Uploaded July 2019 | Updated September 2026, 22 minutes ago
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
Creative Practice in the Recording Studio: Engineering Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (1979)
Paul Thompson (Leeds Beckett University, UK) and
Phillip McIntyre (University of Newcastle, Australia)
p.a.thompson@leedbeckett.ac.uk
phillip.mcintyre@newcastle.edu.au
/// ABSTRACT
Both romantic and inspirationalist understandings of creativity that promote the image of a lone, introverted ‘genius’, or the artist awaiting inspiration from their muse, are often reflected in the music industry by the ways in which artists discuss their work and the ways in which audiences imagine what happens inside the recording studio during the making of a record (McIntyre, 2012). These ideas are reinforced through Hollywood or documentary depictions of artists working inside the recording studio (Williams, 2011). These views of creativity not only privilege the individual within the creative process, they are often widely accepted as common sense (Boden, 2004). However, a growing body of research has dismissed these romantic ideas as myths (Ibid) with increasing evidence that creativity emerges through the conflation of several factors within a dynamic system of interaction (Csikszentmihalyi: 1988, 1997, 1999 & 2004).
This paper explores the systems model of creativity as it applies to the production of a popular music recording inside the recording studio. By drawing on a particular example during Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (1979), the dynamic interaction of the system’s symbiotic factors of domain, field and agent are shown in operation at different interdependent scales whilst engineer Bruce Swedien engineers Jackson’s vocal performance.
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
Creative Practice in the Recording Studio: Engineering Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (1979)
Paul Thompson (Leeds Beckett University, UK) and
Phillip McIntyre (University of Newcastle, Australia)
p.a.thompson@leedbeckett.ac.uk
phillip.mcintyre@newcastle.edu.au
/// ABSTRACT
Both romantic and inspirationalist understandings of creativity that promote the image of a lone, introverted ‘genius’, or the artist awaiting inspiration from their muse, are often reflected in the music industry by the ways in which artists discuss their work and the ways in which audiences imagine what happens inside the recording studio during the making of a record (McIntyre, 2012). These ideas are reinforced through Hollywood or documentary depictions of artists working inside the recording studio (Williams, 2011). These views of creativity not only privilege the individual within the creative process, they are often widely accepted as common sense (Boden, 2004). However, a growing body of research has dismissed these romantic ideas as myths (Ibid) with increasing evidence that creativity emerges through the conflation of several factors within a dynamic system of interaction (Csikszentmihalyi: 1988, 1997, 1999 & 2004).
This paper explores the systems model of creativity as it applies to the production of a popular music recording inside the recording studio. By drawing on a particular example during Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (1979), the dynamic interaction of the system’s symbiotic factors of domain, field and agent are shown in operation at different interdependent scales whilst engineer Bruce Swedien engineers Jackson’s vocal performance.
