Into the Groove: The Story of Sound from Tin Foil to Vinyl

This enjoyable if somewhat arcane chronicle by music journalist Scott (The Vinyl Frontier) examines the history of recorded sound. He traces the development of recordings from the first tin-foil cylindrical records of the late 19th century through the vinyl, cassette, CD, and streaming eras, starting with Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph and Alexander Graham Bell’s perfection of the technology. Digging into the scientific and engineering advances that changed the way people listen to music, he describes how the shellac discs of the early 20th century were made from the secretions of the lac insect and how a turntable’s stylus generates vibrations that create an electrical current, which gets “amplified and converted into sound.” Scott has an eye for detail, telling, for instance, how vinyl “scratching” was born in 1977 when 12-year-old DJ Grand Wizzard Theodore’s mother demanded he turn the music down, causing him to stop the record with his hand and creating the scratching effect. The history mostly entertains, but technical descriptions of how sound is recorded and overviews of equalization curves, groove widths, and CD bit rates will challenge all but the most devoted audiophiles. Still, music lovers will want to take this one for a spin. (May)