All language subtitles for SOUNDBREAKING - 4 - Storires From The Cutting Edge Of Recorded Music - Documentary – (2016) -

[ Switch clicks, tube hums ]

[ Tubes humming ]

My interest in music,
yeah, it starts when ‐‐

when things become electric.

♪ They wanna get my ♪

♪ Gold on the ceiling ♪

NARRATOR: Plugging in
started a music revolution.

STUART:
Blues went electric.

They put it on a train

and took it up north
and plugged them in.

Hot‐wired the blues.

[ Guitar solo ]

I plug it in.
I get it home, and I turn it up.

‐It's like "khhhhh."
‐"Ohhh!"

"Euhhhhhrrrrr!"

Suddenly, you didn't need
a horn section anymore.

I spent most of the mid‐'60s not
hearing anything I ever sang.

NARRATOR: Electricity didn't
just turn up the volume.

It opened up a world
of new sounds.

These albums
are kind of sonic fantasies

that could never actually exist
in real life.

I fell in love
with the synthesizer.

Is this how you make up
all these songs?

MOTHERSBAUGH: Well, we let
the machines make up the songs.

You cannot put me
anywhere near a synth,

I don't care
if it was old‐school synth.

You know, it's still
a manipulated sound.

♪ They wanna get my ♪

♪ Gold on the ceiling ♪

PHILLINGANES: It was like they
were working on Frankenstein.

All day, all night.

NARRATOR: This is the story
of how one epic innovation

triggered
a musical chain reaction

that's still
throwing off sparks today.

RONSON: It's amazing ‐‐
technology already happening,

which expands
what can be created,

'cause someone will use
one of those things,

and by accident,
stumble into a brand‐new sound

that no one's ever heard before.

MARGOULEFF: Just think
of what would happen

to the music business
if we pulled the plug

on all the electricity.

[ Guitar strumming ]

‐HARRISON: What key is it in?
‐MAN: What key is it...

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: Oh, really?

MAN #1: 17, take one.

MAN #3:
This will be a keeper.

[ Woman laughs ]

[ The Who's "My Generation"
plays ]

♪ People try to put us ♪

♪ Talkin' 'bout my generation ♪

Well, amplification in The Who,
is a very long journey.

♪ Things they do
look awful c‐‐ ♪

I mean, I remember when The Who
first were using Beatle 100s.

Those are the first big amps
we ever saw.

They're called Super Beatles.

DALTREY: And we covered the
speaker fronts with Union Jacks.

WATERS: And it was such
a fantastic celebration

of loud music ‐‐
loud, loud, loud.

Incredibly loud.
Incredibly loud.

WATERS: You didn't feel
like you were gonna be sick.

You felt like you were
gonna float up to heaven.

In the area of London we lived,

there was a shop
called Jim Marshall's,

and he started making
amplifiers, and he says,

"Hey, well, I've done this,
and I've done that.

Try this one out."

And they gradually got bigger
and bigger.

It got bigger and bigger
and bigger,

and it was, like,
kind of like the arms race

against other bands
we played with.

[ Guitar solo ]

If Jerry had two Fenders,
Jorma wanted two.

Jorma went up to four.
Jerry went up four Fenders.

Everything got louder, and the
drummer had to get louder, too.

HART: And we're playing them
harder and harder and harder.

Too hard.

Bob and Jerry, they were
ripping their cords out,

trying to sing over the din.

♪ We'll be fighting
in the streets ♪

DALTREY: And I think
I spent most of the '60s

not hearing anything
I ever sang.

It made me develop a pair of
lungs that I've still got today.

♪ And the men
who spurred us on ♪

MILNER: In 1976,
The Who were recognized

as the loudest band
in the world.

125 decibels.

♪ Yeah! ♪

Over the course
of the 20th century,

electricity and amplification
didn't just make music louder ‐‐

It transformed it,
and there's no better example

of that
than the electric guitar.

The electric guitar
is its own instrument.

[ Guitar solo ]

BECK:
It magnifies every little nuance

that the string gives off,

that you probably wouldn't hear
on a regular acoustic guitar.

[ Solo continues ]

[ Applause ]

The richness of tone and the
treble ‐‐ It brings that out.

[ Solo continues ]

It can sustain.

[ Down‐tempo blues playing ]

BECK: You can make it sound
almost voice‐like.

You can make
really gentle chords

and almost ethereal sounds.

And then with a flick
of the switch,

you can knock down buildings,
you know.

[ Up‐tempo rock music plays ]

ZIMMER: The electric guitar
became so popular

and it gave the power
to guitarists,

and it took all of us
a long time to go

and wrench it back out
of their nasty little hands.

[ Up‐tempo blues plays ]

BENSON:
Well, the first thing

that happened
with the electric guitar

that was so important
was Charlie Christian.

People don't understand
how important he really was.

And he was discovered
by John Hammond.

GIDDINS: John Hammond
helped define the landscape

of American popular music
and jazz for a very long period.

He put Charlie Christian
together with Benny Goodman,

which put the electric guitar
on the goddamn map.

He not only went to Oklahoma
and brought him ‐‐

He forced him on Benny Goodman.

A black guy on the most famous
white bandleader in the country.

