Digital Signatures: The Impact of Digitization on Popular Music Sound

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 Brøvig-Hanssen 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,...
ISBN : 9780262034142