Switched-On Bach

Switched-On Bach
Studio album by Wendy Carlos
Released	October 1968
Recorded	1967–1968
Genre	Electronic baroque
Length	39:45
Label	Columbia Masterworks
Producer	Wendy Carlos, Rachel Elkind
Wendy Carlos chronology
Switched-On Bach (1968) The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969)
Alternative cover
Original cover with Bach sitting

Switched-On Bach is the debut album by American composer Wendy Carlos, originally released in October 1968 by Columbia Records. Produced by Carlos and Rachel Elkind, the album is a collection of pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach performed by Carlos and Benjamin Folkman on a Moog synthesizer. It played a key role in bringing synthesizers to popular music, which had until then been mostly used in experimental music.

Switched-On Bach reached number 10 on the US Billboard 200 chart and topped the Billboard Classical Albums chart from 1969 to 1972. By June 1974, it had sold over one million copies, and in 1986 became the second classical album to be certified platinum. In 1970, it won Grammy Awards for Best Classical Album, Best Classical Performance – Instrumental Soloist or Soloists (With or Without Orchestra), and Best Engineered Classical Recording. After Carlos came out as a transgender woman in 1979, reissues of Switched-On Bach amended the artist credit to reflect her name, as was the case with the rest of her discography up to that point.