And Goodman hated
guitar players.

[ "Sing, Sing, Sing" plays ]

HUTTLINGER:
Early on in the '30s,

jazz guitar players
were the guys in the big band

with acoustic guitars,

and they would play chords,
just chords.

And it wasn't loud enough
to play the melodies.

VAN ZANDT: So, somewhere
around 1939, Gibson comes out

with a amplifier
with the guitar.

It's like 150 bucks, and
Charlie Christian bought one.

GIDDINS:
Hammond was so confident

that Goodman
would completely freak out

when he heard
that a guitar player

could play like a saxophonist,
that he would change his mind,

so he said, "Benny,
just do this one audition.

Just, you know, he's a kid
from Oklahoma. Just do it."

[ Jazz guitar solo ]

And as soon as Charlie
started playing,

and that sound came out
of the amplifier,

the Benny Goodman Sextet
was born.

[ Solo continues ]

BENSON:
For the first time, the guitar

was not a background instrument.

Used to be dominated
by saxophones and trumpets.

Now, when you needed
any more power,

just turn that amplifier up.

Well, I'm a big
Charlie Christian fan.

[ Guitar solo ]

He's definitely
the first rock guitarist.

You can see
from there to Hendrix.

He's just blowing
everybody away.

HARPER: The fact
that there was a black man

playing an electric guitar,

it opened up the doors,
'cause when you hear his sound,

it's ‐‐ There's a direct
connection between the tone

of Charlie Christian's
instrument and the blues.

WHITE: It's difficult
to think about music

without thinking
about the blues.

When you love music,
no matter what ‐‐

you like punk rock
or pop music or rock 'n' roll

or jazz or rockabilly,
country ‐‐

they all lead
right back to the blues.

That's the root of all of it.

EDWARDS: I didn't get
an electric guitar till 1946.

It would cost about $100 for
the amplifier and the guitar.

But the people just
making a living on the farm

ain't getting no guitar
too much. You know what I mean?

♪ Standing at a corner ♪

♪ Fell down on my knees ♪

♪ At a corner ♪

B. B.: When I was young, I'd
never seen an electric guitar,

and, where we lived,
it wouldn't have did me

any good anyway
'cause we had no electricity.

KAY: This area in Mississippi
gave birth

to this incredible laundry list
of people

who are the pioneers
of the blues ‐‐

Honeyboy Edwards,
Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters.

And some of them, of course,
left there.

[ Blues music plays ]

From the early 1920s,
you have this massive migration

of African‐Americans
from south to north.

Chicago absorbs a lot
of Southern black migrants.

People call it the Up South.

But, really, why I left the
South for was to make records.

I couldn't find no way to get
to make records down there.

I couldn't get no connection,
you know.

Said,
"Well, I'm going to Chicago.

♪ Well, I'm going away
to leave ♪

♪ Won't be back no more ♪

ST. VINCENT:
Every bit of music that happens

happens in the context
of a space.

So at some point, somebody said,

"Hey, we can't ‐‐ We can't hear
this acoustic guitar

over the amount of people
who are here."

WATERS: And you playin'
without an amplifier,

and the people
havin' a little fun,

takin' a little nip,
they forget you there.

So let's plug it in.
Let's...

Like, let's ramp it up.

♪ Got my mojo workin' ♪

♪ But it just don't work
on you ♪

STUART: The difference
in the Mississippi Delta Blues

and Chicago Blues was they
basically just put it on a train

and took it up north
and plugged it in.

Hot‐wired the blues.

♪ My command ♪

‐♪ Got my mojo workin' ♪
‐♪ Got my mojo workin' ♪

HARPER: When the arc
of the blues hits Muddy Waters,

at that time, with the
electrification of instruments,

it was all roads perfectly met
in one man,

in Chicago, in that moment.

Then when
the blues invaded England,

to me is one of the most
important moments in music,

because somebody
had to recognize these guys

for the musical heroes
that they were.

♪ I don't want you to ♪

♪ Be no slave ♪

WINWOOD:
It was fairly surreal,

the transfer of this music
into England.

Blues was completely different

to anything
that we'd ever heard before,

and it just had
a natural attraction.

♪ I just want to
make love to you ♪

♪ Love to you ♪

LEAVELL: Mick Jagger
and Keith Richards, I think,

had gone to school together.

They had known each other,

but they meet
on a train platform in London,

and Mick has
a Muddy Waters record,

and Keith looks at him and says,
"What's that, mate?"

You know, and that says a lot,
doesn't it?

They love, revere the blues.
You know, they've studied it.

They are so heavily influenced
by it.

♪ I just wanna make love
to you ♪

♪ Baby, love to you ♪

♪ Baby, love to you ♪

JAMES: Well, I didn't quite know
how to take the Rolling Stones.

It sounded like
they were trying to sing badly.

You know, it sounded like
they were going out of their way

to not hit the right notes.

You know what I mean?

♪ ...to wash my clothes ♪

KRAMER: The Rolling Stones
were the bad boys

of English rock 'n' roll,

and they were always marketed
that way.

They may not have been,

but that was the way
they were marketed.

