Digital Signatures

The Impact of Digitization on Popular Music Sound

Ragnhild Brøvig, Anne Danielsen

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English

MIT Press
31 October 2023

Music recording & reproduction; Acoustic & sound engineering

"How sonically distinctive digital ""signatures""-including reverb, glitches, and autotuning-affect the aesthetics of popular music, analyzed in works by Prince, Lady Gaga, and others.

How sonically distinctive digital ""signatures""-including reverb, glitches, and autotuning-affect the aesthetics of popular music, analyzed in works by Prince, Lady Gaga, and others.

Is digital production killing the soul of music? Is Auto-Tune the nadir of creative expression? Digital technology has changed not only how music is produced, distributed, and consumed but also-equally important but not often considered-how music sounds. In this book, Ragnhild Br vig and Anne Danielsen examine the impact of digitization on the aesthetics of popular music. They investigate sonically distinctive ""digital signatures""-musical moments when the use of digital technology is revealed to the listener. The particular signatures of digital mediation they examine include digital reverb and delay, MIDI and sampling, digital silence, the virtual cut-and-paste tool, digital glitches, microrhythmic manipulation, and autotuning-all of which they analyze in specific works by popular artists.

Combining technical and historical knowledge of music production with musical analyses, aesthetic interpretations, and theoretical discussions, Br vig and Danielsen offer unique insights into how digitization has changed the sound of popular music and the listener's experience of it. For example, they show how digital reverb and delay have allowed experimentation with spatiality by analyzing Kate Bush's ""Get Out of My House""; they examine the contrast between digital silence and the low-tech noises of tape hiss or vinyl crackle in Portishead's ""Stranger""; and they describe the development of Auto-Tune-at first a tool for pitch correction-into an artistic effect, citing work by various hip-hop artists, Bon Iver, and Lady Gaga."

By: Ragnhild Brøvig, Anne Danielsen
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262549639
ISBN 10: 0262549638
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 31 October 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface and Acknowledgments vii 1 Introduction: Digital Technology and Popular Music Sound 1 2 Making Sense of Digital Spatiality: Kate Bush’s Eerie Collage 21 3 The Instrument Formerly Known as the Machine: Hyperaccuracy and Sonic Richness in Prince’s “Kiss” 43 4 The Rebirth of Silence in the Company of Noise: Portishead Going Retro 61 5 Cut-Ups and Glitches: The Freeze and Flow of Los Sampler’s and Squarepusher 81 6 Seasick Computers: Microrhythmic Manipulation in the Era of Endless Undo 101 7 Autotuned Voices: Alienation and “Brokenhearted Androids” 117 8 Popular Music in the Digital Era 133 Notes 153 References 169 Index 183

Ragnhild Br vig is Professor in the Department of Musicology at the University of Oslo. Anne Danielsen is Professor in the Department of Musicology at the University of Oslo.