Airdate: Soundbreaking

Next week Nine premieres Soundbreaking, a PBS documentary series that charts a century’s worth of music innovation and experimentation.

With more than 150 interviews, and a serious approach to production, this should be one for music historians and fans alike.

Episode one features George Martin and his work with the Beatles at Abbey Road with interviews by Ringo Starr, George Martin, Brian Eno, Giles Martin, Rick Rubin, Tony Visconti, plus the story of Dr. Dre as the most influential producer in hip hop and Rick Rubin’s revitalisation of Johnny Cash’s career in the 1990s.

Soundbreaking, an eight-part event television series, traces this ongoing sonic revolution, and explores the nexus of cutting-edge technology and human artistry that has created the soundtrack of our lives.

Featuring more than 160 original interviews with some of the most celebrated recording artists, producers, and music industry pioneers of all time, Soundbreaking charts a century’s worth of innovation and experimentation, and offers a behind-the-scenes look at the birth of brand new sounds.

From the Beatles’ groundbreaking use of multi-track technology to the synthesized stylings of Stevie Wonder, from disco-era drum machines to the modern art of sampling, the series highlights the dynamic tension between the artificial and the natural––between the man-made and the god-given––and explores the way in which that tension has continuously redefined not only what we listen to and how we listen to it, but our very sense of what music is and can be.

In the end, Soundbreaking makes us hear the songs we love in a whole new way, and illuminates the sonic alchemy by which the music we listen to becomes a fundamental part of who we are.

9pm Monday May 9 on Nine.