The Naturalised and the Surreal: changes in the perception of popular music sound

In a musical context, the word 'sound' implies a set of sonic characteristics. Within popular music, this notion of sound sometimes supplies the very identity of a tune, a band or a musician. Sound is often conceptualised as a virtual space and in turn compared to actual spatial environments, such as a stage or an enclosed room. One possible consequence of this tendency is that this virtual space can become utterly surreal, displaying sonic features that could never occur in actual physical environments. This article concerns the ways in which the increased possibilities for creating a spatially surreal sound, thanks to new technological tools, have been explored within the field of popular music over the past few decades. We also look at the ways in which the effect of such features may have changed over time as a consequence of what we call processes of naturalisation. As a particularly interesting example of the complexity of such processes, we explore 'the music sound stage'. In addition, we analyse three songs by Prince, Suede and Portishead to reveal the possibly surreal aspects of these productions.