IF Festival October 2018

“Explore Squeeze’s Spot the Difference album (2010)” at the IF Oxford Science + Ideas Festival

Friday 19 October 2018, 19:00–20:30

Wig and Pen, 9-13 George St, Oxford, OX1 2AU

The PMRU team will be appearing at the IF Festival in October, looking at changing ownership and the sounds behind Squeeze’s 2010 album, Spot the Difference.

Booking required; pay what you decide.

Why would a band attempt a perfect re-recording of their greatest hits? And what can we find out when they do? Come and join Oxford Brookes’ Popular Music Research Unit to Spot the Difference between Squeeze tracks as they shift across audio formats, record companies and publishers over time.

Squeeze’s Spot the Difference album is an unusual attempt to recreate, note for note, and sound for sound, the original recordings of the band’s greatest hits. The motivation behind the record was for the band to reclaim lost copyright. Recorded music copyright mainly consists of three types. Squeeze had already lost half of the copyright residing in the notes of the songs (type one) and the lyrics (type two) in an early contract, but a loophole in the contract meant that after a period of time had passed, they could attempt to reclaim all of the recording rights (type three) by recreating the original recordings.

PMRU have been exploring the background and ramifications of this album, both for Squeeze themselves, and for what it can tell us about the details of the band’s original signature sound, and more generally, what happens to the sound of recordings as they are reissued time after time and on new formats, and how the complexities of copyright impact the music and sounds that we hear.

At this interactive event, PMRU will share some of their findings about the album and invite you to have a go at researching the album yourselves through hands on activities in a relaxed atmosphere (with bar!).

Activities will include: Dr Jennifer Skellington leading an exploration of copyright, David Carugo leading an activity on listening to the stereo field, Joe Turner leading an activity on spotting the difference between the different tracks’ production, and Dr Jan Butler leading an activity on exploring how different versions of tracks appear on the album.

There’ll be plenty of time for discussion with PMRU and lots of listening to Squeeze.

We look forward to seeing you there!