The Rolling Stones’ studio receipt for recording ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Brown Sugar’

If you like that type of documentary, I recommend another called "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" about the mostly anonymous studio musicians who played on a ridiculous number of Motown and Pop tracks from 1959 - 1972.

"The Funk Brothers produced more hits than The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and Elvis Presley combined." [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_in_the_Shadows_of_Mot...

> maybe a magical local vibe

Translated to: nothing else to do.

If I remember correctly, part of the reason for sending the Stones here was so that they couldn't misbehave quite as much and would actually finish their music.

"OneMic Series - Muscle Shoals Sound Studio - Tour"

https://youtu.be/hP4IwPgylzE

Technically only the first verse.

And overall, it is about sex with black women, in a general sense. Two of Mick's black girlfriends each claim it is about them. I'd say the first verse is sort of a twisted sex fantasy. (and not just men indulge in rape fantasy/roleplay stuff)

Obviously, Mick can relate to the slave trader in the first verse, in the sense that he had so many women who would let him do as he pleased with them, with zero regard for their enjoyment. I'm not saying he behaved that way, but he certainly could have, every day if he wanted to.

Not really defending it, it's pretty awful to listen to. It certainly has an iconic guitar riff.

I listen to music in the same way as comedy. It's often not clear whether it's criticizing an idea, reinforcing it, mocking it, glorifying it, or something else, or a combination.

Good lyrics or jokes make you think. They don't tell you what to think.

Surely, a lot of rap music would fall afoul of a moral filter pretty quickly if taken sincerely. Not sure why we'd apply a different standard to rock music written back when rock was more radical.

Greatness can't be arbitrarily taken away post facto. It must fade at its own pace.

"Brown Sugar" is one of rock music's greatest songs

Wow. Reading the lyrics is an intense experience. How could anyone ever have listened to that and not realised? I’ve never heard the song myself.

To me it actually seem more on the higher end from todays perspective. Assuming that the "13 1/2 Studio Time" is in hours not days.

What I have seen usually being quoted by professional studios in Switzerland is around $150-250 per hour for studio+engineer with discounts if you book days.

But the recording sessions are only a small part of the process from writing to publication of music. And what really racks up the cost if one starts adding big names to any part of the production. If you just stick with professionals that charge for their services, not their brand, you can actually get great productions for not too much money.

>> seems pretty cheap in comparison to other stories you hear about groups

I remember hearing stories about how Nirvana recorded "Bleach" for $600. The story goes Chris Novoselic went to the founder of Sub Pop records and demanded they be under contract. The founder basically took a stock contract that he copied at the local library for .10 and had them sign it - giving them royalties on Bleach and Nevermind.

Turns out when all the grunge bands were going to the big labels, those Nirvana royalties effectively allowed them to stay in business during their lean times.

But you're right. I heard many, many stories of the hair bands getting signed, then going on a drug and spending binge and then never being able to complete their contractual obligations to the label.

>Even with inflation, seems pretty cheap in comparison to other stories you hear about groups being given hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront to record and then having these groups bitch about how they blew through their money and didn't get their record done

Those stories are about the total budget to produce an album, this is just the cost of the studio time and tapes. I'd bet the producer alone made more than $1000 for this song, and there would be many other people getting similar amounts.

They say the key to innovation (i.e., creativity) is scarcity. Low budget is obviously a form of scarcity.

It certainly would be interesting to see a sample of albums, the studio bill, the marketing bill, and then the sales / revenue. I'm sure there are exceptions but I bet big bets correlate with big busts :)

The answer is it depends. A lot of pre-production early recording can be done outside of the studio or at a home studio these days. Certain styles of music have little need for a 'professional' studio anymore. Unless you are an established and or well funded musician that depends on good playing and acoustics for your sound most records can be made on the cheap.

In the Houston area where I live there are few studios that can and do record professional and big names. Most of those have rates around 150-250 bucks per hour. Recording to tape is rarely done anymore but these days 2" tape will run between 100-300 a reel. Depending on tape speed that will capture around 10-15 minutes of multi track music. If the band is tight and arrangements are worked out you can fit 2 songs on that.

Big name producers can range from a percentage of pre-recoup sales, to a flat fee to a mix of both. In the early 2000s I think Dr Dre quoted a friends and family price as a flat fee of 50k per song. I think that would balloon to 150k for those outside his circle.

Also note- this receipt for the Rolling Stones is only for studio time and materials. That may include engineering time and producer fees, but I would hazard a guess that it does not. I would also bet that Jimmy Miller(the producer of Sticky Fingers) had a separate fee so the 1000 bucks was not really the all in cost.

A band I used to play with recorded/mixed five songs with a fairly reputable producer (he produced Avenged Sevenfold and several other national US acts), and the cost came out to be about $2,000/song (2015). We also had all of our songs fully written out, and everyone knew their part, so the procuder really only tweaked things. However, for the amount of time we got with the producer/studio, it seemed like a bargain to me.

Recording/mixing just varies incredibly widely, and it varies by reputation of the producer, how much time, effort they put into your song, time in studio, things like that. That being said, ~$40k seems REALLY high to me (but I suppose if you are an act like the Rolling Stones, that is comparitively low).

I’d say the opposite is true. These days studio quality equipment is affordable so often when you pay for studio time what you’re paying for is more the producers talent. So it really depends on the style of music and how prepared you are going into the studio / how much work the produce needs to do. I see can’t the cost running into tens of thousands unless your basically using the studio time to compose your track.

On the other hand these days you can record a number 1 single at home with a laptop for pretty much no cost. That wasn’t a possibility at all back then.

Depends on the studio and staff (recording engineers, producer, etc). If either or both are famous -- instead of merely excellent -- you will pay a much higher rate.

But the most important question is time. You can pay less than $1k for a full studio day with great equipment and great staff, but it adds up if you're slow, or your players are learning the song (or even writing it!) in the studio.

And of course, you can do a lot at home with a couple thousand dollars of hardware today.

That's 480usd/hour for studio time.

Asking Google, a studio runs "30-200+" an hour, which doesn't say a lot, but says that todays prices easily undercut what The Rolling Stones chose to pay.

Then and now, studio time varies wildly depending on production approach, arrangement, the number of takes required to get a "keeper", and the opinions of stakeholders who may wish to keep working. So estimates are hard to make.

Many artists basically craft tracks in the studio these days. That really started in earnest with Sgt. Pepper's but it's much more common because of democratizing technological changes.

You can spend unbounded amounts of time in the studio if you have the budget.

I checked several calculators and it seems about right. To be completely honest I would have imagined that the price would have been much higher. Then again the Rolling Stones are at the top of my list so I am likely incredibly biased.

That can't be it. Looks terrible

I love to visit famous studios, Stax in Memphis is amazing too.

Lots of great London Studios in UK, like Basing Street Studios in Notting Hill (Now SARM)

https://blackcablondon.net/2011/12/04/cabbies-curios-basing-...

So much incredible music was recorded here!

Also the early Boz Scaggs Loan Me a Dime -- still being played live (at least in Boz Scaggs' concerts) note perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTFvAvsHC_Y

The interesting thing about the Muscle Shoals studio band is: everyone assumed from their sound that they had to be all black. In fact, they were all white, AFAIK.

Same area, many of the same people, but at a different studio, FAME. MSS was a spin off due to various "fights". I did some recording, with Spooner and David Hood, at both places, a few years back. I really liked FAME, the room is fantastic but MSS has a great vibe.