Podcast Project 2

Independent Research entry

For this week four blog-entry, I wanted to talk about Lester William Polsfuss, better known to the world as Les Paul. Les Paul was an American country and jazz guitarist, songwriter, and inventor.  He is often credited with many recording innovations such as ‘sound on sound’, tape delay, phasing effects, and multi-track recording even though he was not the first to use the techniques. He was also a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar, even though some say he created the solid-body guitar. Either way, thanks to that innovation, we have the Rock & Roll sound. He was also involved in the development of the Sel-Sync technology, which led to the first commercially released, overdubbed recording, made on multi-track magnetic tape “Lover (When You’re Near Me)” by Les Paul. You can hear Paul’s innovations all over popular music today. Overdubbing, for example, is a common technique inside recording studios today just like tape delay and multi-track recording especially. Overdubbing, if you may not know, is also known as ‘Sound on Sound’, and is a technique to add a missing part to a previously recorded record, such as a guitar or piano solo. Vocalists use this technique a lot to harmonize with themselves, but overdubbing has many uses.  His inventions were so influential that he is one of a handful of artist with a permanent, stand-alone exhibit in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The Les Paulverizer was also a huge invention and a game-changer, which he often called his little black box. This was basically a looping device that captured anything fed into it and then played back for other parts to be captured in the loop. This was a one-man band’s best friend. As a listener, Les Paul was one of the best master guitar players of our time, and as a music professional, Les Paul is simply an influential innovator and a genius.

Electronic Music Innovations

The artist I chose for the Electronic Music Innovations blog is Kraftwerk since that band is already the topic for today.

Kraftwerk’s impact was that signature sound they had with repetitive rhythms & catchy melodies, and strictly electronic instrumentation, which is being heard a lot in today’s pop music. The group also used a lot of simplified lyrics that they also put through vocoders or generated by computer-speech hardware, which is also heard a lot in pop music today.

Kraftwerk were influenced by electronic composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Tangerine Dream. The influence lead them to create minimalist music on synths, drum machines, and tape recorders. The Beach Boys were also an influence on the band. On the track Autobahn, the part that says, “Fun fun fun on the autobahn,” section is heavily influenced by them. Hutter specifically admired the experimentation on the “Pet Sounds” album.

Kraftwerk as a band is very influential because how they were not scared to experiment and became one of the most revolutionary bands of that genre.

Kraftwerk Electronic Music Entry

Kraftwerk was a german electric band that was brought together by Ralf Hutter & Florian Schneider in 1970. The name Kraftwerk means “Power Plant” or “Power Station”. They were one of the first groups to popularize electronic music and are considered pioneers in that field.

Kraftwerk’s distinctive sound is known as very revolutionary and influencial to later bands and music.

Autobahn was released in November 1974 and it was the electronic band’s fourth studio album. The 22minute Autobahn track was edited to about 3minutes for the single release. It is the first of Kraftwerk’s concept albums.

Radio-Activity was released October 1975 and was their fifth studio album. It was also a bilingual album featuring both lyrics in English & German. It was the first entirely self-produced kraftwerk album.

Trans-Europe Express was released in 1977 on Kling Klang Records.

The Man-Machine is the seventh studio album released in May 1978. The song “The Model” was a chart topping single in the UK in 1982. It was the first time Karl Bartos got songwriting credits on a Kraftwerk album.

Computer World released in May 1981 deals with the rise of computers within society. Some say this is when kraftwerk was at their peak of their career. Karl Bartos returns to getting composition credits on this album also. The album sound is now more reliant purely on electronics & vocals. As with all the past albums, there were both German and English versions.

Kraftwerk’s music concepts were pretty amazing; for example, Autobahn’s concept was the huge German highway with no speed limit, Trans-Europe Express was about the train system in Germany, and Computer World was about the rise of the use of computers in the community.

As a listener, some of Kraftwerk’s older works are a little hard for me to listen too.  I like the sounds of the Trans-Europe Express and The Man-Machine. As an industry professional I can see Kraftwerk influence in today’s pop music.

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

1. When Marvin Gaye first signed to Motown Records, he had a contract as a session drummer before releasing his first R&B singles in 1961. He had a four octave vocal range. A lot of his music was about love, drugs, and political views.

2.  Marvin Gaye’s lyrics on What’s Going On are influenced heavily by love, drug usage (in Flyin High for example), poverty, the Vietnam war,  and concerns for the future of the youth.

3. Berry Gordy from Motown said that What’s Going On was the worst record he had ever heard in his life, in attempts to keep Marvin Gaye from releasing it. Gordy feared that the song in which the main topic was anti-war, would ruin Gaye’s image to the public as Motown’s sex symbol. Eventually the song was released on January 17^th, 1971 with very little promotion, after having semi-violent disagreements between Berry & Marvin for recording the track. After selling more than 2 million singles, an album was requested.

4. Before the release of What’s Going On, there was really no song talking about drug abuse, pollution, poverty, and taxes coming from Motown Records. The mixture of funk, jazz, classical, and Latin soul arrangements departed the album from the usual “Motown Sound”. This album was self-produced, since he had no help from the Motown staff. He made it into a concept album in how each song had a theme and from track to track there was a segue flow into each other.

5.  Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On leaves me with a sense of inspiration seeing as how he talked about everyday-problems, issues with society, and even simple things such as love. The album is definitely one of my personal favorites, and you can hear pieces that have been used as samples in hip-hop which is how I first found out about who Marvin Gaye was.

The Velvet Underground & Nico

1. They were almost an art band, due to their relationship with Andy Warhol and his relationship to pop art. The original members were Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and were usually accompanied by singer, Nico. Their album The Velvet Underground & Nico is known as the first alternative rock album ever.

2. Lou Reed – born March 2^nd 1942, and real name Lewis Allan Reed. He usually wrote about personal experiences including drugs and sexuality.  He was a guitarist and vocalist for the group.

John Cale – born March 9^th 1942, his main instrument was an electric viola, but also played a bass guitar, a piano and did occasional backing vocals for some tracks.

3. Andy Warhol – Promoted, produced, and supported The Velvet Underground.

They played music for the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia roadshow.

4. Art and Pop music were brought together by Andy and the Velvet Underground, and was a part of his enterprise composed of art, music, & movies.

He had the Exploding Plastic Inevitable -originally called Erupting Plastic Inevitable-which combined Andy’s pop art with the velvet’s music along with other visuals. This made them one of the most influential rock groups of the 1960s. Without this group, Punk Rock would probably not exist today.

5. As a listener, the velvet underground has some dark, yet calming tracks. Some a little bit confusing and out there where I don’t know what they are talking about, but all have a good sound to them as far as the instrumentation.

Beach Boys - Pet Sounds