Those in music production often refer to the sound of a recording separate from the song. A recording can have a good or unique sound that catches the public ear and at the same time the song may be inconsequential.
As Dick Clark once commented “(the sound is) what the kids listen for… the more different, the more original, the more unique the sound is, the more chance a record has of becoming a hit”.
“The sound,” in many cases, could be described as a formula that in and of itself is a marketable commodity that is, in the first instance, sold by a producer to the record label.
The ingredients, which make up this formula, come together as new devices become available and naturally enough each subsequent wave of music producer builds on and modifies earlier formula. Often they are so identifiable with the state of the technological art of the time that the trained ear can place the year of production based on the sound.
Geography plays a part in identifying styles. At various times a swarm of hits will emerge from a certain geographical region where there is a vibrant scene and a community of musicians. Their collective style becomes identified with that place.
The sound of New Orleans, Chicago, Motown, San Francisco, TexMex, Merseyside, Londonbeat, Memphis, Liverpool, West Coast, Mid Atlantic, Berlin, Nashville, Jamaican, Brazilian, Casa del Sol, and Euro are just a few of the places associated with a certain style of sound that have received world wide attention during a certain period of time.
Sound and music became a commodity incrementally starting at the beginning of the 20th century when records first captured and fixed a performance. It took a second leap when electric recording first appeared in the late 1920s, and another when tape recording was developed in the 1940s.
But the greatest leap occurred when Les Paul changed the recording studio from a place where a performance was documented to a place of creation. He was the first to use the technique of “sound on sound” or overdubbing, a cornerstone of the modern pop music sound, and was years ahead of what has become common practice.
Using this technique, Les Paul teamed up with vocalist Mary Ford and they changed the way pop music sounded. Together they had 28 hits from 1950 to 1957. The best known are “How High The Moon”, “Mockin’ Bird Hill”, “Vaya con Dios”, and “Tiger Rag”.
By and large, The music industry of the day saw multi-track and the “overdubbing” technique as Les Paul’s sound, and not a general tool for music production. In the early 1960s, the Beatles and The Beach Boys would change all that.
The “Les Paul” sound was a production technique that become a bankable commodity. Such techniques are often associated with sounds that people have never heard before.
In the 1950s, Ross Bagdasarian had been making records as a songwriter and arranger. He had a particular knack for writing novelty songs, and in 1958, had a hit with “Witch Doctor” in which he sonically conveyed a shrunken head singing by recording the vocals at half the tape speed used to record the instruments and then playing it all back at normal speed. The singing went up in pitch by an octave.
Later that year, he invented an alter ego, David Seville, and introduced a vocal trio using the technique as on his earlier hit. “The Chipmunk Christmas” sold 3.5 million copies in five weeks, and from 1959-80, Alvin, Simon and Theodore made eight chart albums selling over 30 million copies.