ABSTRACT
When Evan Eisenberg’s book, The Recording Angel, was published in 1986, it struck reviewers as the first study of its kind. One critic called it “the first full-length book on the implications and effects of recording on music” (Parelels 1987: H24). Another wrote that, given the “enormous impact” of recording technology on “the musical life of our era,” it was surprising that so little had been written about it (Fantel 1986: H23). These reactions to Eisenberg’s book are surprising given that they occurred more than a century after Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. As a point of comparison, a book published in 1986 on the implications of Edison’s later invention – the motion picture – would not have struck anyone as the first of its kind; in fact, it would have joined a sizable literature on the history and theory of film. It seems that Eisenberg had discovered an intellectual terrain that had long been hidden in plain sight.
