Friday, February 23rd, 2024
Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.
— Doris Mortman
MUS106 Lecture: Concept Albums
Quiz #3 Comprehension & Listening (modules 6-7) on Weds 2/28
- Pet Sounds by Beach Boys (cont’d)
- production concept album: discover what’s only possible in production (and not on live stage)
- concept album
- generally has a unified theme
- long-form art, more than just a collection of good singles
- journey from beginning to end—great way to make psychedelic rock
- Frank Zappa (1940-1993)
- The Mothers of Invention
- producer: Tom Wilson
- ”Gatefold LP”: giant album, has two LP records included, one on each side of the “gatefold”
- has a program included as if it’s an orchestral concert
- The Mothers of Invention
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) by The Beatles
- answer album to Pet Sounds
- also a gatefold LP, but only one LP
- released a year after Beatles stopped touring
- Harrison studies sitar with Ravi Shankar in India
- Lennon meets Yoko Ono (avant-garde) at Indica Gallery
- fictional, alter-ego band
- limitless budget, 400 hours of studio time, 700 hours of production time
- has both mono & stereo mixes
- lyrics on the back cover—lyrics are important!
- attacca: no pauses between songs (unbanded)
- “A Day In the Life”
- John Lennon wrote and sang half, Paul McCartney wrote and sang the other half
- interesting production techniques
- avant-garde techniques e.g. tape loops
- abstract lyrics
- weird run-out groove loop in LP (tape loop)
- UK#1 for 27 weeks, US#1 for 15 weeks
- 4 Grammys (incl. Album of the Year)
- commercial & critical success
- some consider it to be the most important rock record
- End of Beatles
- Aug 1967: Brian Epstein dies of drug overdose
- band in-fighting during Abbey Road sessions
- band breaks up in 1970
- Let It Be released from Get Back! Sessions produced by Phil Spector; Paul McCartney disliked it and released it without Spector’s production stuff
- both refines & innovates
- Jimi Hendrix (1942-70)
- refinement = craft
- blues musician first, others second
- knowledge of many genres
- songwriting skills developed from listening to Bob Dylan
- practices restraint in his art (doesn’t have to show all he knows in every song)
- innovation
- highly virtuosic
- ”…he cut Claptop” (Eric Claptop was nicknamed “God”)
- unique showmanship techniques
- uses feedback & noise as musical device
- studio techniques
- highly virtuosic
- bio
- born in Seattle
- discharged from army
- left-handed guitarist (but father wanted him to play right-handed, so he first learned to play the guitar upside-down, and later restrings it)
- “sideman” for many artists, fired by all (doesn’t fit in)
- ends up in NYC (affected by racism) then London
- dies in London (drug overdose)
- member of 27 club (died at age 27)
- The Jimi Hendrix Experience
- refinement = craft