Thursday, 29 August 2019

Introducing the Concept

Recently, I've been exploring some YouTube videos that dig in to the engineering and mixing aspects of popular music. One of the many rabbit holes I've fallen down is a channel for an online audio engineering academy (HOFA). One of the features is Dennis Ward "reacting" to classic recordings from the perspective of a sound engineer. It's fascinating.



Another great channel is Rick Beato's. Rick provides similar insight, but he has the wizardry to access individual tracks of songs and can break things down for the listener from a musical theory perspective.



Through these videos, I've learned a lot about what makes popular recordings, well, popular. The more I learn, the more I want to listen.



A few months ago, I had Spotify playing a random mix while I was working. I wasn't paying much attention to the music until I heard a song pop up that I hadn't heard in decades, though I remember it vividly. The song was "The Logical Song" by Supertramp. I stopped what I was doing for a few minutes and looked up the song and the band on Wikipedia, curious about the background. It probably won't surprise you to learn that the song is from the album "Breakfast in America", an album that I of course had heard of, but aside from the singles, was almost entirely unfamiliar with.



At this point, you might be wondering how I managed to be a person that at one time owned thousands of rock CDs, but somehow missed this one. I wish I had an answer, but I'll bet I could find some gaps in your musical library too.

And lo, I came upon the idea to close some of my personal musical gaps. The plan is to designate a classic album, give it a full, one-sitting listen, and provide my thoughts on the work. I plan to start with seminal rock albums, but by no means is this project limited to that genre.

Since most things are more enjoyable with others, I'll be inviting some of my pals who share my love of music, both performing and listening. Let's see where this takes us!

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