One of the aims of recording popular music over the years has been to capture “lightning in a bottle.” It’s a phrase that so eloquently illustrates the paradoxical nature of reconciling control and chaos in popular-music making. Ever since “Rock ‘n’ Roll” records first hit the airwaves in the mid 1950s there has been an ongoing power struggle between those that would have popular music more controlled and those that would have it more chaotic. In fact, it’s a balance that needs to be negotiated each and every time popular musicians and technicians attempt to work together (either explicitly or tacitly – and nowhere less than in the recording studio).
The Journal on the Art of Record Production (JARP) is an international double-blind peer reviewed open access online journal promoting the interdisciplinary study of record and music production. The term ‘record production’ is to be interpreted in the broadest sense as the production of recorded music. JARP was founded in 2006 by Simon Zagorski-Thomas and Katia Isakoff. The guest editor for the first issue was Simon Frith, and for the second, Albin Zak; both continue to contribute and guide as founding members of our advisory committee alongside many esteemed scholars from the ARP community. JARP has published eleven electronic issues and co-edited a book of 20 articles for issue 12.
The journal publishes double-blind peer reviewed research papers with contributions from world-renowned industry professionals.
Editors-in-Chief: Katia Isakoff and Richard James Burgess
Guest Editors: see individual journal issues
Managing Editors: Shara Rambarran and Brandon Vaccaro