All language subtitles for SOUNDBREAKING - 2 - Storires From The Cutting Edge Of Recorded Music - Documentary – (2016) -

[ "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band (Reprise)" plays ]

‐McCARTNEY: 1, 2, 3, 4.
‐LENNON: Bye.

WATERS: We were driving to a gig
in an old Zephyr 4

when "Sgt. Pepper" was played
for the first time on the radio.

And I remember
we pulled off into a lay‐by

and sat there and listened.

♪ We're Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band ♪

♪ We hope you have enjoyed
the show ♪

And I remember we just looked at
each other and went, "Fuck me!"

DALTREY: The way George Martin
had musically put that together,

I thought,
"Where do we go from here?"

‐All right. Here we go.
‐Okay, Richard?

Here comes a bit.

ENO: It's the birth
of a new art form.

They were starting to make music
that you couldn't actually play.

It couldn't exist
outside of a recording studio.

GODRICH:
They did it first.

It revolutionized the way
that people worked in studios.

You could say that from then on,

it's like the rule book's
out the window

because you're no longer
trying to represent something

as it was.

♪ I ♪

♪ I love the colorful clothes
she wears ♪

♪ And the way the sunlight plays
upon her hair ♪

♪ I hear the sound of a... ♪

NARRATOR:
In the '60s,

multitrack recording began
to redefine what music could be

and turned the studio
into a sonic laboratory.

♪ I'm picking up
good vibrations ♪

♪ She's giving me excitations ♪

It was like a strange place
full of, like, crazy scientists,

electricians, madmen.

WAS: Just having the time
to experiment in the studio

was a radical change.

Ninety hours working
on one song ‐‐

Everyone thought
that was insanity.

NARRATOR:
As recording technology evolved,

a sense of limitless possibility
led some bands astray.

ASHER:
It reached the point where

the ability to stay in
the studio as long as you want

and spend as much money
as you want

may not necessarily have been
an entirely good thing.

[ Radiohead's "Bodysnatchers"
plays ]

GODRICH:
You can produce a band

that will play their songs
perfectly in a room,

and your job as a producer
would be to re‐create that...

♪ It is the 21st century ♪

♪ It is the 21st century ♪

♪ You can fight like a dog ♪

... or you can use the studio
as a musical instrument.

That's an art form.

[ Music continues ]

♪ I've seen it coming ♪

You know, anything is possible,
anything is right.

And that's what's exciting.

[ Music ends ]

[ Guitar strumming ]

HARRISON: What key is it in?
What key is it in?

McCARTNEY:
It'll be in F for you.

SPECTOR: Here we go.
Just one more time.

FRANKLIN: Right after I say,
"Are you sure?"

♪ Da da da ♪

‐Yeah.
‐MAN: Oh.

WILSON:
Hal, here's how I want to do it.

Takes like this.

BOWIE: All right.
It's fun time. Fun time.

MAN #1:
Here we go.

MAN #2: Rolling. I thought we
had a different title.

MAN #3:
Seventeen, take one.

MAN #4:
This will be a keeper, I think.

[ Laughs ]

[ Boston's "More Than A Feeling"
plays ]

♪ I looked out this morning,
and the sun was gone ♪

♪ Turned on some music
to start my day ♪

GRANATA:
In 1976, a band named Boston

had a hit single
called "More Than a Feeling."

What no one knew was that Boston
really wasn't a band at all.

[ Music continues ]

Boston was a result
of me tinkering in a basement

with my multitrack
recording studio.

♪ It's more than a feeling ♪

♪ More than a feeling ♪

♪ When I hear that old song
they used to play ♪

♪ More than a feeling ♪

It was a really personal
endeavor.

I worked in my own space,
my own time,

put a rhythm guitar part on
and then another one

and then a bass track,
keyboards.

Then I called Brad Delp

to see if he wanted to sing
the vocals,

which, thankfully, he did.

♪ Ah, ah ♪

So I basically threw
a band together

to be able to play the songs
live.

Not only didn't
the record company ‐‐

not only were they not aware

that I was making a record
in my basement,

but they never became aware

that the record that they were
selling millions of copies of

was made in a basement.

[ Music continues ]

Multitracking allowed you
to put music together

and change it.

And the reason it was cool

is because this gave you
basically a whole new medium.

At one point,
someone explained to me,

older than I was,
that this whole process

of recording
on multitrack recorders

was invented by this guy
Les Paul.

And I said, "Wow.
"What a coincidence.

There's a guitar
that's named a Les Paul."

And he says, "Yeah.
There's a good reason for that."

[ Up‐tempo music playing ]

WAS: Les Paul not only designed
some guitars

that made new
and incredible sounds,

but had this vision
for recording studios.

He invented
multitrack recording.

That changed everything.

[ "How High the Moon" playing ]

♪ Somewhere there's music ♪

♪ How faint the tune ♪

♪ Somewhere there's heaven ♪

♪ How high the moon ♪

CLAPTON:
The records I heard by Les Paul

and Mary Ford in the '50s,

I was even aware then,

without any knowledge
of recording techniques,

that they were doing
something revolutionary.

