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In the garden of Eden

Paul's Posts — 05 May 2012

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In the garden of Eden

In the late 1960′s the way music was played over the airwaves was going through a major shift, much like it is today.

For many years only songs of less than about 4 minutes were ever played on commercial radio and between songs we had fast talking DJ’s (of which I was one).  Then along came the AOR (album oriented rock) phase where longer cuts of music were played in a less hype oriented fashion.  It was this new era of radio that I first cut my teeth on.

My first shift on the air was at a local FM station in Garden Grove California, KTBT Underground Radio.  The station was owned by the descendants of Emil Berliner the inventor of the phonograph, the founder of Deutsche Grammophon as well as credited with the invention of the microphone.

When I first started broadcasting, the Door’s Light My Fire was about the longest track we played until the day Iron Butterfly’s Innagadadavita was approved on the station for play.  20 minutes long it was a hit with the audience and the air staff – the audience never hearing anything this long on the radio, the air staff given a 20 minute break to walk outside the studio.

Soon every group had to have their long cut to be accepted into the “underground” radio cult and to be honest, over time it got rather boring as a DJ.  The two most requested tracks of the day were Peter Frampton’s Do You Feel LIke We do and Iron Butterfly.

Meanwhile the AM stations, known as Top 40 radio, tried to capitalize on the trend by playing truncated versions of the tracks – still keeping them under 4 minutes – completely and utterly missing the point of AOR.  This lack of understanding and high fidelity sound eventually led to their downfall. To this day when I hear the edited versions of Innagadadavida, Free Ride, MaCarthur’s Park and many other butchered pieces, it still turns my stomach.

This doesn’t have much to do with high-end audio, just a good memory about the evolution of music.

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About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(10) Readers Comments

  1. Ladderman

    May 5, 2012 at 5:12 am

    Funny you should mention long tracks. Earlier today I played all 22min 37sec. of Jethro Tull’s – Thick As A Brick LP (loud). Fantastac album and as I mentioned the other day I enjoy reading the cover info and this has to be one of the all time best.

  2. Terry Franklin

    May 5, 2012 at 9:56 am

    I worked at the student radio station at the University of Kansas. (Wilt Chamberlain was also a DJ there before I arrived.) There were no restroom facilities so DJs would put on Innagadadavita which allowed suitable time to seek relief. I think from memory it was about seventeen minutes long. Incidentally I hated the song then and still do now.

    Between the Iron Butterfly and fretting over the alleged death of Paul McCartney, it was stressing times. Thankfully I was able to drown my sorrow in the company of Hippie Chicks, along with some nourishing soft drinks.

  3. laridave

    May 5, 2012 at 9:58 am

    It is strange that there is such a hue and cry about “the death of the album” and such focus on the length of the track. What we ought to focusing on is the music itself and the audio quality of the music recording.

    There is nothing special or magic about “the album”. The album, as Paul points out in his post “The death of the Album?”, was only the result of the then available technology, i.e. beginning in the late 1940s an LP could fit about 40 minutes of music on two sides on an LP, expanding to a max of 50 minutes or a little more by the late 60s; beginning in the 80s a CD could fit 74 minutes of music on a single sided CD disc, expanding to a max of 80 minutes by the mad-1990s. Musicians, or more accurately record producers, strove to record enough music to more or less fill up the available time on the probably accurate supposition that nobody would buy an LP or a CD with something like only10 minutes of music. – that would just have been regarded as a rip off.

    From a musician’s point of view, the longer recording time of the LP and later the CD was freedom. It made it possible to record longer and more complex works and release them complete, without interruptions or abridgement. For example when Sir Ronald Landon made the first recording of Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun in 1911, 27 measures had to be cut from the piece so it would be short enough to fit on two sides of a 12 inch 78rpm record. Even with the cuts there still had to be a break in the middle so the record could be turned over – or for single sided releases, the second record put on the turntable. Until the advent of the the LP in the late forties any work longer than about 4 1/2 minutes had to be broken up – both on the released records AND in the recording studio (everything was recorded direct to disc.tape wasn’t used). Thus everything was recorded in discreet 4 to 4 1/2 minute bits. A continuous organic recording of a complete work was only possible by running several recording machines consecutively – which was rarely done. Musicians were usually confronted with the stop and go option which presented difficulties of maintaining any sort of flow or even maintaining the same tempo from section to section. Actually many artists “finished off” each 4 minute segment with a ritard. From the point of view of the recording musician imagine the freedom the 20 to 25 minute LP side allowed. From the listeners perspective imagine the luxury of being able to listen to an entire piece – or at least a complete movement – without the interruptions while the next record was put on and the music resumed again.

