Beatbox: The Political Economy of the Programmable Drum Machine

Abstract

In 1978, Roland Corporation introduced the CR-78, the first mass-market programmable drum machine. Allowing players to tap rhythms on drum pads or program them on a step sequencer, the CR-78 brought new aesthetics and affordances to musicians. It, and other machines that followed, also made drum programming accessible to people who had never picked up a pair of drumsticks. This dissertation examines how musicians’ adoption of drum machines between 1978 and 1985 challenged notions of virtuosity, foreshadowed heightened automation in music production, and reflected trade tensions between the United States and Japan. Applying a ‘beat scholarship’ methodology informed by platform studies and media archaeology, I conduct three major analyses. First, I examine how Prince was the ‘power user’ of the Linn Electronics LM-1, and read the interface of that drum machine relative to the field of interaction design. Second, I consider the short distance between the factory floor and the studio in the (techno) music of Juan Atkins and the city of Detroit. Third, I meditate on the short production run of the Roland TR-808, the most influential and revered drum machine ever made, and I argue that Roland Corporation founder Ikuturo Kakehashi haunts its circuits. I show how the drum machine was (and remains) an ‘object in flux,’ a touchstone for debates about sonic verisimilitude versus abstraction, and a transformative force for musicians and musical genres. The beat scholarship method I have developed yields a novel way of writing about popular music, music technology, and political economy that is more than the sum of its parts.