Where Have All the Liner Notes Gone?
May 29, 2020 10:42 AM   Subscribe

Catherine Wood, owner-operator of Planetwood Productions in Los Angeles makes the case for maintaining recording credits. There is a good argument to be made that artists, particularly studio artists, lose out when recording credits disappear. Producers can't track studio bands as easily, and you the listener can't follow artists along their steps away from the studio to live performances and independent careers.

In the golden age of liner notes we listeners could not only follow along with lyrics but also see how studio bands were brought together and reassembled across various recordings and studios. Some players were well enough known that searching recording credits for their involvement with a recording could be enough to encourage buying those albums. Whole genres of music were held together by studio bands as much as by artistic cohesion (folk rock, anyone?).

Liner notes mostly disappeared with the advent of cassette tapes back in the 1970s-1980s. The recording industry move to CDs furthered their invisibility as it became challenging to market CDs with extensive booklets enclosed. The move to streaming audio, both illegal and then legal completed their erasure. Early attempts to save liner notes through the volunteer-maintained CDDB site were somewhat stifled by the purchase of all that volunteer labor by Gracenote, now a Nielsen company with the database safely locked away into a subscription model designed for automation. Ryan Middleton critiques how that model has been implemented.

There are ways of restoring liner notes to mp3, FLAC, and other digital formats so they can be displayed when a song is played on your favorite player.

The most fully maintained volunteer and open license liner notes collection is musicbrains.org.

Also, searchable Discogs.

And there is always Wikipedia if you're looking for a more comprehensive view of how the album was put together and received.

Wouldn't it be nice to bring back performance credits to the music we consume so easily.
posted by drossdragon (13 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Probably 90% of my education in jazz was reading liner notes and following certain musicians from album to album. I don't consume as much music these days - frankly I've got more albums than I have time to listen to already - but if I did I'd really miss liner notes.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:52 AM on May 29, 2020 [10 favorites]


When I ripped and got rid of my thousands of CDs, this was my biggest regret, not having liner notes readily at hand (and often not available at all).
posted by PhineasGage at 10:53 AM on May 29, 2020 [3 favorites]


I contributed to CDDB in its day. I was maddened by the sale of the work of thousands of volunteers AND removing their access to it.

This was early-ish in the Monetize Everything era of the Internet
posted by Warren Terra at 11:23 AM on May 29, 2020 [4 favorites]


The recording industry move to CDs furthered their invisibility as it became challenging to market CDs with extensive booklets enclosed.

I seem to remember that my U2 CDs from the 80s and 90s would still have them. When I only had a few CDs I would read the liner notes in full but as I got more I stopped reading them for anything except for the lyrics, except for the super tiny writing in PWEI albums.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:58 AM on May 29, 2020 [2 favorites]


Somebody, please, either update their streaming service to include a place to credit the creators … or create a new service that makes creators the focus with deserved recognition. Build a streaming service that focuses on the whole listening experience … as in the days of yore.

This capability is one of the most appealing features of streaming services like Tidal. Each album and track includes extensive credits that not only list contributing production/engineering/writing personnel and session players, but offers standalone pages for each contributor. It's a great way to learn new factoids about recordings--such as the critical role the members of Toto played on Michael Jackson's "Bad"--as well burn hours exploring the session history for, say, the fluegelhorn player on "Human Nature" from the same album.
posted by prinado at 1:01 PM on May 29, 2020 [5 favorites]


I've always loved liner notes. They're generally an additional space of context and creativity, and the stories, photos, and information they provided is sorely missed. :(
posted by nikoniko at 1:15 PM on May 29, 2020 [5 favorites]


I guess AllMusic.com should be mentioned as another handy resource for album credits and band/individual artist discographies as well as reviews.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:54 PM on May 29, 2020 [3 favorites]


The two CDs I put out - in 2006 and 2009 - had extensive liner notes. IMO it is unethical to put out a recording and not officially credit everyone involved. One of the most disappointing experiences of my life was playing in a band that put out vinyl - actual vinyl, on an actual record label! - only to find out, the night of our big album release show at a legendary venue, that there were no liner notes or credits of any sort. Despite the fact that I had spent my own money and time to travel and record and rehearse and perform, despite the fact that I was the de facto music director of the recording sessions since nobody else could write charts, despite the fact that I put up with a lot of nonsense, my name was nowhere to be found. Neither were the names of anyone else involved. I was also mostly erased from the reviews and press releases. It sucked, hard, and has made me significantly less likely to do anything for anyone without a formal contract, no matter how well I know them.

This is also why I got so bent out of shape about the guy who mashed up youtube videos and made his own songs out of them but didn't credit any of the people whose videos he poached.

Anyhow, attribution: it is the right thing to do. Liner notes forever.
posted by grumpybear69 at 3:32 PM on May 29, 2020 [8 favorites]


Discogs.com is a great resource for full personnel information, although sometimes you have to dig through entries for different releases to find one that is fully informational.

Also, like, nearly every cassette or CD that I've ever purchased has had a personnel listing for the musicians and also the studio staff. Liner notes, as far as I remember them, were much more than just listing who worked to create the album. And not just lyrics -- I remember getting full length essays sometimes about the spirit or intent of the collection or even a song-by-song personal analysis by the artist or band.

I've been buying music since the 70s, and honestly the only things I ever purchased which didn't at least list the personnel were bootleg cassettes bought for $1 in Juarez.
posted by hippybear at 3:33 PM on May 29, 2020 [2 favorites]


I ripped all my CDs but kept all the discs and the liner notes (no jewel cases, just stored in smallish corrugated boxes). I miss liner notes so very much.

I was always disappointed that Columbia House cassettes never had liner notes.
posted by bendy at 8:53 PM on May 29, 2020


It's a great way to learn new factoids about recordings--such as the critical role the members of Toto played on Michael Jackson's "Bad"--as well burn hours

This is a funny retelling of that story in Yacht Rock 5 . Toto was essentially a bunch of session players and played various parts on famous albums of the day. Eddie Van Halen did the solo for Beat It - the Toto guitarist did the rhythm part. Toto also wrote a song for that album which is what the Yacht Rock episode is about.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:53 AM on May 30, 2020


I would love to have the option of clicking on a link to a PDF with liner notes when I'm listening to an album on a streaming service. I don't need physical media, I don't need an elaborate video, just put a link to the extra content that the artist wants me to see where I don't have to search for it.
posted by MrVisible at 8:13 PM on May 30, 2020 [1 favorite]


Heck, I just wish iTunes would put lyrics in with their downloads. Like, it's just track metadata. It costs NOTHING to include!
posted by hippybear at 5:45 PM on May 31, 2020 [1 favorite]


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