♪ I just wanna make love
to you ♪

♪ Baby, love to you ♪

♪ Baby, love to you ♪

LEAVELL:
Keith is the riff meister.

How in the world does he come up

with something
like "Satisfaction"?

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Rolling Stones' "(I Can't
Get No) Satisfaction" plays ]

♪ I can't get no ♪

♪ Satisfaction ♪

JAMES: That really was the
moment that changed everything.

When "Satisfaction" came out,
that was it.

The Stones were the number‐one
rock 'n' roll band.

♪ And I try, and I try,
and I try ♪

♪ I can't get no ♪

♪ I can't get no ♪

♪ Oh, when I'm driving
in my car ♪

JOHN:
Prior to that song,

Brian Jones had always provided
all the riffs.

So when they went to America
and recorded "Satisfaction"

and brought it back, the fact
that Keith had played a riff

at all was pretty astonishing.

Equally, the fact that it had
such an amazing influence

on the song
was quite remarkable.

[ Guitar tuning ]

I mean, it was a big deal

when I learned
that a lot of the stuff,

like, that I was
scratching my head over...

... when I realized
it was in a different tuning.

That's how he was doing
that thing, you know?

It all started to make sense,
you know?

Muddy Waters would have used
this tuning a lot.

This was like, "Oh, yeah,
Keith Richards was doing..."

[ Strumming guitar ]

"Ehrrrrr"!
[ Laughs ]

You know, just think of it
in terms of human speech,

what, the attitude
behind making a sou‐‐

[ Grunts ]

It's like a machine gun, man,
you know.

That's ‐‐ That ‐‐
That's the statement being made.

That's what ‐‐ What
Keith's doing with that sound,

that's what Mick's doing
with the vocal.

♪ When I'm driving in my car ♪

♪ And a man comes on the radio ♪

♪ And tellin' me more and more ♪

♪ About some
useless information ♪

It's this cocky,
rebellious music.

It's, like, right in the face
of the oppressor.

Get the fuck out of my way.
[ Laughs ]

And that ‐‐
And if you're 14 years old,

it's audio testosterone.

♪ All right ♪

♪ I can't get no ♪

The production elements that
are employed on those records

only enhance the message.

Probably the earliest use
of the Fuzz‐Tone.

It's very early use of that.

JOHNS:
The first specific unit

that was made
to distort a guitar

opened up
incredible possibilities,

just because you could
make a note sustain

for as long as that,
apart from anything else,

and it made it sound
more aggressive.

♪ ...phenomenal lies ♪

♪ I'm the cause, make a turn ♪

♪ Near the party line ♪

The guitar can be a shield
and a weapon.

It can scream when I can't.

It can be the monster
or the villain.

It ought to just be
a noisemaker,

and if serving the song means
that it's a knife coming in

and slashing the painting,
then that's what it ought to be.

♪ Like a birth in reverse ♪

♪ What I saw
through the blinds ♪

BECK: The guitar, when it's
distorted, sounds threatening,

even at low level.

If you switch off the distortion
and then turn up the level,

you don't feel threatened,
because it's a clear sound.

But for some reason,
the distortion,

it strikes, like, fear.

GROHL: I remember when I
first got my electric guitar,

it just didn't sound right.

I'm like, "Wait a second.

This doesn't sound like
'Revolution' by The Beatles.

What, oh, I need
a distortion pedal?"

I said,
"Mom, can I please have $25?

I have to get this thing.
It's called a distortion ‐‐"

"Distortion pedal.
What's that?"

So, I plug it in, I get it home,
and I turn it up,

it's like "khhhhh,"
and I'm so excited!

My mom's like,
"Is that thing broken?"

I'm like, "No.
Doesn't it sound great!"

She's like, "Absolutely not!
Sounds horrible!"

[ Cream's
"Sunshine of Your Love" plays ]

WATERS:
It must have been '66, maybe.

I was a student
at the Regent Street Poly,

and for our end of term dance,
we had Cream.

♪ It's getting near dawn ♪

And the curtains open.

It was like, "Ohhh!"

♪ I've been waiting so long ♪

♪ To be where I'm going ♪

♪ In the sunshine of your love ♪

♪ I'm with you, my love ♪

And it was
just an incredible moment.

And then, they suddenly said,

"We'd like to bring on a friend
of ours from the United States

who's gonna play a few songs
with us."

And this bloke came on.
It was Jimi Hendrix.

[ "Purple Haze" plays ]

BECK: He was the one that
completely upset the apple cart

amongst the guitar fraternity
in London, I know for a fact,

and pretty much everywhere else.

AUERBACH:
Hendrix toured in soul bands,

so he really knew soul music,
like dance music.

He understood,
like, what made people move.

[ "Shotgun" plays ]

♪ Shotgun ♪

CONNOR: Jimi Hendrix
was a hell of a entertainer,

but he was competition
with Little Richard.

And you don't go onstage
with Little Richard

and outdo Little Richard.

Little Richard got rid of him.

He was a genius.

Very technical and get the...
[Imitates guitar]

[ Guitar solo ]

[ Using microphone stand
as a slide ]

AUERBACH:
He was influenced by people,

but because
it went through his brain,

it was filtered through
his mind, it sounded like him.

