The Beatles. The Beach Boys. Blur, Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Kate Bush and Coldplay. EMI was one of the big four record companies, with some of the biggest names in the history of recorded music on its roster. Dominating the music industry for over 100 years, by 2010 EMI Group had reported massive pre-tax losses. The group was divided up and sold in 2011. How could one of the greatest recording companies of the 20th century have ended like this? With interviews from insiders and music industry experts, Eamonn Forde pieces together the tragic end to a financial juggernaut and a cultural institution in forensic detail. The Final Days of EMI: Selling the Pig is the story of the British recording industry, laid bare in all its hubris and glory.

In this book, Barbara Ellison and Thomas B. W. Bailey lay out and explore the mystifying and evanescent musical territory of 'sonic phantoms': auditory illusions within the musical material that convey a 'phantasmatic' presence. Structured around a large body of compositional work developed by Ellison over the past decade, sonic phantoms are revealed and illustrated as they arise through a diverse array of musical sources, materials, techniques, and compositional tools: voices (real and synthetic), field recordings, instrument manipulation, object amplification, improvisation, and recording studio techniques. Somehow inherent in all music--and perhaps in all sound--sonic phantoms lurk and stalk with the promise of mystery and elevation. We just need to conjure them.

In Performance and Technological Mediation in Popular Music, the relationship between performance, technological mediation, and the sense of live presence is investigated through a series of case studies related to popular music products. Alessandro Bratus explores technological mediation as a process of authentication that involves a chain of interconnected instances that have their roots in the cultural context in which the media products are designed to be marketed, and that also shape its recording technique and post-production. The book analyzes posthumous records, a peculiar case of the organization of recorded tracks made in absentia of their original performers that puts forward the possibility of an “otherworldly” collaboration between the living and the dead. Bratus also argues that the crucial significance of live performance for the construction of a personal, intimate relationship between performers and audiences reverberates in the audiovisual construction of the filmed concert, in which the spectator is put in the position of a witness rather than an active participant.

Known as the "Father of Festival Sound," Bill Hanley (b. 1937) made his indelible mark as a sound engineer at the 1969 WoodStock Music and Arts Fair. Hanley is credited with creating the sound of WoodStock, which literally made the massive festival possible. Stories of his on-the-fly solutions resonate as legend among festivalgoers, music lovers, and sound engineers. Since the 1950s his passion for audio has changed the way Audiences listen to and technicians approach quality live concert sound. John Kane examines Hanley's echoing impact on the entire field of sound engineering, that crucial but often-overlooked carrier wave of contemporary music. Hanley's innovations founded the sound reinforcement industry and launched a new area of technology, rich with clarity and intelligibility. By the early seventies the post-WoodStock festival mass gathering movement collapsed. The music industry shifted, and new sound companies surfaced. After huge financial losses and facing stiff competition, Hanley lost his hold on a business he helped create. By studying both his history during the festivals and his independent business ventures, Kane seeks to present an honest portrayal of Hanley and his acumen and contributions. Since 2011, Kane conducted extensive research, including over one hundred interviews with music legends from the Production and performance side of the industry. These carefully selected respondents witnessed Hanley's expertise at various events and venues like Lyndon B. Johnson's second inauguration, the Newport Folk/Jazz Festivals, the Beatles' final tour of 1966, the Fillmore East, Madison Square Garden, and more. The Last Seat in the House will intrigue and inform anyone who cares about the modern music industry.

"King of the Queen City" is the first comprehensive history of King Records, one of the most influential independent record companies in the history of American music. Founded by businessman Sydney Nathan in the mid-1940s, this small outsider record company in Cincinnati, Ohio, attracted a diverse roster of artists, including James Brown, the Stanley Brothers, Grandpa Jones, Redd Foxx, Earl Bostic, Bill Doggett, Ike Turner, Roy Brown, Freddie King, Eddie Vinson, and Johnny "Guitar" Watson. While other record companies concentrated on one style of music, King was active in virtually all genres of vernacular American music, from blues and R & B to rockabilly, bluegrass, western swing, and country.

A progressive company in a reactionary time, King was led by an interracial creative and executive staff that redefined the face and voice of American music as well as the way it was recorded and sold. Drawing on personal interviews, research in newspapers and periodicals, and deep access to the King archives, Jon Hartley Fox weaves together the elements of King's success, focusing on the dynamic personalities of the artists, producers, and key executives such as Syd Nathan, Henry Glover, and Ralph Bass. The book also includes a foreword by legendary guitarist, singer, and songwriter Dave Alvin.

