Setting the Record Straight: A Material History of Classical Recording

by Colin Symes

Record albums are more than records; they include covers and liner notes, catalogs, magazines, and advertisements. In this fascinating study of the materials that surround LPs and CDs, Colin Symes undertakes a cultural history of the record, looking specifically at the way the phonograph helped democratize classical music by enabling it to be heard at home, away from the concert hall. Symes argues that the listening habits associated with classical records and recording were produced and naturalized through a magazine culture, which conveyed the idea that collecting and listening to records were legitimate pastimes for the general public. The first chapter lays out a textual theory of the phonograph and compact disc, while subsequent chapters look critically and historically at the different components of the recording covers and cover notes, the rhetoric of the record review, the influence of recording on performance, the domestication of the concert hall, advertising in the record industry, and even the architecture of record shops. Symes's path-breaking history will engage anyone with an interest in classical music and recording.

340 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2004

Reviews

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more than just a history of classical music recording. It outlines the development of the recording industry and the marketing of commercial recordings. There's some really funny anecdotes about the curmudgeonly Thomas Edison's view of recorded music and how it was the antithesis of why he invented the gramophone in the first place.
I enjoyed the chapter on the development of recording techniques and the reaction to recorded music from top composers of the day.
Other chapters address the development of the album jacket, cd booklet, liner notes and the the launch of one of the first consumer music magazines, Gramophone.