[ Playing with teeth ]

WATERS: And he was doing
all this stuff with his teeth

and behind his head
and all of that.

I was just like, "Oh, my."

[ Guitar solo ]

BECK: He taught us
that you got to loosen up.

The teeth
and the back behind the head ‐‐

We wouldn't dream of doing that.

Can you imagine if Eric and I
had done this at the time?

They would have just thrown shit
at us, you know?

His appearance
was also outrageous.

I mean, he had an Afro which was
sort of out of control.

[ Guitar solo ]

His clothes were out of control.
Sexy, as well.

I mean, all the ingredients
needed were there.

[ Guitar solo ]

He had it all.
He had fantastic technique,

which no one
could really get hold of.

[ Down‐tempo blues‐rock plays ]

ZAK: He's such
a historically aware musician.

So he knows the masters.

The three Kings
as he called them ‐‐

Albert, Freddie, and B. B.,
you know.

[ Guitar solo ]

But he's also
a psychedelic hippie,

and he understands
the whole world of record making

as this world
of enormous possibility.

KRAMER: Jimi Hendrix was the
greatest electric‐guitar player

I've ever seen or heard

or had the great privilege
of recording.

For about two weeks,
we were experimenting

with stereo phasing, which
had never been done before.

We said, "Jimi, come in.
We've got something

we want to play you."

So Jimi comes in,
and we start playing

the middle part
of "Axis: Bold as Love"

where the drums come in.

It goes badoo, doo, doo,
baduckadaduckada.

And the phasing kicks in.

[ Drums phasing ]

He grabbed his head
in his hands, went,

"Ah! Oh, my God!
I can't believe you.

How did you do that?!
That was in my dream! Ahhh!

I want that on everything, man!"

So, every day
we were trying new things ‐‐

heavy compression,
weird types of EQ,

backwards tapes.

[ Sound effects playing ]

JASON: These albums
like "Electric Ladyland"

are kind of sonic fantasies.

They are worlds unto themselves

that could never actually exist
in real life.

I don't think
there was any artist

exactly like Jimi Hendrix
who could use his guitar

to mold
and sculpt time and space,

and just through
his guitar performance,

could give you a complete essay
on what the '60s were like,

on what it was like to be
an African‐American man

who was working
in multiple genres,

who was living in between

certain intersections
of identity.

[ Cheers and applause ]

[ Guitar feedback ]

When you hear
Jimi Hendrix play guitar,

it's Jimi Hendrix's voice

screaming through
the instrument.

[ Guitar rumbling ]

He radicalized
the use and the form

and the point
of what the guitar was,

and so everybody
started thinking,

"What can I do
with a musical instrument?"

In large part
because of The Beatles

and what they were doing
with using Eastern instruments

and so on, but, also, I think
you have to credit Jimi Hendrix

for changing the game.

ZAK: The impulse to change
the sound of the music

was nothing new.

It was ‐‐ That's what
rock 'n' roll always was.

Always looking
for something different.

Then as technology continues
to develop through the '70s,

there's just
more and more possibilities.

[ The Who's
"Won't Get Fooled Again" plays ]

JOHNS: My first introduction
to the synthesizer

was through Pete Townshend,

when he asked me
to do "Who's Next."

And he sent me the demos that
he'd made in his own studio.

He's an extremely accomplished
engineer.

I couldn't believe the sounds

that were coming out
of these demos,

because of the synthesizer
he'd used.

Back in those days,
they were really complicated

and looked a bit
like the old‐fashioned

telephone exchangers,
cords going everywhere.

MAN: There are oscillators,
which produce the sound;

filters; amplifiers;
and envelope generators,

which shape it.

[ Note descending ]

JOHNS: First of all,
he figured out how to work it,

but he then took it and used it,

for the first time
in my experience anyway,

in the most extraordinary way,

"Baba O'Riley"
being a classic example.

[ Intro to The Who's
"Baba O'Riley" plays ]

He created a rhythm pattern

that was not only
a very strange sound,

but the actual rhythm itself
was rather odd...

and then wrote a song 'round it.

[ Band joins in ]

And juxtaposed it
against the power of Keith Moon,

John Entwistle, and himself,
playing guitar, bass, and drums.

And then, the extraordinary
explosive vocal

that Roger Daltrey gives us.

♪ Out here in the fields ♪

♪ I fight for my meals ♪

♪ I get my back into my living ♪

One of my major problems was,
to compete with Pete's demos,

which were invariably amazing,

and very often, I'd steal
elements from the demo,

the synthesizer track, and then
would play that in to the band,

and they would ‐‐
They actually recorded

to a playback
of Pete's synthesizer,

because the synthesizer
suggests the rhythm.

DALTREY: Keith had
terrible trouble with it.

Keith used to have to play
to a click track.

And he used to tape
the earphones to his head,

'cause he was
such an animated drummer,

you know, we went through
"Baba O'Riley"

and "Won't Get Fooled Again,"

to a backing track
of that sound.

It's a fifth member of the band.

[ Synthesizer
playing classical music ]

The synthesizer really migrated
from the music lab

to the pop music scene
because of Bob Moog,

a wonderful man.

He was a guy
with a pencil protector.

