Perfecting Sound Forever: The Story Of Recorded Music

Description

From our CD collections to iPods bursting with MP3s to the hallowed vinyl of DJs, recordings are the most common way we experience music. Perfecting Sound Forever tells the story of recorded music, introducing us to the innovators, musicians and producers who have affected the way we hear our favourite songs, from Thomas Edison to Phil Spector. Exploring the balance that recordings strike between the real and the represented, Greg Milner asks the questions which have divided sound recorders for the past century: should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? What does the perfect record sound like? The answers he uncovers will change the way we think about music.

Greg Milner is the author of Perfecting Sound Forever, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Pinpoint. A former editor at Spin, his writing has also appeared in Slate, the Village Voice, Wired, Salon, New York, Blender, Rolling Stone, the Word, the Sunday Times, and the Journal of Technology in Human Services. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.