Wendy Carlos and Web 1.0
Best website ever
For the past few weeks I’ve been thinking about the best way to do an homage to www.wendycarlos.com. It’s one of my favorite places on the internet, both in spite of and because of its resistance to change — it has only received small updates for the past two decades and yet still feels very much alive.
You may know Wendy from her pioneering album Switched on Bach (which brought synthesis into the public awareness in the late 60s) and her scores for the films A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron. She was most active on the internet between 1997 and 2002, and in that time she chronicled her life’s work in Web 1.0 style: via a personal website full of stories, pictures, and links.
Her writing is warm, friendly, and inviting, and is not just for fans of her recordings, compositions, film scores, music theory, and of electronic music in general: she also writes extensively on all sorts of other pursuits, from map-making to color theory to solar eclipses. I see her as a great role model of a complete artist, experiencing life broadly with curiosity and joy.
I’m also reminded of an underlying frustration that runs through it — she has fought unauthorized interpretations of her life, shortsighted criticisms of her work, and bootlegs of her recordings1, for her entire career. I’ve heard her called a “private person,” but I don’t see it — her writing is unreservedly candid, and she seems to relish connection and lament the solitude of studio life. She has made a wealth of information about her personal life and interests publicly available. You only have to step into her own world to explore it.
So rather than trying to write two thousand words on why it’s so wonderful, this week I’m just sharing www.wendycarlos.com as an escape from the internet of 2024. This site is a treasure-trove of ideas and a wonderful reminder of how the internet used to feel... in glorious 1.0!
Also:
Earlier this week, en route to my little nook at the library, I left a tote bag on an uptown 4 train — containing my last two years of notebooks and personal journals. It also contained an iPad, which I discovered with horror I had not properly configured to back up my entire library of annotated percussion parts and all my hand-drawn art and animation from the past four years.
After two harrowing days, I got it back!! All is well. But the reason I’m mentioning it is that this also kind of derailed a short animated music video I was working on for this week’s post. It seemed like a good week to do something more brief and then take some deep breaths.
I’ll be back next week! But first, some of my treasured Wendy LPs. 🙂
Subscribe for free:
It is a confusing and frustrating time for musicians who make records, and most of us complain in some form or another about streaming and digital music, while still participating in all of it (case in point: my music, on spotify. vom).
But Wendy Carlos actually walks the walk. Her music is simply not available digitally. Not streaming, not on bandcamp, not for purchase in the iTunes store, not even on YouTube.
Her own site has links to purchase CDs, which send you to Amazon. Many are out of print. She doesn’t endorse anything other than official releases, and that’s her prerogative.
Today, Switched on Bach is one of the quintessential used-vinyl shop items: the rare case of a record that cannot be heard on the internet, but that is still widely available in physical form, as it had many, many pressings. I do wish I could just embed it right here so you can listen… but honestly it’s kind of refreshing that I can’t. There’s a copy waiting for you at your local record shop.
Thanks for sharing this. I had no idea. A wonderful place to visit.
Without Wendy, no Giorgio Moroder, no disco, no "I Feel Love", no House and....eventually no "Twelve Inch newsletter". Yep she's very important 😃! Thanks for sharing Chris !