P&S Question: What Would Become of Music

[Emperor Norton I]

For the atomic war of the 1980s scenario, what I am curious about is that music would be preserved on master tapes and master reels in their pure form, and then the consumer home formats. Said master recordings tend to be in the vaults of the record labels, which tend to be in major cities. Said major cities are probably or very likely the target of an atomic warhead, especially if they're places like say Britain or America.

So what I'm curious about are thing like would the Beatles, Rolling Stones, ELO, etc master recordings be vaporized? And how would we deal with that sort of thing? We can just take the recordings and mint new records from them, but a nuclear war would mean that whatever is hit, there is not a master recording. All that would exist would be the consumer version, which have only the fidelity and quality inherent to them (LP's have only so much quality, and CD's of the 1980s were very poor transfers with very thin sound), although you may possibly have some copies of reels lying somewhere. It'd basically be like lost films in a way.

So it's like a preservation and archaeology project. Not to mention you'd have concerns about the capacity to even preserve these things, scour for them or produce new records at all.

So how would music deal with that, and with artists dead and production capacity limited or otherwise complicated, how would music cope and what would it look like? It is a horrific thought to think that anything higher than a scratchy 45 of "Strawberry Fields Forever" may exist of that recording.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

And for that matter, what becomes of any recorded format? It's an equally horrific idea to think Citizen Kane may only live in a pan-and-scanned, cropped, extremely low-fi quality on VHS.

 

[Peelitebkearns]

I imagine in the P and S scenario, given the long runup to the war, record labels would use the time to move as many important master recordings to a location unlikely to be nuked.

Also the BBC had a list of songs to be played after a nuclear conflict-and we know in the P and S original, the likes of the Smith's are played-so there's an archive of some recordings at least.

Post war, I see the music industry taking an "escapist" rute to a certain extent, at least in the medium term, with most people having enough "darkness" in there lives.

 

[Kaisermuffin]

I'm going to go off the whole P&S by Macragge1 that I read recently and say that Master tapes could have been part of METHODICAL

 

[GFW]

Post war, I see the music industry taking an "escapist" rute to a certain extent, at least in the medium term, with most people having enough "darkness" in there lives.

I can't imagine the music industry really existing on a large scale, considering people would be having trouble feeding themselves they're not gonna be spending whatever sort of currency arises on music. The closest thing to a music industry might be a few people recording scratchy, lo-fi stuff on tape recorders.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

I can't imagine the music industry really existing on a large scale, considering people would be having trouble feeding themselves they're not gonna be spending whatever sort of currency arises on music. The closest thing to a music industry might be a few people recording scratchy, lo-fi stuff on tape recorders.

Thank God for the consumer cassette. That may also be how preservationists and archaeologists save music and recordings they may otherwise not be able to (although, again, the prospect of only low-fi surviving of certain recordings makes me cry).

As to the comment about the industry moving their master recordings to a safe location, I don't know if the industry would. What did record labels do in reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance?

EDIT:

I forgot to mention this:

Music can be recorded on a number of formats that may surprise most people. It may not necessarily sound the greatest, but as all a vinyl record is is grooves which are scratched, you can do that with a lot of things. I have posted those things in the Minor PODs thread and the Things that look like AH thread.

During the Depression, they made records out of cardboard that they sold at newsstands. I recall not that long ago seeing a paper record from the 90s that you got off a cereal box. Hell, you can make records out of wood glue (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDmu594fM88). So there are a lot of "any port in a storm" ways to make consumer music.

And there's always the reliable cassette tape. And that may be the prime way to have music in the years after the war.

EDIT Part Deux:

I also had the thought that a timeline which is basically the story of people collecting and scavenging for media to try to save it and preserve it, and the way it is preserved, and the media/entertainment side of the timeline, would make a nifty Protect and Survive spinoff timeline.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

It's also worth noting, where it comes to films at least, that there will be degradation issues where even if they do survive the war, they'll be beyond repair due to lack of restoration and may totally disintegrate. Such was a serious problem with color film compared to black and white film, hence why Raging Bull was black and white. Such was also a problem with Star Wars, which was seriously disintegrated by the 90s and needed restoration (which went into the Special Edition, unfortunately).

