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Music “Revisited” ­ Revisited Once Again

In the column for February 2004, I wrote about how music from older eras should be “revisited” as a way to bring older classics in to the 21st century with sonic improvements to take advantage of the changes in technology that were not available to take advantage of at the time of the original recordings. I defined “revisited” in that column which can be read here, http://www.abbamail.com/columnis/ryan_feb2004.htm as re-recording the original music as closely as possible to the original taking advantage of today’s modern advances fully, while extracting the original vocal track from the original master tapes and adding it to the newly re-recorded music and voila, instant classic that can hold itself next to the more sonically dynamic recordings of today. The reason I have chosen to return to the topic of “revisiting” music, is that at least one song has been revisited expressly for the purpose of bringing it up to par with today’s standards and yet still is faithful to the original in all its iconic glory.

Before I discuss that revisited song, it seems that higher definition music never really seemed to take off, it seems that both formats, the DVD-Audio, and Super Audio Compact Disc formats lost out to the MP3 digital formats that are even rendering compact discs obsolete. I’m a little disappointed in the success of the digital distribution that sells music that is not in the best quality, but at the same time I’ve also been taking advantage of being able to purchase individual songs from artists I have no desire to own CDs of for the one or two songs I like. And you’d have to pry my iPod out of my cold dead hands before I’d give it up willingly.

The main problem with the recording industry today is that music has become a commodity, it’s become practically disposable, and people don’t value it as much as they used to. Stores are decreasing the amount of floor space devoted to music and music stores are closing left and right. The saving grace of DVD-Audio and SACDs never took off. But the flip side is in video entertainment, the High Definition formats are thriving and even though there still isn’t a format winner in the battle of the formats to replace DVD, consumers are buying it up left and right and paying the premiums charged for it over the standard DVD, which consumers couldn’t be bothered to pony up the premiums for higher quality music formats.

So with some irony, the “revisited” track I’m going to discuss is the theme to the original Star Trek television series. This music is being distributed with video specifically made for the High Definition video craze that is sweeping the world. The new re-release of the first season of Star Trek’s original series in a combination HD-DVD and standard DVD format not only features new transfers of the video footage, rendered beautifully to take advantage of the rich color High Definition offers, as well as all new effect shots and CGI exterior shots of the ship, as well as a brand new recording of the original theme music. I know the thoughts of tampering with the original visuals of the show instantly brings thoughts of the work George Lucas did desecrating his original Star Wars Trilogy which had fans up in arms over it. The work done for Star Trek was done with careful attention to enhance the enjoyment of the episodes, not detract from the work originally done. Things like replacing globes that had no clouds on them as planets. The included documentary highlighting the changes showcased how their work was done with the vision that the work is to compliment the choices made by the original work and serve as if this work would have been done this way if they had the technology available forty years ago when the show was originally made. Fan response to the changes has been very positive and nearly all feel the work done by CBS Digital enhances the enjoyment of the original series and brings it on par with the effects done on all the subsequent Star Trek incarnations.

As for the original theme, the documentary highlights how laboriously the effort to recreate the opening credits. The original field of stars was painstakingly recreated star by star so that it would match the original. The ship was rendered to match the dimensions of the original ship, and when it came time to re-record the music, they hauled out the original session notes from when Alexander Courage conducted his studio orchestra. The notes listed every instrument used in the recording, which was faithfully duplicated in type and number of instruments, using musicians who have recorded music for the newer Star Trek incarnations. This was done because it felt they had a more vested interest in being faithful to the original. The original arrangements were used and the original music called for a soprano to be used to vocalize, a soprano was brought in, and even the original voice over track of William Shatner recorded for the original was located was found so it could be used because they wanted Shatner’s voice over to sound exactly like it did in the 1960’s. So ultimately what happened was a beautiful “revisited” recording of the original that truly feels as if it could have been recorded in the 1960’s if they had current technology then.

As I stated in my February 2004 column, I think the music industry could see more life brought back into it if they were willing to take a chance and “revisit” old material and make them sonically pleasing to today’s technology standards by re-recording the old music faithfully to the original and using the original vocal tracks. It creates a new version, that is easier on today’s ears to enjoy, and keeping both the revisited and original songs in print gives consumers a choice on how to enjoy the songs and creates two products out of one. At this stage in the game, it maybe a little too late to save the recording industry as we know it, but as the revisiting of the original Star Trek theme shows, with enough attention to recreating the original, something special can be done that gives new life to something that’s old.

Ryan