You turn the tape machines on.

They're just a standard,
regular, Ampex tape machine.

MAN:
Mm‐hmm.

As I recall,

there are about a dozen
or 20 voices come in there.

Now, whose are the voices?

That's Mary.

You mean they're all
Mary's voices?

♪ Somewhere there's music,
how faint the tune ♪

♪ Somewhere there's heaven,
how high the moon ♪

Now, I'll add a tenor part
to that.

‐All right.
‐Wait a minute.

‐♪ Somewhere there's music ♪
‐♪ Somewhere there's music ♪

‐♪ How faint the tune ♪
‐♪ How faint the tune ♪

‐♪ Somewhere there's heaven ♪
‐♪ Somewhere there's heaven ♪

‐♪ How high the moon ♪
‐♪ How high the moon ♪

How long can this go on

without getting awful confused
in your head?

[ Laughs ]
It's pretty confusing.

Or being cued by your husband?

Well, would you like to hear
the third part?

Yes.

‐♪ Somewhere there's music ♪
‐♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

‐♪ How faint the tune ♪
‐♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

‐♪ Somewhere there's heaven ♪
‐♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

‐♪ How high the moon ♪
‐♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪

[ Music continues ]

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,
ah, ah, ah, ah ♪

BECK:
Les Paul, I mean,

he made sounds
no one had ever heard before.

I remember my mom saying,

"You shouldn't listen
to this music.

It's fake."

She said,
"It's one guy tricking us."

So I said, "That's it.
That's the music for me."

Because it enabled me to be
rebellious, you know, as well.

And I enjoyed the sound.

I don't think you can beat that.

The way those records sound,
it's still exciting.

♪ How high the moon ♪

[ Applause ]

‐[ Beeping ]
‐Now, come on. Give it to me.

Let me hear the whistle
and the saxes once more.

That's right.

[ Up‐tempo music plays ]

GRANATA:
Before magnetic tape,

an artist would come
into the studio,

and they would be recorded live.

What they would do is literally
etch the grooves into the disc

as the session
was being recorded.

You had to start from
the beginning and go to the end.

If you made any mistakes, too
bad, or you had to start over.

[ Music continues ]

Magnetic tape just changed music
completely.

It gave you the possibility
to record in fidelity

that was better than anyone
had ever even come close to.

So you can make
a more accurate document.

At the same time,
it lets you manipulate sounds,

so it didn't sound lifelike
at all,

because now you could edit,

you could overdub,
you could cut and splice.

Once the technology came out,

it very quickly became
the standard format.

[ Music continues ]

[ Mid‐tempo rock music plays ]

GEORGE MARTIN: When I walked
into Abbey Road Studios

for the first time, in 1950,

I was astonished
at how primitive it was.

They were still recording on
discs that were cut by a lathe.

From 1950 on,
I just worked away,

and I had various ideas.

I was experimenting
with the newfangled tape,

and I was able to learn what you
could do to manipulate sound.

You can cut.
You can edit.

Obviously, you can slow down
or speed up your tape.

You can put in backwards stuff.

This is the kind of thing
you can do on recording

that you obviously couldn't
possibly do live,

because it is, in fact,
making up music as you go along.

[ Machine clicks ]

MAN:
Uh, take 6.

McCARTNEY: "How could I dance"?
"She wouldn't dance."

"I'll never dance."

GEORGE MARTIN:
When I first met The Beatles,

I had so little time with them
in the studio

because they were
incredibly busy all the time.

I would have maybe
a day and a half here

and a couple of days there.

As a result of that,
the songs that they produced,

which were marvelous,
were still fairly basic.

Two, three, four.

[ "I Saw Her Standing There"
plays ]

♪ Well, she was just 17 ♪

STARR: The first album
only took us 12 hours.

We all knew those songs so well
because that was our live show.

We were just in there
doing the gig, really.

♪ How could I dance
with another? ♪

♪ Oh ♪

♪ When I saw her
standing there ♪

ENO: The old approach
was that the band rehearsed,

went into the studio,

stood in front of some
microphones, and played them.

And the job of the producer
was maybe to mix them well

or put a bit of reverb
or echo on them.

But essentially the music
wasn't transformed.

♪ Whoa, and I saw her... ♪

The Beatles were over that phase
by about 1966.

With the help of George Martin,

they were starting to make music
that you couldn't actually play.

It couldn't exist
outside of a recording studio.

It's very difficult to imagine

what The Beatles
would have sounded like

without George Martin.

[ "Rain" plays ]

GRANATA: What's wonderful
about this moment in time

is that four‐track recording
opened up the possibilities

to use the studio
in the creative palette.

So The Beatles' transition
from a garage‐band group

that's standing around the mike,

playing and singing
"Please Please Me"

and "I Saw Her Standing There,"
into a decisive recording group.

♪ Rain ♪

♪ I don't mind ♪

♪ Shine ♪

♪ The weather's fine ♪

They start to use technology to
create sounds and sonic textures

that had never been heard
in rock music.

GODRICH:
The Beatles revolutionized

the way that people worked
in studios.