Vinyl Records and Analog Culture in the Digital Age: Pressing Matters examines the resurgence of vinyl record technologies in the twenty-first century and their place in the history of analog sound and the recording industry. It seeks to answer the questions: why has this supposedly outmoded format made a comeback in a digital culture into which it might appear to be unwelcome? Why, in an era of disembodied pleasures afforded to us in this age of cloud computing would listeners seek out this remnant of the late nineteenth century and bring it seemingly back from the grave? Why do many listeners believe vinyl, with its obvious drawbacks, to be a superior format for conveying music to the relatively noiseless CD or digital file? This book looks at the ways in which music technologies are both inflected by and inflect human interactions, creating discourses, practices, disciplines, and communities.

With this all-in-one manual, students and teachers have an easy-to-read reference that provides a reliable and current rundown of the world of sound production, from planning a recording session to mastering the final product. Organized by four main topics - pre-production, recording various instruments, mixing theories and tools, and mastering - Audio Production Principles follows the actual flow of instruction given over the course of a student's tenure. Chapters address etiquette and basic operations for any recording session written in useful, tutorial style language, providing guidelines for beginner audio engineers on topics including pre-production, equipment selection, and mixing tips by instrument. Jumpstarting the mastering process, lessons delve into features unique to specific tools and techniques. All sections offer instructional scenarios of studio setups, asking students to brainstorm the best production technique for each situation. These exercises also help teachers generate new ideas for instruction and production projects of their own.

Widespread distribution of recorded music via digital networks affects more than just business models and marketing strategies; it also alters the way we understand recordings, scenes and histories of popular music culture. This Is Not a Remix uncovers the analog roots of digital practices and brings the long history of copies and piracy into contact with contemporary controversies about the reproduction, use and circulation of recordings on the internet. Borschke examines the innovations that have sprung from the use of recording formats in grassroots music scenes, from the vinyl, tape and acetate that early disco DJs used to create remixes to the mp3 blogs and vinyl revivalists of the 21st century. This is Not A Remix challenges claims that 'remix culture' is a substantially new set of innovations and highlights the continuities and contradictions of the Internet era. Through an historical focus on copy as a property and practice, This Is Not a Remix focuses on questions about the materiality of media, its use and the aesthetic dimensions of reproduction and circulation in digital networks. Through a close look at sometimes illicit forms of composition-including remixes, edits, mashup, bootlegs and playlists-Borschke ponders how and why ideals of authenticity persist in networked cultures where copies and copying are ubiquitous and seemingly at odds with romantic constructions of authorship. By teasing out unspoken assumptions about media and culture, this book offers fresh perspectives on the cultural politics of intellectual property in the digital era and poses questions about the promises, possibilities and challenges of network visibility and mobility.

From behind the walls of a handful of well-hidden, unlikely recording studios in the Los Angeles area, legends-in-waiting created masterpiece albums. It was a time of astonishing creativity and unprecedented fame and fortune. It was also a time of unfettered excess that threatened to unravel everything along the way. With access that only a longtime music business insider can provide, Kent Hartman packs Goodnight, L.A. with never-before-told stories about the most prolific time and iconic place in rock 'n' roll history. He brings the stories to life through new in-depth interviews with classic rock artists and famous producers. What Hartman's The Wrecking Crew was to pop singles, AM radio, and the '60s, Goodnight, L.A. is to album cuts, FM radio, and the high-flying, hard-rocking '70s and '80s.

It was a time when music fans copied and traded recordings without permission. An outraged music industry pushed Congress to pass anti-piracy legislation. Yes, that time is now; it was also the era of Napster in the 1990s, of cassette tapes in the 1970s, of reel-to-reel tapes in the 1950s, even the phonograph epoch of the 1930s. Piracy, it turns out, is as old as recorded music itself. In Democracy of Sound, Alex Sayf Cummings uncovers the little-known history of music piracy and its sweeping effects on the definition of copyright in the United States. When copyright emerged, only visual material such as books and maps were thought to deserve protection; even musical compositions were not included until 1831. Once a performance could be captured on a wax cylinder or vinyl disc, profound questions arose over the meaning of intellectual property. Is only a written composition defined as a piece of art? If a singer performs a different interpretation of a song, is it a new and distinct work? Such questions have only grown more pressing with the rise of sampling and other forms of musical pastiche. Indeed, music has become the prime battleground between piracy and copyright. It is compact, making it easy to copy. And it is highly social, shared or traded through social networks-often networks that arise around music itself. But such networks also pose a counter-argument: as channels for copying and sharing sounds, they were instrumental in nourishing hip-hop and other new forms of music central to American culture today. Piracy is not always a bad thing. An insightful and often entertaining look at the history of music piracy, Democracy of Sound offers invaluable background to one of the hot-button issues involving creativity and the law.