Don’t tell me it was a difficult one! The lovely Natalie Cole is our track of the week being introduced with that perfect combination of piano, claps with a funny bass and then her voice, big bass, strings and brass section. It’s impossible to not smile to that intro and move your head with the rhythm.
I’m going to bring back something I said on last post. This happened during the Golden Age of Music. There’s no other time in history where music erupted in an unimaginable way. The trigger was the arrival of multi-tracking recording studios. Multi-tracking allows the composer to record different parts of the song and edit them separately. First there were only three tracks, soon four, then eight, and now 24+ is the standard. With multi-tracking one could also record, play and record again (overdubbing) to create a richer or “thicker” sound. Many other techniques suddenly became possible: time alteration, cutting, looping, echo, Leslie speakers, etc.
During this era, all these pioneering techniques allowed the creation of music that could not be played live and albums became much more precious than before. They revealed intriguing, out-of-this-world music with experimental (often psychedelic) sounds, further adding to the Rock mania that was already taking place. Famous producers like George Martin, Brian Wilson and Phil Spector were extremely fast in unraveling all the secrets multi-tracking could unfold.
The more you investigate about this era, the more you will get in love about how music is today what it is because of those people at that time.
You can learn more about Natalie Cole here:
About the curator - Rodrigo Medrano
At a very early age, music had an incredible impact on Rodrigo’s life. He was never able to listen to lullaby songs; instead he was served Guns n’ Roses and Aerosmith for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
At the age of 12, he became a melomaniac, collecting albums, EP’s, recording sessions, and researching every kind of genre. All this helped him to get his first job at a recording studio where he realized his life would forever revolve around sound and music.
Working on cruise ships as First Audio Technician allowed him to let loose his passion and expand his knowledge on psychoacoustics, eventually promoted up to being in charge of sound for the hit broadway shows: Rock of Ages and Burn The Floor.
His music library will never stop growing as his melomania will get worse and worse.