I’m a great fan of YouTube, in fact I like it so much I pay for it. Also I enjoy my music and listen to it a lot, and even play guitar and piano, time permitting. There are several channels that have run series of “The Albums that changed music”, and enjoyable and entertaining as they are, they all seem to miss out on my pick. Tiz not Sgt Pepper, Pet Sounds, Dark side of the Moon etc. in fact I think I’ve never heard tell of my choice from any of the big critics. Now this is starting to sound like one of those click bate things I get lured into on Google Discover, when they lead you on and on through dozens of popups, til you get to the end and realize you’ve been had. Again.
Let’s go back to October 1968…
“Switched-On Bach reached number 10 on the US Billboard 200 chart and topped the Billboard Classical Albums chart from 1969 to 1972. By June 1974, it had sold over one million copies, and in 1986 became the second classical album to be certified platinum. In 1970, it won Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (With or Without Orchestra), and Best Engineered Classical Recording.” ( Wikipedia )
I remember hearing and loving it for the first time. The clarity and precision of the music fitted perfectly with Bach’s contrapuntal ( counterpoint ) style. The mathematical symmetry and bare bones of the production, Bach and the Moog synthesizer went together like a horse and carriage. I bought a copy on cassette due to not having a record player, and later the CD for its digital precision. Both of which are lost in the tea-chests of house moving. Sounds great on headphones!
Back to the point of my post, and how it did change music?
The Beatles were recording “Let It Be” at this time. They had already started experimenting with electronics and using the recording studio as a musical instruments in itself. Tape loops, echo chambers, music concrete. This things were at the time the property of musicians like Stockhausen, and Kraftwerk, not really accessible to the general public. By this time several musicians had acquired a synth, including George Harrison .
George Harrison (“Electronic Sound”) , Bob Marley(“Stir it Up”), Stevie Wonder (“Talking Book”) , The Monkeeys, etc. The twin forces of Wendy Carlos and Bob Moog were to move the synthesiser out of the workshop and into the recording studio and eventually it would go on the road.
Without Switched on Bach, maybe there would have been no Kraftwerk, no New Order, Yazoo. Nowadays the synth has taken its place alongside traditional instruments but have to wonder how many records are made today without synthetic music. Either way, it must be one of the seminal albums in music.
Footnote:
Anyone interested should take a look at the Wendy Carlos biography. It’s a fascinating read.
“Wendy Carlos”, by Amanda Sewell. ISBN 9780190053482
Oh I almost forgot, why don’t people hear this album? The answer is copyright.
You can get a copy from Amazon on CD. but you pay $32 US.
It has been blocked on streaming by Wendy Carlos for whatever reason. You can hear cover versions on Youtube since the works of JSB are long into the public domain, so if you can tell one from the other or it doesn’t matter, a sine wave is a sine wave, you can hear it there. But I have no doubt that it really did change music.