Sugarland Goes Old School with New CD

Sugarland photo by Kate Powers, courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Aug. 18, 2008 — In the 121 years since Thomas Edison first announced the creation of a "talking machine," the recording industry has come a long, long way. Originally the entire record had to be made at once; there was a time when songs were recorded in converted factories or furniture stores, and bands sometimes had to start over if a nearby train made noise in the middle of the performance.

Through time, technology has allowed each voice and instrument to be recorded on a separate track, and with digital recording, a producer can even slice the length of a vocalist’s note, change the pitch of a single note or move a drumbeat within a musical bar. Recording has become quite complicated, but Sugarland went a little bit old-school in its approach on the new Love On The Inside album.

"This album was pretty much recorded live," Kristian Bush told The Tennessean, "so what you're hearing are the vocal takes while we are playing the music at the same time."

"People don't do that any more, especially people who aren't singer-songwriters," Jennifer Nettles added. "Sometimes artists, they go in and they haven't even seen the band."

The differences aren’t always apparent to the listener, but they’re quite clear to the artist and the musicians. If the song is built a track at a time, the band doesn’t have the chance to shape its work around the vocalist. But if everyone is working together — particularly in a case where there are multiple vocalists — the potential exists for a lot of interplay between the singer and the other musicians.

"The choices that you make as a performer are affected by what you hear," Kristian noted. "This happened with us with ‘Stay,’ in the up and down of it. It has a dynamic within the song. It happens on this record on ‘Very Last Country Song.’ I'm following her on part of that song, and she's following me on another part of it. I feel the dance."

While Sugarland is obviously promoting the newest album, "Stay" is getting further exposure in the upcoming compilation CD, NOW That’s What I Call Country Music. Set for release Aug. 26, it features a total of 20 previous hits, including tracks by Carrie Underwood, George Strait, Rascal Flatts, Brad Paisley and Lady Antebellum.