Chapter 22 - On the Record! (Dis)Covering the Beatles

Summary

The arrival of sound recording in the mid-nineteenth century radically changed how people experienced music. Physical presence at a performance was no longer necessary. Performances by specific artists were now preserved for playback in a personally ownable form – initially wax cylinders, then brittle shellac disks, and by the mid-twentieth century, more convenient magnetic tape and vinyl disks. Records over the radio broadcasted musical styles and genres across the land. Performances now had a life beyond the actual moment. Artists could now be appreciated and influential well beyond their active years as performers. And when the Beatles entered in the early 1960s, in a short span they helped expand what it meant to be a “recording artist” by creating music reliant on studio craft to the extent that their performances could not be exactly replicated live on stage, and could in essence exist only on record.