You know, on "Rain,"

it's the first time there's
anything backwards on a record.

You could say that from then on,

it's like the rule book's
out the window

because you're no longer
trying to represent something

as it was.

You're trying to break it,

break your perception
of this band playing in a room.

[ Music continues ]

[ Music playing backwards ]

STARR:
It's more fun in the record

if there's a few sounds that you
don't really know what they are.

Really they're just instruments,
only something happens on here.

I couldn't tell you what,
'cause we have a special man

who sits here
and goes like this.

And the guitar turns into
a piano or something.

And then you may say,
"Why don't you use a piano?"

Because the piano sounds
like a guitar.

[ The Spencer Davis Group's
"Gimme Some Lovin'" plays]

♪ Well,
my temperature's rising ♪

♪ And my feet hit the floor ♪

♪ Twenty people knocking
'cause they want some more ♪

LENNON: We were all on this ship
in the '60s, our generation.

We were part of it,
and we went somewhere.

♪ And I'm so glad we made it ♪

♪ So glad we made it ♪

HARRISON:
There was a great upsurge

of energy and consciousness.

And so there was a lot
of excitement on the street.

There was a lot of people

who were all trying to go
on the same trip together.

SPITZ: On "Revolver," The
Beatles wanted to make the music

that was going on
in their heads.

The first song they worked on
was a song of John's.

It had the mysterious title
"Mark I,"

which, of course,
becomes "Tomorrow Never Knows."

LENNON: That's me in my
Tibetan Book of the Dead period.

I gave it a throwaway title

because I was
a bit self‐conscious

about the lyrics
of "Tomorrow Never Knows."

So I took one of Ringo's
malapropisms,

which was like
"Hard Day's Night."

WAS: "Tomorrow Never Knows" ‐‐
That's a song

that pretty vividly depicts
what you're hearing in your head

when you consume
some psychedelics.

The Beatles laid that out
for everybody to hear.

GEORGE MARTIN: "Tomorrow Never
Knows" was a very weird song.

The tune had
virtually no harmonies,

it was based on
a continuous drone of sound.

[ "Tomorrow Never Knows" plays ]

"Tomorrow Never Knows" started
with a backing track,

recorded here
at Abbey Road Studios.

That's Paul on bass
and Ringo on drums,

creating a sort of loopy,
mesmeric effect.

[ Music continues ]

To this, John added his vocal,
with George playing tambura.

LENNON:
♪ Turn off your mind ♪

♪ Relax and float downstream ♪

♪ It is not dying ♪

♪ It is not dying ♪

PETTY:
Late in the song,

John's voice gets
very unusual‐sounding,

especially at the time it was.

SPITZ: John wanted to sound like
the Dalai Lama chanting

from the top of a mountain.

And he suggested that the way
that they record that

would be to put him
in a harness,

to hoist him
high above the studio,

give him a shove, and he'd sing.

Every time he came around,

the mike would capture
a few beats of it.

Which wasn't
the most practical idea.

But the engineer, Geoff Emerick,

had the great idea of plugging
it into a revolving speaker,

called a Leslie.

So when it goes fast,
it creates one sound,

and when it slows down,
it creates another.

♪ That you may see
the meaning of within ♪

In the early part of the song,

John's voice is pretty
straightforward.

Then, after about 1 1/2 minutes,

the Leslie speaker effect
kicks in.

[ Echoing ]
♪ That love is all ♪

♪ And love is everyone ♪

♪ It is knowing ♪

♪ It is knowing ♪

GILES MARTIN:
The Beatles always looked for

other sounds in their records,
and they all had tape machines,

which they used
for recording demos.

And they found
that by making tape loops,

they could create sounds that
people had never heard before.

One of the most recognizable
loops on "Tomorrow Never Knows"

is the sound of ‐‐ Well, it
sounds like sea gulls squawking.

It's actually the sound of,
I think, Paul laughing

and speeding himself up,
which is this.

[ Squeaking ]

Another loop is just made up
of guitars being recorded

over and over again ‐‐

again, sped up and slowed down,
turned backwards.

And they sound like trumpets.

[ High‐pitched trumpeting ]

And then early days
of sampling ‐‐

Paul actually recorded
an orchestra off a vinyl record

and created a chord here.

[ Orchestral music playing ]

GEORGE MARTIN:
I had a bit of a problem.

How were we going to use
the collection of sounds?

I devised a way of playing
five loops at the same time.

And if you brought up
the faders,

it was like bringing up
an organ stop.

Each one had a different
tape loop playing all the time,

so you could make your sounds
as you wished.

These tape loops were running
and running and running,

and The Beatles and my dad

and Geoff Emerick performed
on the desk...

[ Music continues ]

... pushing up faders
at the right time

to create the instrument sounds
they wanted for the mix.

[ High‐pitched trumpeting ]

The actual mix of "Tomorrow
Never Knows" is a performance.

It can't be re‐created.

♪ It is being ♪

♪ It is being ♪

ZANES: If you look at everything
that's happening

in that recording,

it's like a prophecy
of pop music in one song.