You know what I'm saying?
Short sleeve, white shirt,

pencil protector,
lots of pencils.

He was an engineer,
and a good one.

[ Synthesizer playing ]

A synthesizer means
massaging the electrons in space

to create a new sound
from nothing.

Bob Moog had a certain vision,

and a bunch of us
played into it...

...Beaver & Krause...

...Keith Emerson...

...Silver Apples,

Wendy Carlos, Peter Nero.

A few people were starting
to push the synthesizer

into being an instrument
that people could use.

There was no school
you could learn

how to play the synthesizer.
There was no course.

You just had to pick it up
and start learning.

But when I heard it,
my world exploded.

I ran straight into the arms
of electronica,

and I ended up buying

one of the first
Moog Series III synthesizers.

I loved it,
because it made me feel like

I was a U‐boat captain
from another galaxy

when I was standing
in front of it.

And there was
this very wonderful guy

named Malcolm Cecil.

First‐class upright bass player,

and he was upright,
and the bass was upright.

He said, "I have to learn
how to play the synthesizer."

I said,
"I'll make a deal with you."

CECIL: And he said,
"Would you be willing to show me

how to record properly?"

I said, "Well, would you
be willing to show me

how to run that thing?"

"I'll show you
how to play the synthesizer

if you teach me how to become
a real recording engineer."

And I said, "Yes."

[ Synthesizer playing
ethereal sounds ]

MARGOULEFF: And that began
our journey together.

PHILLINGANES:
They were these two crazy guys,

and they built this massive bank
of synthesizers

they called TONTO.

MARGOULEFF:
Modules by ARP, modules by Moog,

modules by me and Malcolm.

It looked like [Laughs]

It just took up ‐‐
I don't know ‐‐ several walls,

with the patch cords,
and it was insane.

MARGOULEFF: We made a record
which we weren't sure

was even music.

It was called "Zero Time."

Got a huge write‐up
in Rolling Stone

because it was so wacky
and weird.

Stevie Wonder heard it,

and the next thing we know,
there's a knocking at the door,

and there's Stevie
in a chartreuse jumpsuit,

5:00 or 6:00 at night,
with our album under his arm,

and he wanted to know how we
were making this kind of music.

CECIL: I called Bob
on the phone, and said,

"Get over here.
We've got a new client."

And we let him in the studio,

and we didn't wake up
for another five years.

[ Stevie Wonder's
"Living for the City" plays ]

♪ A boy is born ♪

♪ In hard‐time Mississippi ♪

♪ Surrounded by ♪

♪ Four walls
that ain't so pretty ♪

Steve walked into that studio.

He had so many songs in his head

that had been pent up in there
for so many years.

I don't know.
Motown had him on a formula.

♪ Living just enough ♪

♪ Just enough for the city ♪

♪ Yah ♪

♪ His father works ♪

♪ Some days for 14 hours ♪

♪ And you can bet ♪

♪ He barely makes a dollar ♪

♪ His mother goes ♪

♪ To scrub the floors for many ♪

♪ And you'd best believe ♪

♪ She hardly gets a penny ♪

♪ Living just enough ♪

♪ Just enough for the city ♪

BOYD:
Motown treats their artists.

They have almost,
like, a finishing school,

so the way the artists dressed,
the way they performed onstage,

all cultivated
so as not to offend

what were considered
mainstream white sensibilities.

MARGOULEFF: And Steve turned 21,
and he got ‐‐

was really fed up with it.

He's finally reached
his majority, said,

"I'm over.
I'm leaving."

And he came to New York,
and we just started recording.

[ Stevie Wonder's "Superstition"
plays ]

It was like they were
working on Frankenstein.

I mean,
just up all day, all night,

and coming up
with these nuances and timbres.

♪ Very superstitious ♪

♪ Writings on the wall ♪

♪ Very superstitious ♪

QUESTLOVE: One slight touch
of a button could give you

a whole nother color.

So Malcolm and Bob's
whole job was to figure out,

you know, what colors
were inside of his head.

♪ Broke the lookin' glass ♪

CECIL: I had a two‐track tape
running at all times,

because that's where
most of the ideas came from.

And I'd say,
"Hey, is that a song?"

And we'd play it back,

something that he was
just musing around,

and he'd go,
"Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah.

And he would get an idea.
Off we would go.

[ Stevie Wonder's "You Are
the Sunshine of My Life" plays ]

We recorded well in excess
of 250 songs.

MARGOULEFF: When we finally got
to making an album, we said,

"Oh, we'll take this one
and that one,"

and somehow, for five years,
we could do nothing wrong.

Every record we touched
turned to gold.

♪ You are the sunshine
of my life ♪

Grammys, platinum, gold.

♪ That's why
I'll always be around ♪

QUESTLOVE: Stevie Wonder was
able to take all the innovations

and then just bring it
to a level

that was so simple
to understand.

It was funky enough
for soul people

and rock people

and music lovers in general
to appreciate it.

That's hard to do.

♪ I feel like this is
the beginning ♪

BOYD: There's still
a lot of controversy,

because people feel like
if you introduce electronics,

you're sort of changing
the nature of the sound.

Some people are against this,

and Stevie
not only embraces it ‐‐

He, I think, leads the pack.

