4. Basing St Studios

Available for over a year

Paul Morley returns to Basing Street Studios, home to Island Records and then his own ZTT label. These were the very rooms in which everyone from Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens and Bob Marley through to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the Art of Noise and Grace Jones recorded some of their most iconic albums. In the company of Island's Chris Blackwell and ZTT's Trevor Horn, as well as legendary engineer Tony Platt, Paul attempts to find out what it was about this particular space that led to some of the most memorable recordings of the 70s and 80s. Series exploring the history of popular music through some of the iconic recording studios in which classic albums were created. Without recording studios, music as we know it would simply not exist. They play a crucial role in the structure and fabric of the music recorded there - the sounds moulded by the studio space itself. Producer: Paul Kobrak First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2012.