Listen to Bowie & Beatles on vinyl, in full & no talk

PUNE:

Colleen Murphy

started Classic Album Sundays so that listeners would not just hear music at listening sessions, but would rather experience it.

“Classic Album Sundays immerses the music fan into one of their favourite albums or a classic album they have never before heard. We present the story behind the album, often with special guests such as the artist, musicians or the album’s producer and then we play the album from the beginning to the end, uninterrupted, on vinyl and on some of the world's best audiophile hi-fi sound systems so that listeners can hear and feel the music in beautiful detail. We also ask that people turn off their cellphones and refrain from talking so that they can truly engage in the act of listening so that they can experience the album in a more profound way,” Colleen told TOI in an online chat.

For the first time, this critically acclaimed venture all over the world will be brought to Pune by Murphy, who has also hosted radio music shows for the British public broadcaster BBC, at a Koregaon Park lounge on Friday and Saturday.

Murphy will have Ken Scott for company for the sessions on Friday and Saturday. Scott, an engineer and mixer formerly with the iconic Abbey Road Studios in London, has worked in music for the better part of the last 50 years, and has rubbed shoulders with

The Beatles

, David

Bowie

, Elton John, and Pink Floyd too.

Scott says that he is heartened that Western music is finding a footing in the Indian subcontinent and in China as well, “which is a huge contrast to most other places and wonderful to hear for musicians facing the challenges they face in today's industry”, he told TOI in an emailed response.

One of those challenges, Scott said, is the unwillingness of people to pay to listen to music. “Thanks to non-payers like Spotify and YouTube, people are still consuming as much as they used to, but few are paying for it, or are paying very little,” Scott added.

Murphy, however, says that while music consumption patterns have changed, traditional forms are indeed making a comeback.

“When I was a teenager, I worked in a record store and I remember clearing out a vinyl bin to make way for compact discs. As we know, vinyl sales dramatically decreased with the advent of digital playback formats but thankfully, vinyl is having something of a renaissance for many reasons - a great pressing sounds better, its more engaging, there is a ritual to putting on a record and reading the album’s liner notes and overall, it’s a lot more ‘musical’,” Colleen added.

On Friday, Murphy and Scott will present the iconic Beatles album, the eponymous “The Beatles”, known popularly as The White Album.

The day after, the duo will present a David Bowie album which Scott helped create, which is also the one which shot Bowie to stardom, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars”. Murphy said there may even by a capella version of Bowie singing one of his songs on the record.

Scott, a well-travelled and veteran producer, said new technologies in music production have caused some musicians to not go the extra mile, even in music Meccas like Nashville in the United States, the capital of country music.

“Too many have become lazy because of the use of modern technology. They feel they don't have to perform quite as much as recording artists used to. I lived in Nashville for several years and there are some of the greatest session musicians around in Nashville. Even they are not giving the performances they're capable of because they know once they've played it, they know the producer or engineer will say "we've got enough; we can cut and paste it". The use of auto-tune makes singers not try as hard as they used to as well,” he lamented.

What has survived and even thrived in the world of music is the use of radio as a medium. And Murphy, a radio veteran, says that it will remain so.

“Radio will always be important to turn people on to music and that is how I first started learning about music myself as I would often record some of my favourite radio shows and then buy records by the artists whom I heard. The nature of radio itself has changed, though. Although we still have terrestrial radio station on the AM and FM bands, online radio stations and shows and podcasts are much more popular,” Colleen added.


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