Rating: 
Summary: Insightful Look at British Pop
Review: When I first got a look at the contents and sampled a few pages, I was eager to read this book. Ultimately, I too came to the conclusion that it is too biased towards the British Pop scene.Not to fault Mark Cunningham, after all he's British, but a lot of the artists he spends time on, have had little impact on the history of record production, at least on this side of the pond. Ron and Russell Mael? Chris Rea? Slik? Interesting to read about, perhaps, but hardly of the same caliber as Trevor Horn, The Police, Peter Gabriel and U2. Mainstream American artists such as Fleetwood Mac (yes, American!), Prince, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, Springsteen, Toto and The Cars are largely ignored if mentioned at all. Equally absent are prominent American producers, such as Phil Ramone, Russ Titelman, Richard Perry, Jam & Lewis, Reid & Babyface, Nile Rogers and the like. Still, what it does discuss is interesting. There are whole chapters on The Beatles, Brian Eno and the making of "Bohemian Rhapsody." There are substantial sections devoted to The Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations," Jeff Lynne, Leiber and Stoller, Motown and Carol Kaye, Joe Meek, "Heroes," and Flood. There are interesting discussions of the specific technologies used in producing the records. But unfortunately, beyond a certain time period in the book, just at the point where the use of technology gets really interesting in music production, the book fails to explain its influence. For example, one might assume that an Anglophilic book might wax poetic about how automated mixing changed the way records were made and how it was introduced by British mixing desk manufacturers Solid State Logic (SSL) and Neve. Not a word. I think it would be most useful as a companion to a book that focused mostly on what was happening in the States. But as a general history of Record Production, it is somewhat weak. I used it as a textbook for a course I teach in Record Production Techniques here at Mercy, but after one semester, I am looking for a replacement text. Perhaps the Wadhams.... Stephen B. Ward
Mecry College, White Plains, NY
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