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Music Education

What Does a Producer Do?

Finding a strict definition for the job title “producer” was much harder than I expected. Producers perform so many important and creatively complex tasks that it’s difficult to define what they do. So much of it depends on the producer and the genre. The role of a producer can be logistic and look a lot like management in terms of renting out a recording space and hiring outside musicians for projects. If a band requires a specific piece of music and they don’t already have someone who can play that instrument, it is typically up to the producer to find someone who can. The producer may even decide what instruments best fit the song in the first place. 

The role of the producer is also a visionary one. Producers collaborate with artists to help them achieve their creative goals by arranging music and helping mix and master the final project. 

A good producer can make or break an album or song. Producers are the music makers of music. That sentence sounds redundant, but it’s the simplest way I could think to put it. Producers work closely with, and sometimes even are, software and sound engineers that make an artist’s track come to life. While many artists may know how to use musical instruments they may not know how to use the production software involved in mixing and mastering tracks. They work closely with artists to ensure their creative vision for a work is followed. 

The role of the producer is going to vary artist to artist and genre to genre. In pop music, the producer is someone who is primarily in charge of logistical tasks or final mastering, on the other hand a hip-hop producer may give the mental association of the person who makes the beats, while the artist is the one rapping. Producers regardless of genre fall on a spectrum between managerial and creative decisions. The strict definition of what a producer is can be nebulous, and the amount of roles they might fill seems like more than one job. 

To give some specific examples, Dr. Dre, Brian Eno and Linda Perry all fit within this definition of producer as a logistical overseer who also helps to construct the music. The music industry is full of diverse positions with unique points of entry. Producers come from all walks of life and each have their own personal definition and opinion on the role of a producer.

Without producers, most artists would be lacking parts of their sound that their audience considers distinctive. Although artists are still responsible for the creative drive behind their music, creative projects can take many hands on deck.

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Music Education

Minidiscs: Obsolete, but Pretty Cool

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I got inspired to write this article when I found a box in the back of my mom’s closet full of minidiscs, a minidisc recorder and player. The small metal square fit almost perfectly in my hand and the discs that went inside it were even smaller, and on top of that were trapped inside of hard plastic squares. I absolutely adored the look of these things and had to learn more about them. 

Portable music has seen a lot of phases before getting to where we are today. CDs, cassettes, and mp3 players are all formats you’re probably familiar with. One format you may be less familiar with is the minidisc.

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Music Education

Synthetic Pioneers: Wendy Carlos

Wendy Carlos is an extremely influential composer who shaped the way that modern music evolved. Even if this is your first time hearing that name, you may already be familiar with her work. If you’ve ever watched A Clockwork Orange or The Shining, Wendy Carlos is the genius behind both of those soundtracks. Her work on movie soundtracks doesn’t start and stop with Kubrick, she also composed the soundtrack for the sci-fi movie Tron. If you listen to electronic music, you have Wendy Carlos to thank at least in part. She was a key part of popularizing and legitimizing synthesizers as a real instrument. 

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Blog

Album Review: Everytime by Sixth June

“Everytime” is an ambient electronic album by the band Sixth June. Despite being released in 2010, this album immediately brought to mind the goth and new wave artists of the 80s. The vocals are dark and emotional, accompanied by synths. It’s the kind of singing that makes you wish you had long flowing sleeves to dance with. Sixth June describes itself as post-new wave, which explains the influence that can be heard on this album.

Sixth June, like many great electronic bands, is originally from Germany. The band is as much a visual project as it is a musical project. The videos for the songs off of the album “Everytime” are a great example of this. The video for the title song, “Everytime,” is filmed in black and white with grain on top. It looks like something taken on an old film camera, with shots superimposing over one another to create an eerie vibe. This unsettling video matches the tone of the song very well. The hauntingly gorgeous vocals over the thrumming synth match the shaking camera as it tries to focus on the singer.

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Classic Album Review

Album Review: Light Decline by Great Area

A mix of dreamy electropop and much headier trip-hop, “Light Decline” by Great Area (stylized as great area) is a short but powerful album. It is packed with unique sounds on every track that made this album’s short length feel deceptively longer. At the end of the 16 minute run time I found myself wanting more. Somehow though, this album didn’t feel incomplete. It felt as though it was exactly as long as it needed to be. Despite its diminutive runtime it is a complete thought, each song presents its own unique spin on the artist’s musical style. 

