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Abstract
This article examines, through the grooves of the record disc as a site, the inscription of the human voice onto the recorded medium, and the way recording technology has changed how the listener hears and comprehends the physical body. Recording technology allowed human presence to be captured onto a concrete and tactile medium, and enabled the material object of the recording to then be bought, consumed and privately owned. The political implications, and reactions, to this cultural paradigm are discussed. The article focuses on contemporary practices in popular music consumption, and observes that, in works that involve the voice, the human body and the material object are bound up in manifestations of the cult of celebrity.
Notes
[1] The audio is available online at: www.lib.msu.edu/Vincent/samples. Thanks to Robin Maconie for introducing me to the Nightingale recording.
[2] Many authors have previously reflected on Barthes’ ‘grain’. In Performing Rites, Simon Frith (Citation1996, p. 192) develops the Barthian grain by reading ‘the voice as a direct expression of the body’. Frith discusses the process by which the listener hears the recorded voice, the ways in which the voice signifies physical identity, and the modes by which we engage in forms of musical consumption (see Frith, Citation1996, pp. 183 – 202). See also Katharine Norman's Sounding Art (Norman, Citation2004, p. 115).
[3] As a point of departure for this article, Adorno's essay ‘The Form of the Phonograph’ focuses on the materiality of the recording medium, its ‘thingness’, as well as the record as a form of inscription (Adorno, Citation1990 Citation1934, p. 56). Adorno's translator, Thomas Y. Levin, provides thoughtful insights into Adorno's writing in his own essay that accompanies the translations (Levin, Citation1990, pp. 23 – 47). Evan Eisenberg's The Recording Angel (Eisenberg, 2005) elaborates on ideas of recording technology and its relationship to materiality and cultural consumption.
[4] Thomas Edison presented his invention of the phonograph in 1877. There is some dispute over the date and place of the telephone's invention, as well as its inventor. The invention is largely attributed to Alexander Graham Bell, who developed the first device in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1876. However, it has since been found that the Italian Antonio Meucci's invention dates back to 1849. The United States House of Representatives (Resolution 269) credited Meucci as the authentic inventor in June 2002. An extreme form of the free-floating voice can be heard today in the cellphone— evidenced by the very fact that most cellphone conversations are initiated with the receiver asking: ‘Where are you?’ The commonality of such a dialogue suggests that not knowing the location of the vocal source can be disconcerting to the receiver.
[5] Katherine Norman (Citation2004, pp. 106 – 107) discusses the mystery and the work of the listener's imagination when encountering the recorded voice.
[6] As projected in Thomas Edison's 1878 essay on the potentialities for the phonograph, the author states that the invention will ‘unquestionably outrank the photograph’ for ‘the purpose of preserving the sayings, the voice and the last words of the dying member of the family’ (Edison, Citation1878, p. 533). In the article, Edison (Citation1878, p. 536) also proposes that the phonograph will ‘annihilate time and space, and bottle up for posterity the mere utterance of man’.
[7] Connor (Citation2000, pp. 386 – 387). Steven Connor refers to the painter in question as ‘Francis Barrauld’. However, other references to this incident spell the painter's name as ‘Francis Barraud’.
[8] Simon Frith discusses the utilization of technology in the ‘quest for perfection’ (see Frith, Citation1996, pp. 226 – 235).
[9] Classical music is certainly not without its own accompanying cult of personality. As the New York Times suggests: ‘Cheesecake CD covers and slinky gowns are as much a part of the hawking of classical music as of any other field’. Take, for example, the website ‘Beauty in Music’ (subtitled: ‘A guide to the hottest women in classical music’), which celebrates through visual iconography women performers of the classical domain, including profiles and photographs (Wakin, Citation2005; also see http://beautyinmusic.com).
[10] Some of these ideas regarding the digital age separating musical data from the material object, and the possible meanings and ramifications of this, were inspired by reading David Byrne's blog (available online at: www.davidbyrne.com/journal/current.php; accessed 5 June 2005). See also Evan Eisenberg's The Recording Angel (Eisenberg, 2005).
[11] Simon Frith has discussed some of the legal ramifications concerning the voice, ownership and personal property (see Frith, Citation1996, p. 191).
[12] Consider, e.g., the case of Danger Mouse, whose The Grey Album (2004) was constructed entirely from sampled material, used without permission: a conglomerate of melodic fragments and rhythms taken from the Beatles' White Album (1968) mixed with acappella raps extracted from J-Z's 2003 The Black Album. The Grey Album became the subject of a heated debate over rights and permissions, in which an altercation erupted between a community of ‘sharing’ proselytizers and the record industry, followed by a successful local-level protest in which the music was made available on the Internet as a free download.
[13] Interestingly, the recent advertising campaign for the iPod focuses on the body and is suggestive of a direct transference from the body of the musician or singer to that of the listener. The advertising markets to the body of the consumer/listener, focusing on the way the iPod makes one ‘feel’: the advertising imagery features the silhouette shapes of dancing figures robed only in distinctive iPod hardware, and the advertising catch-tune, Gorillaz's, ‘Feel Good, Inc.
[14] Wikipedia, available online at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorillaz.
[15] Gorillaz (2005). Demon Days. Virgin Records.