Into the Groove
The Story of Sound From Tin Foil to Vinyl
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- £11.99
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- £11.99
Publisher Description
'By mixing lo-fi charm into hi-fi science Into the Groove captures all the wonder and absurdity of its subject, jumping and skipping with real analogue delight.' - Sunday Times
The story of recorded sound - the technological developments, the people that made them happen and the impact they had on society - from the earliest inventions via the phonograph to LPs, EPs and the recent resurgence of vinyl.
While Thomas Edison's phonograph represented an important turning point in the story of recorded sound, it came only after decades of invention, tinkering and experimentation. Into the Groove celebrates the ingenuity, rivalries and science of the modulated groove, from the earliest paper records of the 1850s all the way up to the recent return of vinyl to vogue.
Vinyl collector and music journalist Jonathan Scott dissects a mind-blowing feat that we all take for granted today – the domestication of sound. He examines the first attempts to record and reproduce sounds, the origin of the phonograph, and the development of commercial shellac discs. Later he moves through the fascinating story of the LP record and 7-inch singles, to the competing speed and format wars, and an epilogue charting the decline and then unexpected return of vinyl.
Into the Groove tells the story of the invention that changed us. It explores how these fragile discs not only changed the way we consumed music, but also shaped the way music was made.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This enjoyable if somewhat arcane chronicle by music journalist Scott (The Vinyl Frontier) examines the history of recorded sound. He traces the development of recordings from the first tin-foil cylindrical records of the late 19th century through the vinyl, cassette, CD, and streaming eras, starting with Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph and Alexander Graham Bell's perfection of the technology. Digging into the scientific and engineering advances that changed the way people listen to music, he describes how the shellac discs of the early 20th century were made from the secretions of the lac insect and how a turntable's stylus generates vibrations that create an electrical current, which gets "amplified and converted into sound." Scott has an eye for detail, telling, for instance, how vinyl "scratching" was born in 1977 when 12-year-old DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore's mother demanded he turn the music down, causing him to stop the record with his hand and creating the scratching effect. The history mostly entertains, but technical descriptions of how sound is recorded and overviews of equalization curves, groove widths, and CD bit rates will challenge all but the most devoted audiophiles. Still, music lovers will want to take this one for a spin.