The album opens with samples of robotic beeping, like a machine repeatedly starting up. After a few seconds of this, synths hum to life in the background and the singer cuts in, voice deep and hypnotic. While it is clear she is an excellent singer, her voice is almost completely monotone. Some of the singing on the album feels much more akin to chanting. Combined with electronic elements that create a world of dreamy nostalgia, the singer pulls the song in a more pessimistic direction, her voice forces you to pay attention. 

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Music Education

Music and Storytelling: Concept Albums

A concept album can be loosely defined as an album that follows a central narrative or theme. I say loosely because there is no strict consensus on what qualifies as a concept album, but generally the criteria are based on an album’s ability to uniformly achieve its narrative. In a concept album, the album as a whole often means something different than the individual songs. The album is made to work together and the songs build on one another, adding context or closure to problems brought up in previous songs. 

The first concept album is widely cited to be “Dust Bowl Ballads” by Woody Guthrie. The album chronicles the Dust Bowl era of The Great Depression. Some of the songs are Guthrie embodying a character, while others are him reporting on the situation from outside. The central story throughout is of the mass migration of people from the region affected by the Dust Bowl to California. 

Since the release of this album in 1940, the concept album has grown and changed a lot. 

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Music Education

Defining Genre: Electronic Body Music

In 1980s Germany, in dark basements and sweaty clubs, a new genre was being developed. This genre was a patchwork of musical influences. It was the constructed child of industrial and dance music, with many other genres claiming paternity from the funky rhythms of disco to the experimental instrumentation of synthpop. This Frankenstein’s monster was called Electronic Body Music. EBM combines heavy basslines and repetitive drum machines with distorted vocals and experimental synths. Some bands included samples from war movies or science fiction movies with dark themes, using the voice clips to create an oppressive feeling and to give the idea that the music was something that could control you. 

EBM found its origin in Germany, where the electronic music scene was constantly evolving. One of the German bands that helped to start the genre was Deutsch Americanische Freundschaft (stylized as DAF). DAF used EBM to explore themes of power, violence and sexuality, which would turn out to be enduring themes of the genre. Despite controversies faced by the band for their heavy use of militaristic aesthetics and the dark lyrical contents of their songs, this danceable industrial music quickly grew to dominate the club scene internationally. Soon after DAF appeared on the scene, bands began to pop up in other European countries. Notable examples include Front 242 in Belgium and Nitzer Ebb in England. In North America there was the hugely influential Canadian band Skinny Puppy. 

The aesthetics of the scene surrounding EBM were leather twists on the uniforms of factory workers and the military. The fashion took cues from the punk scene of the 70s and eventually would develop alongside the goth scene, which resulted in a meshing of subcultures. Many later EBM bands fully embraced a much more goth look. The outfits of the bands that pioneered the genre were purposefully provocative. The genre often involved topics of hyperviolence and machismo, with a sardonic twist on both. The twist was the idea that machismo taken to its fullest extent would be realized as violence, while also satirizing this elevated masculinity into an almost homoerotic affair by many of the bands involved. 

The scene would continue to grow and influence music, spawning numerous offshoots and subgenres. Examples of the subgenres that grew from EBM include aggrotech and futurepop. Along with creating new genres, EBM strongly influenced the direction of existing ones. Industrial music and EBM had an open exchange of ideas, and as a result EBM massively influenced the industrial bands of the late 80s and early 90s such as Ministry and Nine Inch Nails. 

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Music Education

What Are CD Samplers?

A CD Sampler is a kind of compilation album that combines tracks from many different artists, usually from the same label. Labels would put out these CDs so people could be introduced to an artist without having to commit to buying a CD by an artist they didn’t know. The same way that you might be offered a bite of something before you buy a meal. It was a good way for labels to give their artists exposure and a good way for listeners to discover new music. 

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New Album Review

Album Review: Shy at first by cootie catcher

Released in March of this year, “Shy at First” by Cootie Catcher is a nostalgic electronic twist on the indie pop formula. This delightful venture into indietronica is overflowing with earnestness. Starting from the name of the album alone, we are greeted with the idea of people figuring out how to be people. The album touches on unspoken things that bother us when trying to navigate our personal relationships and explores these themes with a joyful through line. 

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Concert Review

Concert Review: The Crane Wives

On May 13th, 2025, The Crane Wives played at The Ritz, Raleigh, as part of their “Beyond, Beyond, Beyond” tour. The tour is named for the band’s latest album, which was released in September of last year. “Beyond, Beyond, Beyond” is the band’s fifth studio album. The Crane Wives have been releasing music since 2011, during the heyday of indie folk.