With the sampling and the loops,
there's so much happening there

that will be active for
the next four or five decades.

♪ It is knowing ♪

RUBIN:
You can look at hip‐hop

and using samples
or scratching in music.

The Beatles were doing that
on "Tomorrow Never Knows."

That song makes you rethink
what music is.

It's that profound.

♪ Or play the game ♪

♪ Existence to the end ♪

♪ Of the beginning ♪

♪ Of the beginning ♪

VISCONTI: This was the dawn
of creating a new kind of magic.

This was really fantasy stuff.

[ Music ends ]

WILSON: Okay.
"Wouldn't It Be Nice," take 5.

[ Drumsticks clicking ]

[ The Beach Boys'
"Wouldn't It Be Nice" plays ]

WAS: I think that
kind of friendly competition

between The Beatles
and The Beach Boys

really advanced the cause
of popular music.

Brian Wilson heard "Rubber Soul"
and understood that there was

a whole other place where you
could take rock 'n' roll,

that that was an elevated
musical consciousness at play.

GRANATA:
Brian was listening

to what The Beatles were doing
in the studio,

and he was completely
knocked out.

Hearing that made him realize
that he had to up the ante

on his next album,
which was "Pet Sounds."

♪ You know it's gonna make it
that much better ♪

♪ When we can say good night
and stay together ♪

WAS: He told me that he and Carl
used to pray before each session

that they would make a record
that would be warmer

and more inspirational
than "Rubber Soul."

WILSON:
None of those big pickups.

Just... Just, like...

♪ Doo‐do, doo‐do ♪

GRANATA: Brian pre‐imagined
everything that he did.

He heard all of the vocal parts,
all of the instrumental parts,

even before anyone set foot
in the studio.

Brian was the mastermind.

WILSON: I'd like to start it out
now this time

with the organ
and the Fender bass.

Then the bongos will come in
at the second half

like everything else.

Here we go.

MAN:
Rolling.

One. Two.

One, two, three.

GRANATA:
Ironically, the only song

from the "Pet Sounds" sessions
that reached Number 1

was recorded
after the album was released.

And it was the result

of an unprecedented number
of hours in the studio.

CAMPBELL: Time was nothing
to Brian Wilson.

I remember we all got to sit
there for about 3 1/2 hours

when he was running his finger
up that thing going...

[ Imitates theremin playing ]

♪ I'm picking up
good vibrations ♪

♪ She's giving me excitations ♪

♪ Ooh, bop, bop ♪

♪ Good vibrations, bop, bop ♪

♪ Excitations ♪

♪ Good, good, good,
good vibrations ♪

♪ Ah, excitations ♪

♪ Good, good, good,
good vibrations ♪

♪ Bop, bop, excitations ♪

♪ Close my eyes ♪

WAS: Just having the time
to experiment in the studio

was a radical change.

When he made "Good Vibrations,"

Brian purportedly spent
90 hours recording it.

Everyone thought
that was insanity.

You know, like, "He's gone mad.

He spent 90 hours working
on one song."

You know, today that's nothing.

The session that we did
on "Good Vibrations"

was not one session.

It was many, many,
many sessions.

Take after take after take.

My fingers were almost
bleeding.

It's like, "Come on, Brian.
Fade us out. Fade us out."

♪ I don't know where,
but she sends me there ♪

♪ Oh, my, my, what a sensation ♪

♪ Oh, my, my, what an elation ♪

♪ Oh, my, my ♪

[ Organ plays ]

♪ Got to keep
those lovin' good vibrations ♪

♪ Happenin' with her ♪

♪ Got to keep
those lovin' good vibrations ♪

♪ Happenin' with her ♪

WAS:
Brian's a very deep guy.

You know, so he wanted to move
beyond songs

about summer and surfing.

[ "God Only Knows" plays ]

Just saying something like

"God only knows what I'd be
without you"

in a rock‐'n'‐roll song

and then create this wonderful
music that enables a listener,

50 years later, to put it on and
to feel what they were feeling.

That's great art.

♪ I may not always love you ♪

GRANATA: The way he layered
and added different vocal parts

created that wonderful,
celestial resonance.

Overdub over overdub
over overdub

until on "God Only Knows,"

he ended up with seven tracks
of vocal overdubs.

And that's how come you hear
this heavenly choir.

♪ God only knows what I'd be
without you ♪

♪ God only knows what I'd be
without you ♪

♪ God only knows what I'd be
without you ♪

♪ God only knows... ♪

McCARTNEY:
We loved The Beach Boys.

And it was a bit of
a competition across the pond.

When they did "Pet Sounds,"

I played it to everyone
and said, "Listen.

Listen to what they're doing
here," you know.

So we did "Sgt. Pepper."

[ "Within Without You" plays ]

[ Crowd cheering ]

[ Music continues ]

STARR: What happened to us
was that while we were touring,

we were regressing as musicians

because the noise
of the audience

was louder than the band.

I'm watching the feet,
I'm watching their arses,

I'm watching
the bobbing heads ‐‐

Whoo! ‐‐
Oh, it's that part ‐‐

to stay in some sort of time.