Although one wonders what psychology that would create if all anyone saw was the VHS. If that's all they knew, they'd be ok with it. Any of us from the VHS era who did not see those films in theaters or only saw them once in theaters was ok with how they were on VHS. It may end up being like how we treat Black and White films; it's just a type of film you have to deal with.

 

[Archangel]

The consumer industry (including music) would be returning by the beginning of the XXI century.

 

[GFW]

I also had the thought that a timeline which is basically the story of people collecting and scavenging for media to try to save it and preserve it, and the way it is preserved, and the media/entertainment side of the timeline, would make a nifty Protect and Survive spinoff timeline.

This'd be fascinating, not enough timelines about such huge changes to society such as the P&S series focus enough on the effects on culture.

 

[General_Paul]

I'm planning on touching this issue in my addition to P&S in coming chapters, though not in the sense of saving recordings. Think radio and the survival of one band from the midwest!

 

[Prospero]

I also had the thought that a timeline which is basically the story of people collecting and scavenging for media to try to save it and preserve it, and the way it is preserved, and the media/entertainment side of the timeline, would make a nifty Protect and Survive spinoff timeline.

I like to think that these guys would have been doing their bit: http://www.kaleidoscopearchive.co.uk/

As far as the music scene goes, I reckon new post-war music would be generally of the folk variety - mostly acoustic instruments like guitars and drums because of the erratic to non-existent electricity supply. New songs would probably be a mixture of mourning loved ones and looking forward to a better future. Here's a thought that just occurred to me - there are a lot of brass bands in England, and not all of them are based in target areas. At least some of those bands would get through with intact memberships for sure - and they'd be great for providing public entertainment, once immediate problems of food supply etc are solved.

 

[DrakonFin]

EDIT Part Deux:

I also had the thought that a timeline which is basically the story of people collecting and scavenging for media to try to save it and preserve it, and the way it is preserved, and the media/entertainment side of the timeline, would make a nifty Protect and Survive spinoff timeline.

Something like this was referenced in my spinoff, with the Finnish underground/opposition collecting pre-War music in different formats as a way of rebellion against the authoritarian-traditionalist military government that is averse to such things as punk, etc, as "anti-Finnish" or "anti-order":

I followed the tall man walking unsteadily with his cane, a strange combination of weakness and curious, tenacious strength. At once ageless and old beyond his years.

We entered a smaller but still spacious, lower room by the side of the big hall. It was almost full of cupboards, bookcases and filing cabinets.

” - This was the shelter's sleeping quarters back in the day. Also a hospital, after the Exchange. Many people died here.”

There were people, mostly young, on the corridors formed by cabinets and bookcases. Some were reading something, others were going through old C-cassettes or piles of records in different old formats. A fair-haired woman with an 8-track player smiled to me when we passed her.

” - Some of us used to sleep here after we took over this shelter – when there was still room here, of course. Now it would be impossible.”

” - What is this place?”, I asked him.

” - This is our kingdom. One of our vaults, or repositories if you will – of music, mostly, but also books and art – all kinds of things the Committee doesn't want people to really know about. Things we have found and brought here for safe keeping. Things the Generals would want to destroy or just lock up indefinitely. Dangerous things.”

He smiled and looked at me in the eye.

” - Dangerous to them, that is. Not to you or me, not to Finland. Not to Sweden, either.”

It certainly didn't look dangerous around us. It was something like a bohemian library or an archive of sorts – there seemed to even be some order to the chaos around us, small tags on the aisle about what goes where. Just as we passed, a young man was attaching a plaque on one shelf saying ”MANSEROCK 1970-1984”.

” - The people you see here, they are the underground. They listen to Finnish punk rock – Ratsia, Pyhät Nuket, Lama, Hassisen Kone, Eppu Normaali, you name it. They worship at the shrine of Saint Juice.[2] They know the things the Committee would want to keep down for what it sees as Law and Order. And Recovery and Reconstruction, of course.”

This was all a bit overwhelming to me.

” - I know all this from personal experience, too – I used to dabble in music myself, both before and after the Exchange. Some of my records are here, too. And the kids, bless them, even sing my songs in their demonstrations. Of course after 1985 I could only make and perform music in between stints on corrective labor camps for ”disturbing the peace” and all that, but still...”

 

[Emperor Norton I]

On the topic of media in general, I did have some thoughts.

