Recording popular music in France: the industrialization of music throughout the 20th century

In his book Music for Pleasure, Simon Frith made the following assertion: ”Twentieth century popular music means the twentieth-century popular record; not the record of something (a song? a singer? a performance?) which exists independently of the music industry, but a form of communication which determines what songs, singers and performances are” (1988: 12). To understand the evolution of this forms of communication throughout the past century in France, this presentation will focus on three issues as suggested by Frith: the effects of technological change, the economics of pop and the development of a new musical culture (1988: 12-13). I will first show how mechanical recording and reproduction has generated a mass phonographic production and the rise of certain musical genres (marches, comique troupier, tyrolienne, etc.) with Path´e occupying a central position in the French music industry (Chamoux, 2015). I will then analyze the structuration of a new economy of music during the interwar period (Tourn`es, 2002: 221) with the electric revolution, the development of jazz and a new major (EMI). I will then concentrate on the rock moment in relation to vinyl, new recording technics in studios and independent labels (Kaiser, 2018) before coming back on the technical, esthetic and economic changes caused by the digital regime (Le Guern, 2012).

Marc Kaiser. Recording popular music in France: the industrialization of music throughout the 20th century. Recording Popular Music - IASPM 23rd international conference, IASPM, Jul 2025, Paris, France. ⟨hal-05343821⟩ (lien externe)