McCARTNEY: The last gig
was Candlestick Park,

and by then
we were just so fed up.

And we got loaded
into a meat wagon.

[ Music continues ]

It was like a surrealist film.

It's gone downhill, performance.

'Cause we can't develop
when no one can hear us.

So for us to perform,
it's difficult.

It gets difficult each time.

We can't do a tour like
we've been doing all these years

because our music's progressed.

We've used more instruments.

It'd be soft, us going onstage,
the four of us,

and trying to do the records
we've made with orchestras

and bands and things.

[ Music continues ]

♪ Try to realize
it's all within yourself ♪

♪ No one else
can make you change ♪

GEORGE MARTIN: The Beatles
achieved a quantum leap

when they stopped touring.

That gave us an opportunity
which we hadn't had before.

We no longer were under pressure
to complete a song

within a day or two days.

We could spend as much time
as we liked on it.

McCARTNEY: The boundaries
were being moved so far forward

from the early mono days.

Now we were asking for things
like a symphony orchestra

for "A Day in the Life."

You know, lunatics
had taken over the asylum.

[ "A Day in the Life" plays ]

♪ I read the news today ♪

♪ Oh, boy ♪

♪ About a lucky man
who made the grade ♪

♪ And though the news
was rather sad ♪

♪ Well, I just had to laugh ♪

♪ I saw the photograph ♪

GEORGE MARTIN:
Like many of John's songs,

"A Day in the Life" began
quite simply ‐‐

based on the odd
newspaper cutting.

Paul had written a scrap
of a song ‐‐

"Woke up, fell out of bed."
You know the one.

♪ Dragged a comb
across my head ♪

But when we laid down
the track,

Paul came up with the idea
of giant crescendo,

a kind of immense
musical orgasm.

♪ Ah, ah, ah, ah ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah ♪

♪ Ah, ah, ah ♪

"Don't listen to the man
next to you,"

I said to the orchestra.

"Make your own way up
the sliding passage.

And if you're playing
the same note as your companion,

you're playing the wrong one."

Well, the orchestra hooted
with laughter.

All their lives,
they'd tried to play as one man.

And it only took a few minutes

for The Beatles to change
all that.

McCARTNEY: We were taking
so long making "Sgt. Pepper."

I remember in one of
the musical papers,

they said, "Oh, The Beatles
have dried up."

And we were like...
"No, we haven't."

[ Music crescendoes, ends ]

WATERS:
We were on the road,

driving to a gig
in an old Zephyr 4

when "Sgt. Pepper" was played
for the first time on the radio.

And I remember we pulled off
into a lay‐by and sat there

and listened to the whole thing
from start to finish.

And I remember we just looked at
each other and went, "Fuck me!

That's just..."

You know, I couldn't wait
to hear the songs again.

Suddenly, here was an album

that was like
a theatrical construction,

but it was also rooted in songs

that were about all our hopes
and fears.

And so in that sense,

that album opened Pandora's box
for everybody.

[ Playing "Breathe" ]

GILMOUR: "Dark Side of the Moon"
started in a rehearsal room

in Bermondsey, I think, that
belonged to the Rolling Stones,

where we did
some sort of jamming, writing.

[ Music continues ]

WATERS: With "Dark Side," I had
a strong and compelling notion

that we could make an album
that was about life

and about feelings

and the human condition
and things that impinge upon us.

Can I put this down?

MAN: Just a second.
We're just finishing.

I still have to find
the other track.

Okay.

GILMOUR: How do we make,
you know, with a recording desk

and a couple of little
old synthesizers and stuff ‐‐

How do you make that sound?

And you have to throw yourself

and your imagination
into creating.

I just plugged this up

and started playing
one sequence on it,

and Roger immediately pricked up
his ears

and thought that sounded good

and came out, and we started
mucking with it together.

A series of notes played in
slowly...

[ Notes playing ]

...triggering a noise generator
and oscillators,

and then just speed it up,
you know?

[ Tempo increases ]

There you've got it, basically.

[ Music continues ]

[ Pitch rises, falls ]

WATERS: Well, recording changed
with the technology.

When 16‐track came in,

we could overdub
almost to our hearts' content.

[ Music continues ]

[ Voices, laughter echoing ]

I think the analogy of painting
is very relevant

in terms of making records,

because you can paint over
a whole bit

or erase a whole section

and say, "Well, I like that bit
of the painting,

but let's start again here."

I actually like being able
to sit back and listen to it,

and then go and say,

"Well, maybe if we just add
something here."

♪ All that you touch ♪

♪ And all that you see ♪

♪ All that you taste ♪

♪ All you feel ♪

That was very freeing.

But you could say
maybe it was destructive

in some ways as well,
'cause it meant

you didn't have to make
that simple brushstroke

that meant something.

You know, you could go, "Brr!
We'll sort it out later."

♪ Beg, borrow, or steal ♪

♪ And all you create ♪

♪ And all you destroy ♪

CARNEY: That record to me is ‐‐
It's mind‐blowing.

