# The 8 Best Musique Concrète Tracks of All Time

Paris, 1948: a radio engineer decides that a recording of a train is material for a composition. The moment recorded sound stops documenting music and starts being it, which is the premise every sampler on this map depends on.

- **Origin:** Paris, France, 1948
- **Also known as:** concrete music, tape music, elektronische musik, electroacoustic
- **Tracks:** 8
- **Updated:** 2026-08-30
- **Canonical page:** https://waxonia.com/genre/musique-concrete/

## The list

### 1. [Pierre Schaeffer](https://waxonia.com/artist/pierre-schaeffer/) — [Étude aux chemins de fer](https://waxonia.com/track/pierre-schaeffer--etude-aux-chemins-de-fer/)

*1948*

Six locomotives, cut and looped on shellac discs. The first piece of music made entirely from recordings of things, and the founding act of everything sample-based that followed.

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Pierre%20Schaeffer%20%C3%89tude%20aux%20chemins%20de%20fer) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ioMr0dQLctI)

### 2. [Karlheinz Stockhausen](https://waxonia.com/artist/karlheinz-stockhausen/) — [Gesang der Jünglinge](https://waxonia.com/track/karlheinz-stockhausen--gesang-der-junglinge/)

*1956*

A boy's voice and synthesised tone placed on the same continuum and moved around five loudspeakers. Cologne's answer to Paris, and still the more technically astonishing of the two.

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Karlheinz%20Stockhausen%20Gesang%20der%20J%C3%BCnglinge) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=-RMGGVlMuwo)

### 3. [Edgard Varèse](https://waxonia.com/artist/edgard-varese/) — [Poème électronique](https://waxonia.com/track/edgard-varese--poeme-electronique/)

*1958*

Written for four hundred speakers in a pavilion Le Corbusier and Xenakis designed for it. Eight minutes, heard by two million people, and almost nobody has heard it properly since.

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Edgard%20Var%C3%A8se%20Po%C3%A8me%20%C3%A9lectronique) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=WQKyYmU2tPg)

### 4. [Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry](https://waxonia.com/artist/pierre-schaeffer-and-pierre-henry/) — [Symphonie pour un homme seul](https://waxonia.com/track/pierre-schaeffer-and-pierre-henry--symphonie-pour-un-homme-seul/)

*1950*

Breathing, footsteps, humming and a prepared piano, assembled into something that keeps threatening to become a song. The first extended work in the form.

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Pierre%20Schaeffer%20%26%20Pierre%20Henry%20Symphonie%20pour%20un%20homme%20seul) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=24mPiq1vfaY)

### 5. [John Cage](https://waxonia.com/artist/john-cage/) — [Williams Mix](https://waxonia.com/track/john-cage--williams-mix/)

*1952*

Six hundred recordings spliced according to chance operations, taking a year to cut for four minutes of tape. Cage's most laborious piece and his most gleefully pointless.

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/John%20Cage%20Williams%20Mix) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ApQap2o2Tbw)

### 6. [Hugh Le Caine](https://waxonia.com/artist/hugh-le-caine/) — [Dripsody](https://waxonia.com/track/hugh-le-caine--dripsody/)

*1955*

Made from a single recording of one water drop, transposed and layered into an entire piece. Ninety seconds, and the most charming demonstration of the whole idea.

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Hugh%20Le%20Caine%20Dripsody) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=zvHSvSBwFYM)

### 7. [Morton Subotnick](https://waxonia.com/artist/morton-subotnick/) — [Silver Apples of the Moon](https://waxonia.com/track/morton-subotnick--silver-apples-of-the-moon/)

*1967 · Nonesuch*

The first electronic work commissioned specifically as an LP, made on a Buchla. Composed for the living room rather than the concert hall, which is a bigger break than the sound suggests.

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/Morton%20Subotnick%20Silver%20Apples%20of%20the%20Moon) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=9HoljsO22qA)

### 8. [The Beatles](https://waxonia.com/artist/the-beatles/) — [Revolution 9](https://waxonia.com/track/the-beatles--revolution-9/)

*1968 · Apple*

Tape loops and a repeated announcement, on the best-selling record in the world. However you rate it, it put twenty years of studio experiment into millions of houses at once.

Also on: [Twice Over](https://waxonia.com/theme/twice-over/).

[Search Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/search/The%20Beatles%20Revolution%209) · [YouTube Music](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=SNdcFPjGsm8)

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