Brill Building

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The Brill Building is an office building on Broadway 1619 in New York City - north of Times Square - in which a total of 165 music publishers were united under one roof in 1962 and the imprecise expressions "Brill Building Pop" or "Brill Building Sound" coined.

history

The 11-story office building, built in 1931, was named after its owners, the Brill brothers, who ran a men's outfitter shop there on the ground floor.

The historic Brill Building in New York (2008)

Don Kirshner was mainly responsible for the strong concentration of composers, producers and music publishers in the Brill Building . He started out as the manager of Connie Francis . In 1958 he opened the music publishing company Aldon Music, named after the owners Al Nevins and Don Kirshner. A little later, Kirshner employed talented songwriters such as Carole King , Gerry Goffin , Neil Sedaka , Howard Greenfield , Cynthia Weil , Barry Mann , Jeff Barry , Ellie Greenwich , Neil Diamond and Tommy Boyce . Strictly speaking, Aldon Music wasn't in the Brill Building, but one block across on 1650 Broadway.

Initially, three music publishers moved in here in 1932, namely Southern Music , Mills Music and Famous Music . The specialty of this building was the claustrophobic narrowness due to the large number of small offices. A musician could record a demo recording in the studio in the Brill Building , and then find a publisher, producer and radio promoter in the same building. This concentration resulted on the one hand in synergies, for example through the exchange of ideas among the composers, on the other hand, the music-technical requirements could be completed (the composers chose a music publisher in the building, which in turn selected the performers). The song authors worked out most of their compositions here as a score . This meant, after rock 'n' roll, the emphasis on singing with orchestral songs that others have written. However, the heterogeneous compositions as well as the singing and production styles do not reveal any musical similarities, so that the term "Brill-Building-Sound" only describes the uniform origin of these songs.

The Brill Building empire produced more than two hundred pop songs between 1958 and 1966, which hit the US hit parade. Many of these became million sellers and the basis of cover versions . The acts include the Ronettes , the Drifters , the Shangri-Las , the Crystals and many more. When author music like that of the Beatles , the Beach Boys or Bob Dylan , who composed their own music (not to forget the bands of the British Invasion ), this type of music lost its credibility and authenticity (and thus the power of representation among record buyers) the brill-building composers shift towards solo performers (for example, Neil Diamond succeeded in doing this), the publishers (s) found a new audience: the teenagers and preteens. At that time Columbia (CBS) had already bought Aldon Music. And so, media mogul Don Kirshner worked with the Monkees and Archies for TV stations like NBC and CBS. Later in the 1970s he was the manager of rock group Kansas and retired from the business in about 1975.

A number of companies connected to the music and film business are still based here, such as Sound One (a post-production company), Colony Records and the video company Broadway Video .

Definition of Brill Building Pop

The booklet for the sampler "The Brill Building Sound" by Greg Shaw and Dawn Eden names five historical conditions that defined Brill Building Pop:

  1. The transition from the amateurish naivety of early rock'n'roll to more sophisticated and professional techniques (above all the recording and production technique)
  2. The development of the producer as a key factor in the musical production process
  3. The growing importance of a professional songwriter in rock music
  4. The individual influence of certain key people such as B. Phil Spector
  5. The Brill Building and the man who founded it, Don Kirschner (the Brill Building with its economically horizontal interaction of the entire production process, which has become more complex in the past)

CD

  • Up on the Roof - Songs of the Brill Building , Columbia 474 356 2.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brill Building Popl
  2. ↑ Sampler "The Brill Building Sound"

Coordinates: 40 ° 45 '42.67 "  N , 73 ° 59' 11.41"  W.

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