The way that still sounds ‐‐

I mean, the tape loops,
the mixing, the depth.

No one has come close to that,
probably to this day.

GILMOUR: I can clearly remember
that moment

of sitting and listening to the
whole mix all the way through

and thinking, "My God.

We've really done
something fantastic here."

JOHN: There was an explosion
of creativity in the '60s

to the mid‐'70s of music
that will never, I don't think,

be matched in pop music again.

[ Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion"
plays ]

Technology was certainly
enabling people

to experiment more as musicians.

SCHMITT: Multitracking came in,
and then we had three‐tracks.

And then we got four‐tracks.

And then I remember all
the studios got eight‐tracks.

And then, all of a sudden,
we got 16‐tracks.

And we were all looking
at one another, saying,

"What the hell are we gonna do
with 16 tracks?"

Before anybody really learned
how to use one of those,

here comes a 24‐track.

And the next thing you know,
it's multi‐forever.

[ Chuckles ]

♪ Sweet ♪

♪ Emotion ♪

In the '70s,
people were spending

more and more and more money
on these gigantic studios.

GEORGE MARTIN: Technology
has helped us enormously,

but it has had also
a damaging effect

because it's allowed
too much freedom.

I've known groups

who will concentrate on getting
a bass line on one song

and spending five days doing it.

DALTREY: Music suffers
from overproduction.

You don't gain.

You think you're gaining,

because everybody
wants to play with toys.

When another 16 tracks arrive
that you can play with,

you have to play with them
because they're there,

like a kid with a new toy box.

But I thought once you got
past 16, it was a waste of time

and became a bit self‐indulgent.

And it allowed records to go on
forever in the studio.

[ Applause,
up‐tempo music playing ]

And the album of the year is...

‐Fleetwood Mac!
‐Fleetwood Mac!

[ Cheers and applause ]

BUCKINGHAM:
The success of "Rumours"

was such a disproportionate
thing.

You have so much pressure
from the outside

wanting you to repeat
the formula that is embodied

in an album like "Rumours."

But there was no formula
to "Rumours."

We were just responding

to what was going on
in our personal lives.

So no matter what we did,

we couldn't have repeated
the authenticity of that.

♪ Loving you ♪

♪ Isn't the right thing to do ♪

Every song on that album

is a cross‐dialogue
between one member and another.

♪ You can go your own way ♪

You can't hear
"Go Your Own Way" in any way

other than, you know,
me talking to Stevie.

♪ Another lonely day ♪

Making the left turn
that we made on "Tusk,"

it was all about how do we not
paint ourselves into a corner?

And so I said to the band,
"Look.

Let's try something
a little different."

And they were sort of like,
"Well, okay."

♪ Why don't you tell me
what's going on? ♪

I had a small studio
in the back of my house,

and I just wheeled
a 24‐track in,

and I just started
putting stuff down.

What I'm basically trying to do

is take a track that we cut
in the studio,

mike the bathroom,
which is right across the hall,

which has an amazing sound ‐‐

I mean, 1927 bathrooms are
rock 'n' roll all the way ‐‐

and record it back
onto some empty tracks.

[ Drum beating ]

Working at home alone allows you
to sort of go into the void

and to find all sorts
of mysterious things.

And that was something
I wanted to explore

and then bring back
and share with the band.

Sing the melody for a second.

NICKS: We were recording
at Village Recorders

in Santa Monica, and we were
recording six days a week.

And it was really horrible.

It's like Lindsey with the
microphone on the tile floor,

going,
"Ooh, ooh, ooh‐ooh‐ooh, ooh."

And we're just all like, "Okay.

That was great.
Take two."

[ Chuckles ]

And he's like...

♪ Ooh‐ooh‐ooh, ooh‐ooh ♪

♪ Ooh‐ooh‐ooh, ooh‐ooh ♪

Okay.
Take three."

And then he's taking the whole
thing and slowing it down,

and then he's recording that.

And then he's speeding it
back up.

And then he's putting it
through a Leslie.

And it was just hard
for the rest of us,

because we kind of ‐‐
We weren't always involved.

[ "Tusk" plays ]

BUCKINGHAM:
The title track, "Tusk,"

typifies the spirit
of the album.

I wanted Mick to play,
like, jungle drums.

So we got him going,
and then we made a loop of it,

and everything else
got added in after that.

♪ Why don't you tell me
who's on the phone? ♪

Mick had the idea
to put the marching band on,

and that was sort of
the coup de grace on that song

and really pushed it
over the top.

♪ Why don't you ask him
the latest on his throne? ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪

♪ Don't say that you love me ♪

ASHER:
Obviously, it reached the point

where the ability to stay in
the studio as long as you want

and spend as much money
as you want

may not necessarily have been
an entirely good thing.

They were actually in the studio
24 hours.

Lindsey and whoever
would come in in the daytime,

record stuff with one engineer,

which Mick would come in
at night,

dislike, erase, and replace.

So in theory,
they could have actually gone on

forever and ever and ever.

And, of course, you know,
prodigious amounts of cocaine

were involved in the process,

which added a certain piquancy
to the whole thing.

