Category music newsIn an article from the Associated Press yesterday EMI announced that it is looking for buyers for one of their biggest assets - Abby Road Studios. The studio is most famous for being the place the Beatles recorded most of their music. Also of note, the majority of Pink Floyd's catalog, Wings' "Band on The Run", and Radiohead's "OK Computer" and "The Bends". This is also the place where Cliff Richard and the Drifters recorded "Move It", which many people believe to be the first Rock and Roll single in Europe.
The studio started out in 1931 after the Gramophone Company purchased the structure and turned it into recording studios. Gramophone later turned into EMI and the building was then known as EMI Studios. IN 1969, The Beatles named their album after the street the studio stood on - Abby Road. Later on in 1970, EMI formally changed the name of the studio to what we know it as today.
Studio 2 at Abby Road becaome the room of innovation in the 1960's and would change the recording of music forever. Sir George Martin and the Beatles would develope such techniques as flanging, automatic double tracking and controlled feedback. Later, in the 1970s, Pink Floyd would push the limits of recording even further there.
EMI is currently looking for bidders in hopes to help with it's $165 million shortfall that it is sitting on. It is doubtful they will even come close to that number with the sale of the historic landmark. One can only hope that when it gets purchased it will either remain an active studio or be turned into a museum of some sort and not get "repurposed in the name of progress".