Quote of the Day (Rupert Holmes, on ‘Sweetening’ in the TV and Recording Businesses)

“ ‘Sweetening’ …is a term I first heard Carol Burnett use. I happened to be on the set of her show…and [she] was all worried about a sketch they were doing. And she said to her producer, ‘Yeah, no, I know, in the sweetening it’ll be OK.’ And I thought, ‘I wonder what that is.’ And then I learned quickly that was the term for adding a lot of canned laughter, and choosing your shots very carefully, and cutting away sometimes when something fell flat. And it all looked great. It was falling flat in the studio but once you saw it on the screen, it was all touched up and dressed. And in the recording business they say, ‘I think it needs sweetening,’ and what they mean is, ‘We gotta add strings and maybe some brass and maybe some synthesizer.’ In other words, the record sounds OK but it really could use a string section. That’s sweetening."— British-born American composer, singer-songwriter, dramatist and author Rupert Holmes, quoted by Andrew F. Gulli, “Interview: Rupert Holmes,” The Strand Magazine, Issue LXXIII (2024)