[ Music continues ]

BUCKINGHAM:
The Warner Bros. people

never really took much stock
of what we were doing.

But when we delivered that album
to them,

that would have been a funny
moment to be a fly on the wall,

because I know they were
probably looking at each other

and going, "What is this?"

♪ Tusk! ♪

There was a kind of a backlash,

there was a kind of a negativity
to it.

I remember Mick coming to me
and saying,

"You know, Lindsey,
we're not gonna do that again."

And I was like, "Okay."

It did take many years for that
album to rise to the surface,

to where now
everyone else loves it.

And I think a whole generation,
especially indie band types,

seem to really get it.

It was a ballsy thing to do,

but it was just the need
to experiment

and the need to be an artist.

[ Eurythmics' "Who's That Girl"
plays ]

STEWART: Annie and I saw ourself
more like performance artists.

I would sit on a chair,

and Annie would have a suit
and sing,

and I wouldn't do anything.

♪ The language of love ♪

♪ Slips from my lover's tongue ♪

LENNOX: We always liked
everything to be quite reduced.

And at the time
that we were forming Eurythmics,

there was a fantastic evolution
in the kind of equipment

that you could get access to
in terms of recording.

♪ Who's that girl ♪

♪ Running around with you? ♪

♪ Tell me, who's that girl ♪

♪ Running around with you? ♪

It was the beginning

of that kind of bedroom
recording studio.

Being the technological person
that he was,

Dave was very clued in
with this.

I'd went out and bought a thing
called a Caterpillar,

which went with the Wasp.

[ Notes playing ]

And I had this new drum machine.
It was a prototype.

In fact, the outside
of the computer was wood.

And it had a tiny little screen
that was black and white,

almost like early Space Invaders
or Ping‐Pong, you know?

And I had a TEAC Portastudio.

So with these things,
I'd worked out

how to sort of make
a little sequence, like...

[ Vocalizing ]

And that was the beginning
of Eurythmics.

[ "Love Is a Stranger" plays ]

LENNOX: We didn't like big,
intimidating studios.

You go in there, and it's all,
you know, big desks,

and it's very glossy.

It's like a big Rolls‐Royce

as opposed to, like,
a little Volkswagen.

We liked the Volkswagen.

We didn't go for
the Rolls‐Royce.

♪ Love is a stranger
in an open car ♪

♪ Tempt you in
and drive you far away ♪

We didn't care for
the status quo,

what we referred to at the time

as sort of prehistoric‐dinosaur
big rock bands, you know?

So we wanted to do it in a very
different way ‐‐ our own way.

♪ And drive you far away ♪

So we knew someone who had this
massive picture‐framing factory.

And at the very, very top,

there was a kind of attic room,
so the roof was like that.

And there was lots of little
cables, and we'd sit for hours,

and he would be noodling,
and I would be like this.

I was programming it, and Annie
kind of woke up and went, "Whoa.

"What the hell is that?"

And she got
sort of really excited about it

and put some weird harmonies
on it.

We really went all the way out
in experimenting,

nothing to do with pop music.

♪ And I want you ♪

♪ And I want you ♪

♪ And I want you so ♪

♪ It's an obsession ♪

And that was where we first
started with Eurythmics songs,

Eurythmics recordings ‐‐

"Sweet Dreams,"
"Love Is a Stranger,"

all the early stuff.

That's where we recorded it.

♪ An obsession ♪

STEWART:
This was like 1982,

and it was kind of the beginning
of loads of artists going,

"Well, hang on a second.
I can do that."

And all of this music
started to come out

that wasn't made
in big commercial studios,

and it was kind of made
in people's bedrooms,

and it was cool.

[ Beck's "Loser" plays ]

♪ In the time of chimpanzees,
I was a monkey ♪

♪ Butane in my veins
and I'm out to cut the junkie ♪

The first few albums I did were
all done at someone's house

who just had a little setup.

They weren't in real studios.

There was maybe a three‐
or four‐hour window.

He's like,
"Yeah, you can come by,

and then my girlfriend's
coming home,

and we can't record after that

because the microphone's set up
in the kitchen."

And then halfway through
singing it,

shoes are flying
at the engineer.

His girlfriend has had it,
you know,

of living in a recording studio.

♪ Soy un perdedor ♪

♪ I'm a loser, baby ♪

♪ So why don't you kill me? ♪

MILNER:
Home studios of the analog era,

they were basically
miniature versions

of the existing recording studio
in your home.

And you had four tracks,
and you made records.

What digital technology did
in a way

is get rid of the studio
entirely.

And now the recording studio was
your computer,

and you could make music
anywhere.

[ Bon Iver's "Flume" plays ]

♪ I am my mother's only one ♪

VERNON:
When I made "For Emma,"

this was up
at my dad's hunting lodge.

All I had was my old
big block G4 computer

and a Pro Tools interface.

It's funny to think
it was Mac OS 9,

which seems so bizarre
to some people now.

Me too.

But that's all I had.

♪ Only love is all maroon ♪

Pro Tools has been
my musical voice.

I mean, it's my way
of understanding songs.