    Two other huge changes happened in the late 1940s. (1) the advent of recording on reel to reel tape, which allowed recording both longer AND shorter musical segments since tape could be spliced and recordings edited and (2) the advent of wide frequency response recording which came close the limits of human hearing (roughly 20 – 20,000 hz.). This coupled with the longer time limit of LPs heralded the beginning of real audiophile – the just called hi-fi – recording. (Note Bell Labs and British EMI had most of this technology – including wide spectrum recording, 33 1/2 rpm discs and even stereo although not yet high fidelity tape – by the early 1930s but it was not used commercially until after WWII.)

    The longer CD time limit gave musicians even more freedom. As Paul notes it became possible to fit even Beethoven 9 on one CD. No flipping the records. (On LP Beethoven 9 usually fits on 3 sides. Oops. what are you gonna put on LP side 4?)

    In fact the 4 minute pop AM radio time limit initially came not from some perverse rule imposed by AM pop radio but rather from the 78 rpm record time limit, a time limit that persisted well into the 1960s, reinforced by the 45rpm single. ( Arguably from a musical perspective its difficult to go much longer than 4 minutes with a 3 chord pop song but also arguably the idea of a 3 to 4 minute 3 chord pop song was itself derived by the 78rpm record time limit. On the other hand, long before recording existed, Schubert wrote a slew of beautiful songs few of which are longer than 4 minutes.)

    Musicians recorded and released 2 to 4 minute “singles” on 78s and 45s from approximately 1890 to 1970. More recently iTunes and mp3 downloads and Facebook have revived the short pop single medium. I don’t see that there’s any reason to get upset about the fact that some are again “cherry picking” the pop singles they want rather than buying albums. There’s no evidence that music has suffered from the 4 minute single. Nellie Melba, Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, and Elvis all primarily recorded “singles”. The music is still pretty good and the level of artistry is still high. And they all performed longer works, if only “live”. People have always bought singles too. Presumably at least some of these people learn something about music and go on to investigate more music, in the process becoming more sophisticated.

    Yes “the album” had some packaging. Sometime in the 40s somebody – probably an ad man – realized that the physical medium allowed for some packaging. The 12″ X 12″ LP sleeve could be thought of as a sort of poster with a title and cover art of some kind on the front and liner notes on the back. (Interestingly the 78 record sleeve or suitcase for multiple 78s was not generally used this was – most packaging was monochromatic with at most a title, usually on the spine of the 78 suitcase. The relevant information was printed on the 78 label on the record itself.) The CD jewel box also had some room for cover art but being smaller there was little room for liner notes. Somebody came up with the idea of a booklet which could be packaged inside the CD box and provide room for liner notes and further information, actually even more room than the back of the LP cover. (Nowadays some CDs come with “bonus packaging” – computer accessible tracks containing whatever the packager wants – video, photos, more notes, you name it. the only limitation is the available space on the CD.) At its best – the Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour” album with the Peter Max cover for example – the album packaging could be a terrific work in itself and become a relevant and wonderful package along with the music. But lets face it. most LP / CD packages have nothing at all to do with the music. For ex., the Sistine Chapel is beautiful; so is a Beethoven symphony; but there is absolutely no relevant connection between them even though they may be packaged together on an album. Liner notes may be interesting. Sometimes they are good but usually not. (I had a musicology professor in grad school at Eastman whose harshest put down was to say ones paper “sounded like liner notes”.)

