The Analog To Digital Shift

“One Nation Under a Groove,” from the LP of the same name by Funkadelic (1978).

This is a good place to mark the transition of popular music from the analog world to the digital. This great cut consists almost entirely of music that was generated by human hands on actual musical instruments. Including Bootsy Collins! Even the suspiciously digital sounds probably came from a keyboard.

From this point on, a large segment of music progressively surrendered to purely digital invention. 1979 is the given start date for Hip-Hop, and the closely related Rap music. That's the release year for “Rapper's Delight,” by the Sugarhill Gang. The new ability to manipulate samples from older records, and the introduction of useful drum machines, allowed producers to create music from digital signals gathered from multiple sources. Add “turntablist techniques,” aka scratching, and you've got a deal. (Thanks Wiki for the quoted characterization.)

Previous electronic mischief making usually had analog roots. Guitarists in the early 1950s began to take the new Fender and Magnatone amps and overdrive the shit out of them. Those things had tubes in them, though, so yeah, pretty analog. Jimi Hendrix was a sonic explorer, but most of his remarkable tone came from his hands, playing a real guitar, with a little help from tubes and transistors. Eddie Harris took the saxophone into outer space, but he did it with a Roland Space Echo, which was as analog as you can get. Physical tape for the echo, and metal springs for the reverb.

(I'm going to leave out references to the great German electronica of the 1970s. I don't know enough about the gear those fellows were using.)

There was all kinds of digital mischief going on by 1990 or so, Techno, Jungle, House, other than the human voice, musical instruments had given way to stacks of boxes with dials and lights and meters. Before long, people had computers in the house, so they could go even further out if they felt like it. Lots of people felt like it.

Sure, there were bands that played real instruments. There still are. Now, in a weird twist, there are analog bands that have been heavily influenced by computers, drum machines, and techno music. It's a new world.

1978 feels like forever ago by now. The height of technology for most people was the new cordless phones FOR YOUR LAND LINE. We thought that it was very cool to be able to talk on the phone and walk around the house while you were doing it. Very few people had one of the brand new VCRs. VHS or Betamax, you still had a choice. They were as big as a desk, and they cost a fortune. What year did we get telephone message machines? Most musicians still recorded by carrying real instruments to the studio, setting up, and playing, more or less together.

I know that this sounds like a “get off of my lawn!” moment, but I'm not just being a cranky geezer. My musical likes are very broad, including many genres, many countries, and many decades. Centuries, if you count Beethoven and the boys. (They were all boys back then.) Go find me someone else who loves ABBA, Little Jimmy Scott, and Melt Banana. Dolly Parton AND Ornette Coleman. I just get nostalgic sometimes.

Don't even get me started about Kodachrome.