♪ I'd find myself drowning
in my own tears ♪

♪ Ooh‐whoa, oh, oh,
whoa‐oh, oh ♪

[ Synthesizer playing ]

CARNEY: It's one of
the most versatile instruments.

This thing can sound
really clean.

It can sound like a whistle,

or it can sound really gnarly
and, like, disgusting.

[ Sound modulates ]

Through the process
of looking for a sound

that sounds like a flute,

I'll come up with something
that sounds like,

you know, someone getting,
like, stabbed in the neck.

This is my Minimoog.

This one's, like,
super‐modified,

and I wanted it 'cause it's
exactly like the one Devo used

and they were, like,
the kings of the Minimoog.

We're all Devo.

[ Cheers and applause ]

SCOTT: The first time
I was made aware of Devo,

I said,
"You've got to be joking.

They spit on people.
They do all of this?

They're never
gonna do anything."

Of course, Devo came out
with their first album,

and they were
on "Saturday Night Live."

I saw them on that
and was totally blown away.

[ Devo's "(I Can't Get No)
Satisfaction" plays ]

MOTHERSBAUGH: We really
were only on college radio

before that,
so nobody knew who we were.

It was almost like
"Saturday Night Live"

played a prank on the nation.

"Satisfaction,"
it was like my anthem.

I remember playing the 45
at home, you know,

on a little portable machine.

♪ I can't get no ♪

♪ Satisfaction ♪

♪ I can't get me no ♪

♪ Satisfaction ♪

♪ And I try, and I try ♪

♪ And I try, t‐t‐t‐t‐try,
try, try ♪

♪ I can't get no ♪

There were people
that took offense

to Devo covering "Satisfaction."

And there was ‐‐ 'Cause, you
know, it's like, guard dogs.

They sniffed that we were
trying to change things,

and that we wanted to, like,

tip over the potato cart
one more time.

[ Helicopter blades whirring ]

10 years earlier, we were
art students at Kent State.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

I just remember
being kind of shocked

that, all of a sudden,
something that came

from just all of us announcing

that we were against
the war in Vietnam,

was now Jeeps and tanks
and National Guardsmen.

[ Gunshots ]

MAN: The university campus
has been closed.

MOTHERSBAUGH:
After all the student protests

were crushed in this country,

everybody kind of went, "Okay,
that was a little too real.

They killed people.

They're putting people in jail

for disagreeing
with the government.

Let's just go back
to having a good time."

So the bands
like Kansas and Styx

and Foreigner came along,

and the politics
were kind of like, "I'm white.

I'm a misogynist.

I'm a conspicuous consumer,
and I'm proud of it."

And we were like,
"What happened to Bob Dylan?

What happened
to all these people

that had something to say and
were critiquing our culture?"

I remember watching footage
of medical evacuations

from Vietnam, and I thought,

"Those are the kind of sounds
I need.

I want to make music
with helicopters

and with ray guns
and with lasers.

I want to make music
where we're using sounds

that have something to do with
what's going on in our world."

[ Synthesizer sounds playing ]

I'd been interested
in synthesizers

and really felt that technology
was leading the way.

MAN: You've got to explain
all this to us.

I mean, like, is this how you
sort of make up all these songs?

Well, we let the machines
make up the songs.

We just are
the human instruments.

We're using technology
to make caveman sounds.

♪ Wha‐hoo ♪

♪ Ooh‐ooh, ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Wha‐hoo ♪

♪ Ooh‐ooh, ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ Wha‐hoo ♪

♪ Ooh‐ooh, ooh ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

For the first couple records,

our record company
just thought of us

as this weird little art band,
but "Freedom of Choice,"

that album,
still kind of robotic,

but we hired a producer
named Bob Margouleff.

[ Engine starts ]

[ Siren wails ]

MARGOULEFF: I'm sitting there
in the front office,

and these two little
Volkswagen Bugs

come into the parking lot,
and the Devos get out.

They're wearing jumpsuits
and hard hats

with, like, a tank on the side

with a plastic hose
going up their noses.

Even the jaded people
at the record plant

had to look at that one twice.

But how did I construct
the record?

The same way I constructed the
record with Steve and Malcolm.

The records have their same
root ‐‐ the Moog synthesizer.

The synthesizer
is every instrument.

It depends
on how you want to use it.

[ Up‐tempo music plays ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

JASON: The electric guitar
was still the primary instrument

of album‐oriented rock.

In the mid‐1970s,
that really starts to change,

especially with the rise
of disco.

Real watershed moment

was when people heard,
for the first time,

Giorgio Moroder
and Donna Summer, "I Feel Love."

[ Donna Summer's "I Feel Love"
plays ]

MORODER: First, I took down
a click track.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,

and automatically
the rhythm would...

♪ Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,
dun, dun, dun ♪

Whatever the synthesizer
could do.

But I didn't have a melody,

so I started
to sing a melody on top.

Then Donna Summer came in
and wrote the lyrics,

and she sang it.

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ It's so good, it's so good,
it's so good ♪

♪ It's so good, it's so good ♪

Growing up, I wanted to have
more of that, you know,

like R&B sound, but my voice
was always really kind of pure.

