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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
+1/2 -- Fails to deliver on its excellent thematic promise, May 11, 2005
This review is from: Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios (Paperback)
The book's stated theme, "inside the great recording studios," is a tantalizing one. Unfortunately the authors rarely deliver the reader inside the temples themselves. Instead, they spend an inordinate amount of text rehashing introductory material about artists, songs, labels, musical genres and scenes. It's not necessarily uninteresting, but it leaves readers in the lobby, rather than actually taking them into the studio.
Worse, the writing is hugely uneven. The chapter on Atlantic is just that, a chapter on the Atlantic label, with tidbits about the studios they used. The chapter on Columbia, on the other hand, does a nice job of communicating the label's producers' emotional attachment to their studios. The text itself ranges from well-written to hyperbolic ("It is indisputable: there is no one label that had as much impact on the development of rock from the 1950s to the 1970s as Chess.") and overly clever ("Everyone wanted in, and the [Chess] brothers, refashioned as record men, kept adding more pawns to the Chess set.").
What this book does accomplish is a grounding of hit songs at their physical points of creation. It untangles the juxtaposition of Top-40 radio and strips away the music industry's placelessness by re-contextualizing songs with the writers, producers, engineers and musicians who created them. Who knew that Eric Clapton's "Layla" was recorded in Florida, within the same studios that reverberated with Hank Ballard's "The Twist," The Eagles' "Hotel California," and The Bee Gees "How Deep is Your Love?"
The book's photos provide intimate views of studios in use (not to mention, under construction), it's a shame that the accompanying text isn't as fully detailed on the technical and artistic inner-workings of these "temples of sound."
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34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Dissenting Review, April 30, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios (Paperback)
While I have enjoyed reading the book, I would not have purcased it had I known how little it actually contains about the rooms. As someone interested in audio engineering, I was hoping it would have a lot of information about the rooms themselves, with dimensions, acoutic treatments, unusual equipment used, etc. Instead, the book tells the story of the studio mostly around which artists recorded there. I don't really need to see a list of who recorded for Sun Records, I want to know what Sam Phillips did to make the room sound the way
it did. I want details of the famous Capitol echo chambers.
This book does not provide the sort of information
the title implies.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
If you have ever played, studied or enjoyed good music......, May 11, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios (Paperback)
Ths book was a real pleasure to read. I'm not a musician or recording engineer....I'm just a finance geek who likes good music. Nevertheless, this book was written in such an understandable way that even us non-musical types can follow along with the recording processes. I knew about the book from a friend. As I started to read it I expected that I would enjoy learning about how music was made in various recording studios around the country. What I did not expect (and was very pleased to experience) were the concise and very diverse stories of the people. Stories of the owners, artists and engineers that made the recording studio and the corresponding musical output a reality coming out of the radio or CD player. As I read each studio chapter and looked at the corresponding pictures (FABULOUS!) images were painted of some of the dynamic processes, individuals and cultural influences that culminated in songs that became the soundtrack to our American lives. This book truly captured the sweat, soul and drive that went into producing our American soundtrack. A pleasure from the first page to the last. A must read for anyone who plays music, who is in the music industry or who (like many of my fellow corporate souls) simply enjoys good music. From the Stones to Dean Martin to Patsy Cline...it all comes alive. Buy the book.
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