Pop Music - Technology and Creativity

This text draws on the author’s personal experience as a musician, producer and teacher of popular music to discuss the ways in which audio technology and musical creativity in pop music are inextricably bound together. This relationship, the book argues, is exemplified by the work of Trevor Horn, who is widely acknowledged as one of the most important, innovative and successful British pop record producers of the early 1980s. In the first part of the book, Timothy Warner presents a definition of pop as distinct from British rock music, and goes on to consider the equipment and working practices that result in the specific characteristics of pop music. Part two analyses seven influential recordings produced by Trevor Horn between 1979 and 1985, revealing how the creative use of technology in the modern pop recording studio has informed Horn’s work. These analyses highlight the challenges that pop music poses to the music analyst.