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MoorereviewofZagorski Thomas

Simon Zagorski-Thomas' book, 'The Musicology of Record Production,' explores the emerging field of music scholarship focused on record production as an aesthetic activity. The work is structured around eight thematic pillars that address various aspects of record production, including technology, collaboration, and audience interaction, while integrating concepts from ecological perception and actor-network theory. Overall, the book serves as a foundational text for understanding the complexities of how recordings are produced and perceived, inviting further exploration in the field.

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Regina Stempel
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15 views3 pages

MoorereviewofZagorski Thomas

Simon Zagorski-Thomas' book, 'The Musicology of Record Production,' explores the emerging field of music scholarship focused on record production as an aesthetic activity. The work is structured around eight thematic pillars that address various aspects of record production, including technology, collaboration, and audience interaction, while integrating concepts from ecological perception and actor-network theory. Overall, the book serves as a foundational text for understanding the complexities of how recordings are produced and perceived, inviting further exploration in the field.

Uploaded by

Regina Stempel
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/285384936

The Musicology of Record Production. By Simon Zagorski-Thomas.


Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 269 pp. ISBN 978-1-107-
07564-1

Article in Popular Music · January 2016


DOI: 10.1017/S0261143015000732

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Reviews 149

The Musicology of Record Production. By Simon Zagorski-Thomas. Cambridge:


Cambridge University Press, 2014. 269 pp. ISBN 978-1-107-07564-1
doi:10.1017/S0261143015000732
Simon Zagorski-Thomas’ book aims at no less than mapping an emergent field of
music scholarship. Already well known for his championing of record production
as an aesthetic activity worthy of investigation in more than just pragmatic terms
(through an international conference and journal), here he fleshes out his vision in
such a way as to both lay foundations and create areas for debate, tasks essential
to the launching of any new endeavour.
Zagorski-Thomas has undoubted command of the field. He is equally at home
discussing the historical advances created by John Culshaw’s Wagner recordings in
the 1960s, the application of various of Bourdieu’s concepts to questions of valuation
of what record producers produce, or the relevance of metaphor theory and neuro-
science to the making of sense from recordings. Indeed, the range of the author’s dis-
ciplinary mining of ideas is impressive; I regard myself as reasonably well-read in the
fields he has traversed, but time and again I encountered ideas, writers and nuances
new to me. This is not to say that the author makes equal, or even equally pertinent,
use of all his sources, but it does mean that the foundation and scope for debate he
presents are well worth taking seriously.
The structure of The Musicology of Record Production is built on eight pillars,
which Zagorski-Thomas argues circumscribe the field. His emphasis, though, is
not simply on what it is, but on how we should make sense of it – his
Introduction is followed by chapters which, in turn, put the case for making record
production an object of study, and then address the means by which one might do
so. In this, his own position becomes clear, based as it is in work in ecological per-
ception, embodied cognition, actor-network theory and the systems approach to cre-
ativity. Even if this ideological conglomeration is not to your liking, there is much in
this book that you will find of value.
So, to those pillars. They are offered as four pairs, opening with consideration of
sonic cartoons and staging, linked as they are by question of perception. I’m unsure
exactly what the author means to identify by the former, although in general it seems
to mark the difference between discussing music as (recorded) sound rather than
music as concept, an issue which incorporates questions of the manifest origins of
what we hear, and questions of what we take musical sounds to represent, where
he pits Roger Scruton against theorists of metaphor. The chapter on staging is all
about issues of realism, recognition that recorded reality is always staged, and
how different types of staging are achieved and can be conceptualised.
Zagorski-Thomas’ second pair concern recording technology, broadly separat-
ing its history from its employment. Far from considering mere chronology, the
author focuses on the availability and dissemination of technology in a given circum-
stance, with particular reference to Latour’s actor-network theory and to his under-
standing of the social construction of technology. It is perhaps here, in what could be
a particularly mechanistic aspect of his programme, that he again finds links with
theories of ecological perception and embodied cognition. The same models under-
pin his discussion of the uses of recording technology, drawing in questions of ergo-
nomics, visual representation and creative abuse.
In his third pair, he discusses the recording studio, first focusing on technicians
(sound engineers and record producers), and secondly on the musicians, although of
150 Reviews

course in focusing on the one he has to discuss relationships with the other. The key
idea in the first of these chapters is surely that of distributed creativity, although
issues of learning and of communication are also prominent. In the second I found
focus on issues of collaboration, power relationships and trust, returning to questions
of recording fidelity, but the chapter is so rich that other readers will be left with dif-
ferent impressions. The final pair of chapters, which I found less striking, focus on
audiences. The first raises the relationship between listeners and gatekeepers: ques-
tions of ideology, habitus, authenticity are all addressed. The final chapter discusses
business and the operation of the market, and how these impact on recording
practices.
I have tried to give a flavour of the way Zagorski-Thomas’ book sets out to
achieve its aim, that of laying the foundations for the musicological study of record-
ings. I found the constant sub- and sub-sub-headings a distraction, but I concede that
some readers will find them of value. They do provide a useful way of getting some-
thing from even a cursory read. The constant switch between theory (of many types,
as we’ve seen) and musical examples is very effective. Likewise, in the way that chap-
ters flow (and they do – the book’s narrative is nicely constructed) through a chain of
logic, but not in necessarily predictable ways, the reader is kept engaged. I have to
say that I’m not convinced the term ‘musicology’ is either necessary or accurate
here, although defending that latter would require discussion of how we understand
musicology per se – most importantly, I’m not sure it matters in this context. The
author has produced a book which will repay careful reading by anyone interested
in understanding how we get to hear what we hear but, more importantly, it offers
the potential to explore avenues which are only introduced here. Overall, despite the
performative nature of the subject matter, my greatest impression of the book is an
invitation to get thinking again, rather than just doing: a very necessary corrective.

Allan Moore
University of Surrey, UK
popularmusic@allanfmoore.org.uk

Sounding Race in Rap Songs. By Loren Kajikawa. Berkeley, CA: University of


California Press, 2015. 224 pp. ISBN 9780520283992
doi:10.1017/S0261143015000744
What does race sound like in mainstream US hip-hop? And exactly how is it sounded?
These questions are at the heart of Loren Kajikawa’s book, Sounding Race in Rap
Songs. The book examines the poetics of racial identity in rap music from 1979 to
1999, using case studies from some of rap’s most successful songs, artists and produ-
cers to explore the question: ‘how has rap’s projections of racial identity varied over
time from artist to artist?’ (p. 4). Kajikawa does this through musical analysis of both
beat and flow, with a particular focus on the production techniques. Through ana-
lysis and cultural theory, he offers a fresh perspective on the first 20 years of rap
on record. By looking through a specifically racial lens at how rap’s musical mean-
ings are created, the book provides new insight even to those of us who know the
repertoire all too well.
Kajikawa looks at rap songs as a primary unit of analysis, and acknowledges
that the rap genre has been a ‘singles market’ from the start, something which

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