It seems that analog would certainly survive longer. There is a tragedy that media content may be lost and that it may only survive on videotape or cassette tape, or even vinyl (yes, it has hifi capacity, but a master is much preferable and that vinyl will deteriorate, meaning the music will as well unless transferred to a reel tape). It will also seem like any sort of professional post-war broadcast would feature VHS tapes of a non-professional quality, which deteriorate as VHS always did (meaning color wash out, picture deterioration, screen hold wobble, etc).

On the other hand, media can survive even atomic war in the higher quality formats. Reel-to-Reel tapes exist, along with some reels copied off the masters and shipped around the world of various music. Third generation is good, and better than a melted and radioactive first generation mush pile. Theaters and private collectors have theatrical reels of films, which could be used to strike a new master; certainly film preservationists do that as it is. And you'd have the fledgling digital media of the 80s that was there. You have Laserdisc, which is huge in Asia during this period, and does have videophile collectors on the global scale. Laserdisc quality stinks in retrospect, but again, better than nothing, albeit disc media would probably survive worse than physical media. Cassette is very durable; a scratch on a disc and it's dead.

Onto my main inspiration in replying again, I think what this would do is prolong the lifespan of analogue media, and make people improve upon it rather than replace it. One of those things would include High-Definition VHS, which did exist in the OTL. It was right at the tail end of VHS' life, when it was making a last stand against DVD. DVHS offered HD picture which was something DVD didn't have and which we did not get until Blu-Ray. (I'll note the irony that the youtube video I'm linking is 240p).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRFoLD45URI

 

[Emperor Norton I]

In a post-war environment, I think music would regress to what it was before the age of consumer formatted music, or circa the early days. So essentially individual artists and bands who play live and make their money doing that, probably largely on acoustic instruments, traveling around a limited region, and if they do record it'll be only for a local market, probably on cassette tape unless they can somehow get their hands on reel-to-reel or a surviving record pressing planet something. And since the copyright holders would probably be radioactive mush, that would mean that they could do previously (and currently in the OTL) copyrighted material as standards, and what will become standards. Meaning "Yesterday" by the Beatles could become just like "Oh Susanna". Hopefully not in terms of becoming a children's song no one can take seriously.

And on that topic, the Beatles would probably be the band that becomes the ubiquitous standard, because they are so widespread already, and the best known band in history, with the best known songs in history, so much so that the Soviet youth loved them as well.

It'd be interesting to the see the future extrapolation from that as well, because traditional songs are adapted for whatever the modern songs are. "Scarborough Fair" is a traditional ballad, for example, the lead to Bob Dylan's "Girl From the North Country" and Simon and Garfunkle's adaptation. Think of the arrangement of "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "Light My Fire" being used at some point in the future after that as the arrangement basis for a modern song, with the idea being that it's so old and belongs to everyone so it's alright to do, just as we do with those centuries old songs.

 

[Ogrebear]

Related media question- in P&S the BBC has a program to move certain key staff and personalities out to a secure location - John Peel is mentioned along with Wogan (in the comments). Is there an US eqivalant?

What about the other centres of music such as Nashville? Did they survive?

Also the 'classic' films on the historical preservation lists, would their Masters have been shipped out in the Build up to war?

 

[Emperor Norton I]

There is the Hutchinson Salt Mine, located in Hutchinson, Kansas, where quite a lot is preserved, such as the (surviving) Carson era Tonight Show tapes. (See around 1:38)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDM_HrdRrio

I'm not sure what would be stored down there in the 80s, though, or who in the private sector would store things down there or had at the time. It stands to reason a lot would survive there.

As to your other questions, no clue.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

One of the potential horrors to be had is this:

Film preservation got huge in the 80s for a reason, that being that those films need restoration and preservation, some of them very badly. Black and White film stock actually holds up and did hold up well, hence why "Raging Bull" was filmed in black and white. However, the chemicals in color film broke down over time and did nasty things to the film. For example, work on restoring Hitchcock's "Vertigo" began in 1984 (ironically per this timeline) because the film had dulled and faded so much. "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" is another case where the film was seriously in bad shape and desperately needed restoration.

