tested traditional boundaries in five critical ways.
1. High and Low Culture. Songs like “Roll over Beethoven” challenged the supremacy
of high culture.
2. Masculinity and Femininity. Rock-and-roll stars such as Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger,
and Little Richard often employed androgynous appearances, confusing issues of
sexuality.
3. The Country and the City. The rockabilly sound (Buddy Holly and Carl Perkins)
merged urban Memphis rhythms with Nashville country & western; rhythm and blues
spilled into rock and roll.
4. The North and the South. Many young northern middle-class teens loved the
southern lower-class-influenced rock and roll.
5. The Sacred and the Secular. Many of rock and roll’s early figures had close ties to
the church and gospel music.
D. Battles in Rock and Roll. Producers and performers experienced a great deal of
resistance in popularizing rock and roll.
1. White Cover Music Undermines Black Artists. Clean-cut white artists were employed
to cover black performers, who were considered too controversial in the racist
atmosphere of the 1950s.
2. Payola Scandals Tarnish Rock and Roll. Payola is the paying of deejays or radio
programmers by record promoters to play their labels’ songs.
3. Fears of Corruption Lead to Censorship. By late 1959, the disruptive early figures of
rock and roll had largely been replaced by a new generation of clean-cut white singers.
III. A Changing Industry: Reformations in Popular Music
In the 1960s, rock music was beginning to spread out in several directions.
A. The British Are Coming! In 1964, the Beatles, with their new fashions and
reinterpretations of American blues and rock, opened the door for the “British invasion.”
B. Motor City Music: Detroit Gives America Soul. The independent Motown label from
Detroit nourished soul and black popular music.
C. Folk and Psychedelic Music Reflect the Times. Folk music brought a political edge to the
popular scene, while rock turned psychedelic and then went mainstream.
1. Folk Inspires Protest. From its simple, democratic origins, folk became “finger
pointin’” music that addressed social injustices.
2. Rock Turns Psychedelic. The link among alcohol, drugs, and music became much
more public in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
ANTHONY J. HOOS, Adjunct Faculty | [email protected]
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D. Punk, Grunge, and Alternative Respond to Mainstream Rock. Punk rock raised its
anarchic head in mid-1970s Britain with the Sex Pistols. Punk was reinterpreted as grunge in
the early 1990s with groups like Nirvana.
1. Punk Revives Rock’s Rebelliousness. Punk rock rose in the late 1970s to challenge
the orthodoxy and commercialism of the record business.
2. Grunge and Alternative Reinterpret Rock. The grunge scene updated punk and represented a significant development in rock in the 1990s.
E. Hip-Hop Redraws Musical Lines. A political form of black music, rap emerged in the late
1970s.
F. The Reemergence of Pop. Television shows like American Idol and Glee, as well as
online retailers like iTunes, have led to the flourishing of pop music in recent years.
IV. The Business of Sound Recording
The sound recording industry is controlled by a global oligopoly of companies. A. Music
Labels Influence the Industry. Although recording industry sales have dropped since
2000, the U.S. and global music business constitutes a powerful oligopoly.
1. Fewer Major Labels Control More Music. Together, three companies control
nearly 90 percent of the recording industry market in the United States.
2. The Indies Spot the Trends. Independent labels produce 11 to 15 percent of America’s
music.
B. Making, Selling, and Profiting from Music. The music business is divided into several areas.
1. Making the Music. Recording companies are generally driven by A&R (artists and
repertoire) agents, the talent scouts of the music business.
2. Selling the Music. The Internet has become a major venue for selling and downloading.
3. Dividing the Profits. The process of dividing revenue among record labels,
composers, and performers varies according to the method of distribution.
C. Alternative Voices. A number of recording artists have succeeded in the music industry
without signing with a major label.
1. Independent Record Labels. Indies play a major role as the music industry’s risk
takers.
2. The Internet and Promoting Music. Band Web sites have become a key selfpromotional tool, but social media sites and video sites have made it even easier to
promote albums, upload videos, and interact with fans. Some unknown artists have
found the Internet especially useful in establishing a presence and attracting record
labels.
V. Sound Recording, Free Expression, and Democracy
ANTHONY J. HOOS, Adjunct Faculty | [email protected]
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Popular music today is confronted with direct censorship over explicit lyrics and indirect
censorship via corporate control.
ANTHONY J. HOOS, Adjunct Faculty | [email protected]
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