♪ Ooh ♪

♪ I'm in love, I'm in love,
I'm in love ♪

♪ I'm in love, I'm in love ♪

So when we started making music
with the synthesizers,

I felt at home in that kind
of synthesized space.

♪ Oooh ♪

♪ I feel love, I feel love,
I feel love ♪

♪ I feel love ♪

I was so caught up in
producing the music at the time,

but I think, in retrospect,
I see the door that we opened.

♪ I feel lo‐o‐o‐o‐o‐ve ♪

♪ I feel love ♪

MORODER: During the mix,
the engineer gave me a delay

in the bass line,

and instead of doing,
dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,

we do, duttle, duttle, duttle,
duttle, duttle, duttle.

They'll repeat.

And I was suddenly ‐‐ I said,
"This is ‐‐ This is it!"

The reaction
was absolutely fantastic,

and after a few months, it was
number one all over the place.

It's the most requested song
of mine.

♪ Fallin' free, fallin' free,
fallin' free ♪

♪ Fallin' free, fallin' free ♪

JASON: It's not something that
can easily be reproduced live.

The song is totally synthesized.

Even the drums
are a synthesizer.

When people heard it,
they suddenly realized

that there were all kinds
of new possibilities

for popular music that had
nothing to do with the guitar,

that had nothing to do even with
traditional instrumentation.

ZAK: That possibility,
to make music out of technology,

was something that had been
there for a long ‐‐

Now there's just a new gizmo
that we can do it with.

Isn't that cool? I mean, you
can trigger this and sync it up,

and, wow, let's do it.

There's never a kind of like a,

"Oh, I don't think
we should do that" moment.

[ Animotion's "Obsession"
plays ]

MILNER:
Eventually the synthesizer

becomes common enough

for bands to brag
that they had no synthesizer.

The synthesizer came to
symbolize something not natural.

ZAK:
All through the '80s ‐‐

there's not a really
authentic‐sounding record

in the '80s.

They're all highly processed.

♪ Let's get physical ♪

♪ Physical ♪

♪ I wanna get physical ♪

FERGUSON: Late '70s,
those horrible synthesizers,

it's hard for me to imagine

that that was
the golden age of recording.

♪ ...body talk ♪

♪ Let's get physical ♪

CONNOR:
I never did like synthesizers.

No talent in a drum machine.

but it was cutting a lot
of musicians out of work,

synthesizer.

Everything was determined
by this regular beat.

Synthesizers, get on your bike,
get out of here.

[ Ethereal synthesizer plays ]

ENO: I was in Cologne airport,
and I was thinking,

"If you're going to have music,
what would be

the right kind of music
for a place like this?"

It has to be non‐narrative.

It can't have beginning,
middle, and end.

It should be like a river

where there's
a sort of consistency

to the object itself,

but it's never exactly the same
from one moment to the next.

I studied painting, not music,

and I realized
when I was quite young

that the most interesting form
of painting

that you could do now
is with sound.

[ Ethereal synthesizer
continues ]

With the synthesizer,
we can make a sound

that nobody's ever heard before.

It's a little bit like
if you went to a painter

and said, "I know you've got
your box of paints there,

and you've got seven colors
of the spectrum,

but here's another 4,000 colors
that you've never seen before."

It's this new form
that we still call music,

but we should call
something else.

ZIMMER: Doing things
in an electronic way,

in a funny way
it's more personal,

because you have to create
the sound from scratch.

It's not just writing the note.

You're actually creating the
sound of the note from scratch.

In the Batman movie
"Dark Knight,"

Batman inhabits
a very particular world.

I thought,
"Wouldn't it be interesting

to make a sonic world
for this character?"

So I started by creating
a vocabulary of sounds

electronically.

So now on the keyboard,
I can, you know...you know.

They're indescribable.

It's not like, you know,
oh, here's a violin sound.

It's ‐‐ You know,
it's some abstract thing.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

We tried to come up
with a very iconic sound

right at the beginning
of the movie,

which is this sort of [Whooshes]

You know ‐‐ like
a giant flapping of the wings.

[ Wings rustling ]

And slowly, during that process,

I actually start hearing
little bits of tune,

or little motifs, et cetera.

[ Synthesizer plays ]

There's a lot of snobbery
in classical music,

but my dad was an inventor.

I grew up with technology.

And I saw
all musical instruments

as pieces of technology,

so, for me, anything
that made a decent noise

was a musical instrument

and should be incorporated
into the orchestra.

[ Note drones ]

I sort of know what
I want to say with the scene,

but I usually can't find
the notes straightaway.

So...

The reason I regret
not going to music school

is just because
whenever I get stuck,

I wish I had a bit of Beethoven
in the drawer,

or, you know, a bit of Mozart
to go and steal from.

And what happens is,
I don't have that.

So if I'm stuck, I'd better
come up with something myself.

That's why hours and hours
and hours get spent in this room

with me torturing
this poor computer.

Let me have one more go.

[ Suspenseful music plays ]

The way Hollywood operates is,
they make these movies,

and they cost hundreds
of millions of dollars,

and basically,
at the end of the day,

they're waiting for me
to complete the music,

and I'm doing it
on any old PC that you can buy

for like $10.50
and on a piece of software,

you know,
that's probably another $20.

