Recording studios as museums? Record producers’ perspectives on German rock studios and accounts of their heritage practice

Abstract

Recording studios are shrouded in mystery. Some have become sites of pilgrimage; other studios have been converted into heritage museums. These practices are driven by city authorities, commercial heritage institutions or music fans. This interview study gives a voice to an understudied group: record producers and studio owners as the people in charge of popular music creation. Three German rock and metal producers expressed their opinion on the usefulness of studio museums and explained their own heritage practices. Their insights demystify the ‘magical aura’ associated with recording studios, picturing these spaces as places of pressure and anxiety. Hardly convinced of the technologically deterministic ‘magical contamination’ of technical equipment, the producers see little sense in studios as museums. For them, the released record is what counts. To stay in touch with the community and to keep the memory of their work alive, they prefer to use social media.

‘It was pop that was making the bread’: Accounting and musical space at Abbey Road studios

“…The notion of cultural production, particularly the creation of musical recordings, conflicting with commerce has been recently challenged as being overly simplistic with Keith Negus emphasising that music production does not take place only within the confines of the corporate environment ‘structured according to the requirements of capitalist production or organizational formulae’ (Negus, 1999: 14), but rather cultural production represents the outcome of broader cultural practices that are outside of the direct control of the corporate agenda. This was certainly the case in Britain during the 1960s, which witnessed a cultural revolution, elaborated upon later in the article, that contributed to the spaces in which musical recordings were taking place, taking on a mystique and aura of magical and creative performances driven by the physical, musical space of the recording studio (Bates, 2012; Bennett, 2016; Gibson, 2005; Herbst, 2021). The spaces from which cultural products have historically emerged are the focus of the present study.…”

“…The notion of magical moments of creativity within recording studios does not represent the reality of music production. Instead, recording sessions were often tedious and laborious (Herbst, 2021) – and Abbey Road was no exception.…”

“…Yet, much like when the secret to a magician's trick is revealed, the reality of the creation of musical recordings was far removed from these romanticised and magical notions. Instead, recording studios were highly functional spaces where the creation of music involves painstaking standardised processes of countless, repetitive takes and rigorous editing before the final recording is produced (Herbst, 2021).…”