It's my tool of songwriting now,
where it's like,

I enjoy so much being able
to open up a session ‐‐

blank tape, so to speak ‐‐
and just create environment.

With a guitar, it used to be
really exciting to me

to sit down at a desk

and use the room that I was in
and sing and play.

But when I'm looking to write
a new song now,

I'm waiting for an environment

to sort of be created
accidentally,

so then I can kind of step
into it,

just like when somebody
picks up a guitar

and there's a chord they play,

they're instantly writing
a song.

ST. VINCENT: I was right around
the first generation of kids

who were making music alone
in their bedrooms on a computer.

That's really how I started
to make music.

It wasn't really in bands
or in relation to other people.

It was very much this insular,
layering method of making music.

[ Mid‐tempo music plays ]

It takes me a while to find
even where I am sometimes,

'cause there are so many tracks.

[ Music continues ]

♪ For the lover ♪

♪ For the love ♪

These are all the tracks
down here.

They are all the violin
and French‐horn tracks

that we had to mix down
to the smaller amount of tracks.

You have an infinite amount
of layers that you can add,

so you have
a billion more variables

on where a song could go.

Being a recording artist means,
you know, pushing and stretching

all these limits and boundaries
of what music can sound like.

[ Vocalizing ]

When I discovered
that I could use a looping pedal

to create this multitrack sound
live in front of people ‐‐

That was awesome.

I'm gonna do this thing.
All right?

What I do onstage

is I stamp with my foot
on the looping pedal

and that starts the recording.

[ Crowd cheering ]

If I press the pedal again,

it will give me another layer
on top of that.

Looping and looping and looping,

and I can stack layers and
layers upon each other of sound.

[ Drumsticks clicking ]

The worlds of sound that I had
been hearing my whole life

and what drew me
to recorded music

suddenly were at my ‐‐ not my
fingertips ‐‐ my toe tips.

[ Vocalizing,
drumming continues ]

It's an organic sound being put
into a digital device

played by a human.

And so there's all these weird,
like...

You know, "What is that?
What's happening here?"

But, to me,
that's where we're living now

is, you know,
in that in‐between space.

♪ What's the bizness, yeah? ♪

♪ Don't take my life away,
don't take my life away ♪

‐♪ From a distance, yeah ♪
‐♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Don't take my life away,
don't take my life away ♪

[ Vocalizing ]

There are no limitations
these days.

Because we are multitracking,
because we're overdubbing,

you know,
it's completely limitless.

Let's move on.
Yeah.

[ Indistinct conversations,
synthesizer playing ]

GODRICH: There's so much more
technology around nowadays.

As a producer,
you have to manage

all of that technology
that's available to you.

[ Radiohead's "Lotus Flower"
plays ]

And if you have the discipline

to sort of compartmentalize
what you're doing,

then you benefit.

♪ I will shape myself
into your pocket ♪

♪ Invisible ♪

♪ Do what you want ♪

But the way
I personally deal with that

is by just ignoring a lot of it.

Because I know
that it's of no value to me.

It's like, "No, we're not gonna
use Pro Tools to record."

Use a tape machine
where it would be easier

to just put it in the computer
and take the good bits.

Use a razor blade.

Select things with a pencil,
and cut them with a razor blade

and stick them back together
with tape.

I still do it because it's sort
of a meditation of some sort.

In the process, you have time to
think about what you're doing,

and that works better
a lot of times.

Things sound better
for some reason.

An edit done tape sounds better
than an edit in the computer.

It just does.

EPWORTH: I love the idea
that we're in the position now

to be able to pick and choose
different recording practices

from the different eras.

And sometimes you put something
that's quite retro

on top of something very modern,

and you create something
very new.

When the drums come in ‐‐
just the drums.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

[ Drum beating, birds chirping ]

[ Down‐tempo introduction
plays ]

ENO: One of the underlying
stories of rock music

is this constant experimentation
with sound.

Because of multitracking,

you really make the music
during the mixing.

And you can create drama
in the music.

You can make things that were
not musically feasible before.

You can make things that didn't
really belong to performances.

♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Gather up ♪

♪ The lost and sold ♪

BECK: All eras of recording
are happening simultaneously.

I have a lot of musician friends
who only record on tape,

some who only record
on their laptop,

on a program that comes free
with your computer.

And they all have big records
that people listen to.

♪ ... haunt me ♪

♪ I think I should give up
the ghost ♪

♪ Into your arms ♪

GEORGE MARTIN: When I first
came into the record business,

the ideal for any
recording engineer in a studio

was to make the most lifelike
sound you could possibly do...

...to make a photograph
that was absolutely accurate.

Well, the studio changed
all that

and certainly
what we were doing,

because instead of taking
a great photograph,

we could start painting
a picture.

By overdubbing,
by different kind of speeds,

you are painting with sound.

‐♪ Into your arms ♪
‐♪ Don't haunt me ♪

‐♪ Into your arms ♪
‐♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Into your arms ♪

♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Don't haunt me ♪

♪ Into your arms ♪

[ Birds chirping ]

Please tell me
that sounded all right.