    The arguments about some supposed impact on musician’s recording contracts are also spurious. As it stands now the “stars” negotiate their own contracts which will respond to market forces. I’m sure record companies won’t negotiate as juicy a contract for a single as for an album length collection of songs. For the rest of the musicians, recording contracts are pretty well set and paid at a set rate by the amount of music recorded – the current standard contract specifies that a maximum of 15 minutes of music can be recorded in a 2 1/2 hour session. Less than 15 minutes pays a full session; more than 15 minutes requires paying for more than one session. Usually pop tunes are recorded by overdubbing and mixing together individual track with multiple takes and retakes. Two 4 minute pop tunes pretty easily fill up a 2 1/2 hour session – or more. Little about recording contracts needs to or is likely to change.

    From all perspectives it seems to me there is nothing but good coming from the demise of the “album”. Musicians can record as long or as short a work as they want completely unfettered by any time limitation of the medium. Audio quality can only improve. It already has. There is no longer the need to fit everything into the CD 16 bit 44.1 kHz standard. There’s no longer the need to fill up a arbitrary length format, either too long or too short nor any need for the listen to clutter up his space with physical artifacts; your entire collection – in super audio fidelity – can fit onto a hard drive and be easily accessed and sorted. If people want artwork and liner notes anything at all can be packaged with the audio and similarly accessed from the hard drive. Consider for a moment that a lot of kids access a good portion of their music from you tube WITH SIMULTANEOUS VIDEO; that most current pop music is packaged with or comes as “music video”; that even the iPod has pretty snazzy visuals on its little screen. Unfortunately all this audio is pretty lousy – and lossy – mp3. But it doesn’t have to be lossy mp3 audio at all.

    Its time to get with the 21st century and with better media and higher audio quality and recognize “the album” as an artifact from the past.

    And lets focus on the music and the audio quality and recognize that all the rest is extraneous packaging that rarely has anything whatsoever to do with the music.

  4. mykyll2727

    May 5, 2012 at 10:17 am

    Paul_I’m not trying to be a stickler, but the actual title of the song by Iron Butterfly is In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

    • Terry Franklin

      May 5, 2012 at 11:04 am

      Paul,

      See what I get for trusting you.

      • May 5, 2012 at 5:28 pm

        You should never trust me Terry – heck, while you were going to the bathroom during the 17 minutes, I was just discovering pot.

    • May 5, 2012 at 5:27 pm

      No one ever accused me of being able to either write or spell properly.

  5. laridave

    May 5, 2012 at 10:51 am

    I should have added in previous comments about length of recordings and “The Death of the Album” that the thorny issue is not “musician’s contracts” but INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS.

    Once music – or books or movies or photos or anything – is digitized it becomes extraordinarily easy to copy and transmit it. It becomes for practical purposes “open source”. Given this state of affairs it is extremely difficult to figure out how any of the musicians – or composers or conductors or recording engineers or record company – or authors or artists – will effectively retain any intellectual property rights or be compensated at all for their work.

    This situation just gets worse as higher and higher quality digital formats become the norm. They are just as easily losslessly copied and transmitted and there is no reason for the buyer to go out and buy the better quality original as was the case for example with a home made cassette copy of a CD.

    “Copy protection” has generally not worked. It is too easily circumvented.

    The issue of how musicians are paid for singles as opposed to how they are paid for albums is moot unless a way is figured out to compensate anyone involved at all.

  6. oliver T. Finch

    May 5, 2012 at 8:25 pm

    Fascinating. Thank you for the journey back in time. Regards.

  7. Gannon

    May 7, 2012 at 7:42 am

    When I DJ’d at the UofM-Dearborn campus on the early Friday shift…my coffee/bathroom break a lengthy Herbie Hancock piece on one of the Monterey Jazz Festival albums, if I remember correctly.

    I could walk down from our ‘perch’, hit the head, grab breakfast and a coffee…AND flirt through the student center…all while listening for one particular solo which meant get my butt back in the chair for the next song.

    You did it again, Paul. Tickled a serious memory…and it IS pretty funny how many similar paths so many of us have taken through life…LOL!

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