Artworks analysis: 3 influences on contemporary music

Wendy Carlos, a key figure in the history of electronic music. She stands at the beginning of popularization of analog synthesizers. She befriended Robert Moog, and used his modular synthesizer to cover selected works by J.S. Bach for her first recorded album 'Switched on Bach' in 1968. It consisted of 12 tracks including the famous 'Brandenburg Concerto'. The process was quite complex and time consuming as the instrument was monophonic and modular, which means that one sound at a time could only be reproduced and all the manipulations were controlled by manually fixing the settings of the sound. 

The album was a step forward toward a wide use of previously rejected electronic musical instruments. As to Carlos, her goal was not to pay tribute to Bach, but to make a step towards technological progress in music world. 'Switched on Bach' opened up the whole new are of experiencing classical music. Carlos changed the whole perception of electronic music instruments, as she demonstrated that it cold be used not only for some avant-garde composing, but to reproduce some beautiful piece of music. The influence of the record was widely acknowledged by professionals (including Robert Moog himself) and critics. No surprise that it received three Grammy awards in 1970. By 1986 it reached the Platinum status. 

1977 was a remarkable year in the history of electronic music - a year when Kraftwerk's 6-th studio album 'Trans-Europe Express' was released. It was an act of revisiting 1920's-30's European culture, starting with traditional folk motifs to Bauhaus movement. The 8-track selection can be thematically divided into those that reflect on the misleading ideas about reality and those that were glorifying cosmopolitan European lifestyle. The record was released in German and English versions and contained the first band's experiment with French lyrics ('Showroom Dummies'). 

Stylistically, the album had very mechanized, however melodic sound. The musicians continued to practice their distant and flat vocal, that was taken from an old German tradition of spoken singing (sprechgesang). As the composition of the tracks consisted mostly of repeated loops and motifs, the band used a customized analog sequencer that allowed them to avoid constant manual repetition of parts. 'Trans-Europe Express' earned a status of ancestor of the modern electronic music. The band seemed to be following the Occam's razor method: the record was very minimalist and thrifty composing style. It is referred as timeless, as has obvious reason for being called retro, but is  also undoubtedly contemporary. When released, it sounded like a music of future and, truly, it brought a significant influence on successive musicians across various genres from hip-hop (Africa Bambaataa) to post-punk (Joy Division). 

Speaking about records that brought innovative approach to composing, DjShadow's 'Endtroducing...' can be considered as one of them. It was released in 1996 in the UK and was remarkable because it consisted mostly of the sampled tracks, that granted it a place in Guinness World Records. The samples were taken from the Shadow's private vinyl collection and included an impressive variety of genres, includingly movies and interviews. The 13 tracks are composed by applying innovative sketching and arrangement techniques with elements of hip-hop contributions. 

'Endtroducing...' can be to some extent considered as an avant-garde record. The artist stated that he tried to avoid any popular material in his sample selection and tried to create an obscure and technical piece.The album is also related to postmodernism as it relies entirely on copying and fragmentation of something old. The artist managed to bring the tunes to the new dimension and context. It brought instrumental hip-hop and approach to electronic composing to another level. The album still appears in the lists of the best and most loved records, as it doesn't seem to lose it's relevancy through time.