Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Constants and variables 85, boomy and muddy edition
Another day, another stupid metadata study. This one asks whether the Beatles were "groundbreaking", based on tracking descriptions of styles in Billboard magazine.
Professor Leroi said the data shows a 1964 revolution that was all about music becoming more "aggressive". But The Beatles did not contribute to that change in the music. "They're not making that revolution, they're joining it," he said. "This revolution — and you can see it in the numbers in the charts — actually begins long before 1963 ... even earlier, where our data don't go.**"The conclusion is extremely unsurprising. The Beatles didn't claim to be groundbreaking; they always gave credit to Elvis and Buddy and Orbison and others. Where the Beatles broke out of conventional trends, they were reclaiming OLD ground, not creating new. British music hall songs from 1910, some classical styling, some '30s swing. = = = = = Convective thought: You could also study pop music history through the lens of audio circuitry at radio stations, specifically frequency filters and companders. The attack and release time of AGC and companders, the shaping of bass boost for speech vs music inputs. These ckts changed with the music, and can be seen easily via good old American Radio History, from 1910 to the present. You can sometimes hear a proper constants and variables difference in OTR clips that were recorded from "nostalgia" broadcasts in the 70s. The announcer, using 70s emphasis ckts on his mic, sounds boomy and muddy. The 1930 radio, played from a transcription disk, is unprocessed and clear. = = = = = ** Why did you start at 1960? Good old American Radio History has almost every issue of Billboard since 1936, in easily accessible digital form.
Labels: Blinded by Stats, Constants and Variables
¶ 8:21 AM
