Phillip McIntyre

Despite the primacy of recordings within the sphere of rock music, little critical discourse exists about how rock records are actually made. The mystery of record-making, moreover, has been further propagated by the portrayal of the rock musician as the sole creator in the recording process, whose artistic expressions are assumed to be free from any constraint. This chapter addresses critical questions of agency and structure in rock recording practice by drawing on an ethnographic study of a Liverpool-based rock band. This empirical study challenges some of the broader myths of rock record-making and sheds new light on the ways in which agency is intertwined with structure. By critically observing the rock musicians’ discourse and praxis, and through analysis of their conversations and interactions, some of the intricacies of this agency-structure interrelation are elucidated. As explored in this chapter, the creative process in the recording studio happens within a collaborative network, and the rock musician is both constrained and enabled by the social structures of the studio.