10 Bizarre Recording Techniques Used On Famous Records

England's 10cc can stand alongside The Beatles as a band who successfully married sonic invention and experimentation to ridiculously catchy melodies and accessibly compositions. For 1975's The Original Soundtrack, the group's third studio effort, they pushed the boat out even further. With a six-minute 'reverse' love song, a tripartite mini-opera and heavy rock, this is an album which is bursting with imagination.

10cc's entire discography stands as a benchmark of studio wizardry at its best, but this record, and particularly its hit track, I'm Not In Love, is a great example of the band's ambition.

“Lol (Creme) had this great idea to do a backing track featuring a choir,” recalls 10cc's Graham Gouldman. “We developed a method by which we could get up to 200-odd voices using a 16-track machine. We filled those 16 tracks with my, Kevin (Godley) and Lol’s voices.”

Those voices took three weeks to lay down, with each member singing the single 'word' “ahhh” countless times. The 256 voices, in total, were then loaded into a mixing desk and controlled by faders to create a human-sounding instrument. Even now, listening to the track with modern ears, that unmistakably sound remains as striking as it is beautiful.