So, kids, if you want
to try this at home,

knock yourselves out.

[ Electronic music plays ]

SKRILLEX: I make all my records
in hotel rooms pretty much,

in airplanes, you know,
or on car rides.

I've made records in car rides.

You know? Especially when
you have, you know, deadlines.

[ Skrillex's "Scary Monsters
and Nice Sprites" plays ]

MARGOULEFF:
The synthesizer, the laptop ‐‐

They're all part
of the same world.

The laptop, especially, is
the folk instrument of our time.

TIESTO: Our world is just ‐‐
is just a high‐tech world.

You know,
we are the Internet generation.

We are fast‐paced.
We need laptops.

And, yeah,
we're not great on guitars,

but we're great with our hands,
and we still make the melodies.

MARGOULEFF: What is EDM?
Electronic dance music.

It is our new folk music, EDM.

WOMAN: Yes!
Oh, my God!

MARGOULEFF: It has nothing to do
with the past.

It has to do
with creating sounds

out of space
that never existed before.

Sequences and sounds
from a new place.

We're like galactic travelers.

And we're on a journey.

[ Electronic music plays ]

HARPER:
In an era where everything

is being transformed
by technology,

one of the most exciting aspects
of being original

is reinventing what's old.

[ Train horn blowing ]

AUERBACH: Well, we knew
we wanted to get out of town

to make a record.

CARNEY: We wanted to go
to a classic studio,

a place that had history.

AUERBACH: And we decided
to go to Muscle Shoals,

and we got to the studio,
and it was pretty much just ‐‐

It was empty.
No console, really.

Nothing worked.

All the wall treatment that used
to be there in the '60s and '70s

was gone.

[ Laughs ] You know,
my dream of, like, recording

in this period‐piece studio,
like, vanished immediately.

But we had Mark Neil,
and he was the engineer.

CARNEY: So, Mark drove
his preamps, microphones.

I drove down from Akron
and brought a lot of gear.

AUERBACH:
And so, we set up all our stuff.

CARNEY: No Pro Tools.
12‐channel desk.

AUERBACH: And it was
almost like we were recording

in a basement again in a room

that wasn't really
acoustically correct.

But Mark understood all these
old records that we loved

and why they sounded so good.

Not why they sounded old, but
why they sounded really good.

Why the drums sounded huge,
but they were mono.

But there were
just like two mikes.

And we learned that
when we recorded with Mark.

We called
our manager's assistant,

and we said,
"We need a harpsichord ‐‐ now."

And he found us,
like, a student model,

and he drove it down
from Nashville.

[ Harpsichord plays ]

Started playing a little line.

♪ Doo‐doo‐doo‐doo,
doo‐doo‐doo‐doo ♪

♪ Doo‐doo‐doo‐doo‐doo ♪

Pat started playing,

and it just immediately
sounded fun and interesting.

[ The Black Keys'
"Too Afraid to Love You" plays ]

Pat got on the mellotron

and plugged in
like 20 guitar pedals to it.

♪ Oh‐oh‐oh ♪

I had partial lyrics
to "Too Afraid To Love You."

Figured out
the chords of the song.

And we just
started recording it.

♪ My gears, they grind ♪

♪ More each day ♪

♪ And I feel like
they're gonna grind away ♪

And Mark got Pat
to play Mark's drums.

He's got this amazing‐sounding
old Gretsch kit

that just resonates beautifully.

♪ They drive me wild ♪

♪ The never‐ending mile
after mile ♪

And because it sounded so good,
Pat just played lighter.

And it just ‐‐ His playing

sounded so fluid
throughout the whole record.

♪ ...love you ♪

♪ It's heaven on earth ♪

♪ It's in her embrace ♪

♪ Her gentle touch,
her smiling face ♪

CARNEY: We didn't distort the
tracks while we were recording.

For the first time,
that was gonna be something

that was approached in mixing
with Tchad Blake.

And the only instruction was ‐‐
I send him an e‐mail that was,

"Do whatever you want.

Have fun and make it sound
really F'd up."

♪ I just don't know what to do ♪

♪ I'm too afraid to love you ♪

ZIMMER:
Everything is early days.

I mean,
we've been doing sound recording

for just over 100 years.

And people have been
building drums for thousands.

If you look at a grand piano,

what an incredible piece
of thinking.

And they didn't do it overnight.

And I think
the same goes for computers.

We are at the beginning of this.

MARGOULEFF:
The technology allowed us

to create
new musical experiences.

It allowed us our liberty.

And it's gonna continue
to move us forward.

We have to embrace change
and celebrate it.

[ The Black Keys' "Lonely Boy"
plays ]

AUERBACH:
Come on.

♪ Oh, oh‐oh‐oh ♪

♪ I got a love
that keeps me waiting ♪

♪ Oh, oh, oh‐oh ♪

♪ I got a love
that keeps me waiting ♪

♪ I'm a lonely boy ♪

♪ I'm a lonely boy ♪

♪ Oh, oh‐oh‐oh ♪

♪ I got a love
that keeps me waiting ♪

[ Music ends,
cheers and applause ]