With all the technology there is and a studio budget, a restoration project takes maybe 2 years. Preservation is easy, but restoration is very intense, takes facilities, and takes years. Think about after an atomic war. Think about if you may not have access to those facilities. Those films may be lost forever. Whether something could be salvaged out of theatrical prints, I don't know.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Onto music, there is something called needledrop, which refers to copying music directly off of a vinyl record. I'd imagine there'd be quite a lot of that. It really isn't bad, except from the vantage that it isn't the master in its perfection.

You can find quite a lot of things on youtube. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5BtlXVopiA

(That's another thing; "The Beatles: The Collection" was released just in time for the Beatles to survive the nukes in hyper-high quality vinyl)

That's also done quite a lot by preservationists when the music reels are long since lost to time and it only does survive on the records in whatever shape the surviving ones are in. (The single version of "Love Me Do" only exists on a preserved single 45 because they lost the master recording; what you hear is a needledrop). So I imagine there'd be a lot of scavanging for high quality, mint records to make new master recordings from.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

On the whole, I think the post-war situation would be a boon for analog technology in all forms. I think it would be refined and refined rather than supplanted by digital (at least for a very long time), let alone anything of the internet (if that even comes into existence at any point).
On the whole, the future may look like what the 1980s thought the future was. I do have the theory that retrofutures are never what the future will be, but what would happen if future technology were dropped into the laps of the people from the past; if you gave 1950s people technology from today to retroengineer, 1975 is going to look like the Jetsons.
And I say that also from the perspective that the world is going to develop slowly and it's going to look like the 1980s for a while. It may well be a situation like people had in preindustrial times where their world looked the same for their entire lifetime because development was so gradual. That's why Medieval people drew pictures of Romans dressed in Medieval armor and with Medieval buildings; there was little concept of the world looking different.

The closest you may get is some kind of streaming service after many decades (and sufficient recovery) for entertainment media; streaming music into homes was discussed even with the Atari (I made a thread on that ages ago), the Japanese had a satellite service for Nintendo games in the 90s in Japan, etc. It would be more like how phone services operate or based on satellite transmission rather than internet, though.

The digital technology you may have would be CD's if they could continue to produce them, as well as Laserdisc if they continue to produce them. The former would be better off than the latter per the OTL (Americans just couldn't hop on board digital video media), albeit it depends on if CDs would be produced at all. 1984 was still early in the medium's life, and it was more of a specialty item. If CD dies, it really wouldn't hurt me any; early CDs had very thin sound and the way they copied the master tapes over was not good at all, which was the reason for that poor sound. Later analog-to-digital transfer technology was much better albeit that probably will be seriously delayed in the aftermath of a nuclear war. So the death of CD would probably be ok were it to occur.
I do think, were it to survive, they would supplant the jewel cases with paper sleeves. We're seeing that only in the last decade in the west (Japan always used paper sleeves for CDs), and that is because of the concept of the "mini-LP" where it looks like a vinyl record. I would attribute that to human psychology; CD started off as the specialty item and lacked the stuff you would find in a vinyl record, and was pretty much just the CD and a booklet with limited cover art, and it's lack of features was a vestigial thing carried over long after vinyl was gone. So the mini-LP is a delayed inclusion of the features you'd have with a record. Not to mention vinyl came back so its legitimizing the CD compared to a vinyl version of the release. That said, a lot of CDs now are just the paper sleeve rather than the jewel case, and not the whole mini-LP, but I would argue the paper sleeve is born out of that mini-LP.
The paper sleeve would come out of the fact that it'd be cheaper and easier than plastics. Oddly enough, the people of 80s may view it as chintzy at least at first.


EDIT:

Another feature of the refinement-rather-than-replacement could be the adoption of smaller CDs, which the 80s/90s constantly projected, which we did have and could easily have developed with the exact or greater storage capacity of normal CD, but which never took off because of the MP3/MPEG-4 and later streaming technology, and because against all that normal CD still worked.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

One thing that troubles me is what becomes of things that weren't released at the moment. Movies and music don't just go from non-existent to complete; there is a process of creation. So I do wonder at what becomes of album projects where the songs are recorded but the post mixing and all that isn't done, or its in whatever semi-completed form, or movies where it's filmed but the editing and sound editing and special effects are at various points of completion. On that I have no idea. Would it be released in some form? How would it be treated or interpreted by the human psychology and culture if locked up in a vault somewhere? (If it survives).