As a compulsive record album buyer, former (and hopefully future) deejay, and music lover who has followed pop music since the Beatles invasion, we have focused a keen eye on the recording industry. From a mega perspective, there has been very little encouraging news for anything that would enhance the creative prospects where unique innovative music can thrive in favor of bland consistent marketable McMusic despite huge advances in technology. We harp on the theme that over 80% of recorded music comes from four huge international companies, but the smallest of the four, EMI, owner of Capitol records, home of the Beatles is struggling for life under horrible management that threatens its existence.
EMI's one bright spot is Abbey Road studios in London. For decades Abbey Road has turned out some of the greatest music from across the big pond from the London Symphony Orchestra, almost all of the Beatles work, the legendary Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd to contemporary greats like Coldplay. Recently, their engineering staff committed to remastering the second generation of Beatles CD's much to the acclaim of even the most hypercritical listeners.
Now Abbey Road looks to be the next casualty on the EMI death list. While today it certainly has state of the art technology, it was not so much the gear by those who knew how to use it that mattered, and hopefully the talented, sometimes nameless, engineers and technicians will remain intact. Compared to what was available at some studios in America, Abbey Road was quite primitive through most of the Beatles tenure. Is it any wonder the Beatles sought to have their definitive recording of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band be the mono release?
Yet with only four tracks available and lots of "mashing down" they released one of the most revolutionary records in music history. By 1969, Abbey Road had the new industry standard 16 track recording technology and was poised to provide Alan Parsons and his team the resources necessary to record Dark Side of the Moon for release in early 1973.
Surely, if there is no buyer who can maintain Abbey Road as a world class studio, the City of London should consider making it a museum as one of the landmarks in music history. Within those walls so much wonderful music was crafted by world class artists and solid professionals working the controls.
For more information, here's our reference article: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_ABBEY_ROAD?SITE=WBAL&SECTION=ENTERTAINMENT&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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