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Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music Paperback – May 25, 2010

by Greg Milner (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 149 ratings
See all formats and editions
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In 1915, Thomas Edison proclaimed that he could record a live performance and reproduce it perfectly, shocking audiences who found themselves unable to tell whether what they were hearing was an Edison Diamond Disc or a flesh-and-blood musician. Today, the equation is reversed. Whereas Edison proposed that a real performance could be rebuilt with absolute perfection, Pro Tools and digital samplers now allow musicians and engineers to create the illusion of performances that never were. In between lies a century of sonic exploration into the balance between the real and the represented.

Tracing the contours of this history, Greg Milner takes us through the major breakthroughs and glorious failures in the art and science of recording. An American soldier monitoring Nazi radio transmissions stumbles onto the open yet revolutionary secret of magnetic tape. Japanese and Dutch researchers build a first-generation digital audio format and watch as their "compact disc" is marketed by the music industry as the second coming of Edison yet derided as heretical by analog loyalists. The music world becomes addicted to volume in the nineties and fights a self-defeating "loudness war" to get its fix.

From Les Paul to Phil Spector to King Tubby, from vinyl to pirated CDs to iPods, Milner's Perfecting Sound Forever pulls apart musical history to answer a crucial question: Should a recording document reality as faithfully as possible, or should it improve upon or somehow transcend the music it records? The answers he uncovers will change the very way we think about music.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    416 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  4. Publication date
    May 25, 2010
  5. Dimensions
    5.48 x 1.16 x 8.38 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780865479388
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0865479388
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“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 reverb could thrill. Milner's does.” ―MIKAEL WOOD, Time Out New York

“Very, very, very few books will change the way you listen to music. This is one such book. Read it.” ―JARVIS COCKER

About the Author

Greg Milner is a senior contributing writer and columnist for Spin magazine. His work also appears in Slate, Salon, the Village Voice, Wired, and other publications. He is the author of Perfecting Sound Forever.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0865479380
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Illustrated edition (May 25, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780865479388
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0865479388
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.48 x 1.16 x 8.38 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 149 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
149 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Oscar R. Garcia
5.0 out of 5 stars Loudness War; If you lived through it... read this.
Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is a fantastic book that opens with the Edison Phonograph and the dynamic interaction with the recording artists/engineers/listeners and continues through radio, tape decks - of all kinds including DAT but the surprising history and origin of the magnetic tape, the industry shaking impact of the CD and again with ProTools and the curious audiophile predictions of the end of sound art at each phase. This goes into some enjoyable technical details but what is equally informative is the revealed dynamic between the everyday listener and the artist, program manager, recording and mastering engineer (the latter in particular) and the curious world of sound these people live in.

Amazing work of journalistic research. My only regret for it is that it was published in 2010 which is too soon to go into the world of Vocaloids. I was hoping for a supreme treatment of the anti-presence phenomena of a Vocaloid concert or a Zappa redo concert. Carrie Fisher is still performing too I guess.
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Day-Z-🌼
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read!
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2024
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This is a must read for anyone who listens to music.
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Joanne P.
5.0 out of 5 stars A well-thought-out and important work documenting the history of recorded sound
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
Whether you are an audiophile or not, you likely have been impacted by recorded sounds. Since recorded sound has influenced people and societies from being entertaining to the technology being used in politics and engineering, Perfecting Sound Forever is an important book. It was a pleasure to read and the authors passion and thoughtfulness for the subject came through from beginning to end. Highly recommended.
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Mr. Scary
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and captivating
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2011
Verified Purchase
For anyone from an audio professional, to a fan of music who wants to learn a bit about the mystique of making an album, this is essential reading.

The book is incredibly well written, which helps when some of the subject matter becomes a bit academic. I love the way the author connects so many dots and investigates the "why" as much as the "how." When a chapter begins it is almost impossible to know where it is going to lead. Rather than simply give the history of Digidesign, the company which created pro-tools, you are taken on a fantastic journey from the war-torn streets of Jamaica, to a shared university mainframe computer, to the living room where the founders of E-MU were making circuit boards sitting on their floor.

This book is written by a rock music writer and he expects you understand some references (he'll call out Minor Threat without explanation or qualification) and know certain records. For some this may be frustrating, but didn't bother me at all.

Lastly, there are some astonishingly candid interviews in here. When the "loudness wars" are discussed there are some amazing statements by the best mastering engineers working today about how demeaning their job can be.
One person found this helpful
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Paul Wetor
5.0 out of 5 stars Things We Never Knew About Sound Recording
Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2016
Verified Purchase
A fascinating look at how sound recording has changed over the years. (I posted a review from my Kindle version, but it never showed up).

Two items missing when describing the warmth of LPs:
1) Are the new 180 gram LPs mastered from digitized master files or the actual master tape?

2) Years ago I re-bought one of my favorite LPs, as I was wearing out my original. But it sounded muddy and terrible. Later I found out that record companies would make a new version of an album's "master tape" from the previous version, which would then become the current version. I was shocked, as I knew that copying analog to analog would degrade the sound.

From a sonic perspective, CDs are great in that they induced record companies to go back to original master tapes to get the best sound. Had CDs not come out, LPs would be in a sad state. Quality of sound became an important factor in music. Sadly, too much emphasis gets placed on how music sounds, rather than the music itself.

Side note: I recently bought some HDTracks super-audio downloads online, but I can't hear any greater quality. My headphones only cost $50, but I should be able to detect something more.

Side note 2: While I love digitized movies (which have made old movies look better than ever), you can see where digital degrades the image by looking at "2001: a space odyssey". In the original film version, the "eye" of HAL looked perfectly murky, but in digitized versions, it looks like there are bands of color in it. It's a minor issue, but perfectly illustrates what is lost when images are digitally compressed. The same is true of audio compression. But if you're only missing 1%, how much do you want to spend to get that 1% improvement?

Side note 3: I loved how the book ended by going back to an Edison recording and finding out that they didn't sound as awful as the scratchy versions we usually hear.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Alexander Meade
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for teachers
Reviewed in Canada on May 17, 2020
Verified Purchase
Incredibly detailed history of recording and music production. Excellent research that goes far beyond the info that is commonly available on the internet. A+
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Mark Sherman
5.0 out of 5 stars Prompt shipping
Reviewed in Canada on February 26, 2020
Verified Purchase
It was in very good condition.
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User
4.0 out of 5 stars A good read, well written
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 3, 2019
Verified Purchase
A well written historic lesson in audio.
From Thomas Edison to The Loudness War.
Recommend
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S. Earl
2.0 out of 5 stars Very heavy going and uninviting format/layout. Sent it back.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 16, 2021
Verified Purchase
Not an easy read at all. Quite confusing in it's layout. Not aesthetically appealing on the inside at all.
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