Reviews

Music and technology journalist Milner (coauthor, Metallica: This Monster Lives) loosely prescribes the boundaries of this history of recorded music from Thomas Edison to the present; however, he begins by explaining that the big bang was basically the universe cutting a record. Milner goes beyond recounting people, places, and events to explore a major issue surrounding the topic: Should a recording accurately reflect the sounds of a live performance or improve upon it? Readers get an inside look at important moments in recording history, from Def Leppard's groundbreaking style of music performance, to favorite songs redubbed and remixed by different artists and their producers, to a Jennifer Lopez performance that never actually happened. The narrative is divided into eight chapters grouped into three major sections: "Acoustic/Electrical," "Analog," and "Digital." A personal yet informative interpretation of recorded music that will appeal to students and professionals in the music industry as well as general music-loving readers.-Bradford Lee Eden, Univ. of California Lib., Santa Barbara Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Recording gadgets evolve with dizzying speed, but debates over their effects on music never change, according to this fascinating study of technology and aesthetics. Journalist Milner (coauthor, Metallica: This Monster Lives) surveys developments in recording, from Thomas Edison's complaints about those new-fangled Victrolas to the contemporary controversy between CD and vinyl. With every advance of hardware, he notes, comes accompanying shifts in the sound of music: the sense of physical space implied by stereo sound; the advent of rock 'n' roll reverb; the "big obnoxious ambient drum sound that defined the '80s" under the Phil Collins dictatorship; the "unsettling robotic tone" imparted to vocals by today's Auto-Tune pitch-correction software; the arms race toward ear-grabbing, distortion-heavy loudness that leaves us "surrounded by music that does nothing but shout." Perennial arguments about the fidelity of new technologies, he contends, miss the point: now that every record is digitally spliced together out of multiple tracks and far-flung samples, there is no authentic musical performance for the sound engineer-contemporary music's true auteur-to "record." Milner combines a lucid exposition of acoustics and technology with a critic's keen discernment of the pop-music soundscape. The result is a real ear-opener that will captivate fans and techies alike. (June 16) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

""Perfecting Sound Forever "is an exhaustively researched, extraordinarily inquisitive book that dissects the central question within all music criticism: When we say that something sounds good, what are we really saying? And perhaps more importantly, what are we really hearing?" --CHUCK KLOSTERMAN
"A compelling look at the birth and evolution of recording, and how it changed the way the world hears itself." --MARC WEINGARTEN, "Los Angeles Times
""Greg Milner tells the story of recorded music with novelistic verve, ferocious attention to detail, and a soulful ambivalence about our quest for sonic perfection. He shows how great recordings come about not through advances in technology but through a love of the art, and that same love is the motor of his prose." --ALEX ROSS, author of "The Rest Is Noise
""You may never listen to Lady Gaga the same way again . . . [Milner is] a gifted storyteller with an ear for absurdity . . . You might not think a book about rever