28 Comments

Oh boy. Lmao. Talk about a deep ol' rabbithole. I think when we talk about being "deceived", that's a "category error". It assumes that recorded music and live performance of music are the same thing, and they're not.

They're not,

They're not,

They're not.

I have to repeat this for emphasis, because too many smart people have either conflated the two, or thoughtlessly accept the conflation.

They are two different extensions of the same art form, and one should not be mistaken for the other. A record is literally that; a permanent "record" of an otherwise ephemeral artwork. The alleged "deceptions" arise solely from the tools and tactics the technicians use to satisfy the demands of such permanence; such that the process of the record's creation takes on a life of its own.

This should be a stipulation, not a revelation. And yet, many people (including very many on this app) continue to view the two separate experiences as from the same bag; or worse yet, view live performance as some "poorer brother" of recorded (and enhanced) performance. The question is, which one contains the "soul" of the artists' art? That depends upon the artist, and what they are expressing through it. Some express different facets through each; The Beatles + The Who being prime examples. And that should be cool too.

The problems begin when it ain't; and that's a habit of mind too many folks inside and outside the music business have adopted.

I'm probably saying all this shit wrong. But as a live musician who makes records bc he has to, who works for a guy who's pretty much the opposite; it's something I feel in my bones.

Live Music is one experience; a record is another.

Embrace each for what they are, and *only* what they are, and you'll never feel "deceived".

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author

Oh I totally agree. Not sure if you've ever read David Byrne's book "How Music Works" but he has this incredible passage at the beginning about how the environment a song is heard in is so crucial and all songs don't have to work in all environments, yet we expect them to.

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Great piece, Chris. On this specific question of the live and the recorded, yes they may be separate things but the distinction has increasingly become blurred over the years. As Philip Auslander's book Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, argues, the use of technology in live performance has made it hard to tell what is 'live' in the music itself (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/_/rL5CzwEACAAJ?hl=en). Perhaps 'liveness' is more a quality of a group of people coming together in a place at a particular time and what unfolds there rather than some inherent aspect of what is coming out of the speakers.

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Mar 14Liked by Chris Dalla Riva

Man I love this piece. It resonates with thoughts I have every time I hit “undo” in Logic. There is no contemporary music without layers of something like…artifice. Thanks for saying this all so clearly.

Every time we hear a rock band with both a drum kit and a singer—and the singer is audible…we’re hearing something “unnatural.” Do most non-musicians really get that?

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Mar 14·edited Mar 14Liked by Chris Dalla Riva

Great piece, Chris. I, too, used to get rather hung up on the idea of “real” music - whereas now I’m endlessly fascinated by all the ways that even just acoustic instruments can be manipulated to achieve different sonic (and emotional) ends. As John Lennon sang in “Strawberry Fields Forever,” nothing is real – and nothing to get hung about.

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author

I won't lie. I'm still a little hung up on it. The Beatles' infatuation with the studio is really the blueprint for where music is today imo

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Interesting read. I think you’d like David Byrne’s book “How Music Works.”

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author

Yes! A big inspiration. Very insightful book.

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This is totally fascinating -- and so similar to this NYT article about VFX in movies...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/16/movies/visual-effects.html

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Mar 15Liked by Chris Dalla Riva

I loved reading this. The experience came with a distinct sense of unburdening. It's so so true that what matters with music is emotional resonance -- does it move people?

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author

Thanks Lucy!

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Frank Zappa wrote that there is no way to arrange the instruments and singers in a rock band so that it sounds like a record—that there’s manipulation in any form of recording. As you point out, that’s true of Frank Sinatra in front of a big band as well. I mean, literally anyone can tell the difference between a live band and a record without looking.

BTW, do you know a book called The B-Side, by Ben Yagoda? Some of it is just “Let’s remember some Tin Pan Alley guys,” but he has a lot of great stuff on how technology changed the music—not the music business, but the actual music. Really worth checking out.

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author

I'm not familiar with that book. I need to check it out.

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Mar 15Liked by Chris Dalla Riva

Excellent! Another grade article with interesting insight.

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Great post. Would suggest reading Abbey Road’ by David Hepworth if you haven’t already. He makes the point that The Beatles were the ghost band to talk explicitly about the way used the studio. I’m not sure it’s right to say ‘Strawberry Fields’ is a deception. It’s certainly not a band playing live, and in many ways that’s the point.

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author

I'll have to check that out! "Deception" might not be the perfect word here cause I guess that suggests more intent. But it's the best word I could find to get the point across.

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I am crushed that the chipmunks were not real singing chipmunks. Next we will learn that Star Wars was not actually filmed in Space.

Perhaps “artifice” or “art” would be better than “deception”.

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Yes, language is tricky! I happened to have read the chapter on recording Strawberry Fields and Sgt Pepper earlier in the day yesterday, so it was all fresh in my mind. What surprised me - and so maybe ‘deception’ is the right word - is the extent to which Lennon gave a sketchy description to George Martin and left him to make it happen. Martin really was the fifth Beatle.

How accurate Hepworth’s account is I’m not certain, although he’s normally reliable. Will have to cross reference with other sources at some point.

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Does it sound good. That's all that matters

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*Does it sound good and does it move people?

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Reading the snobbery line hit me right in the gut. I, too, was like this and missed out of being “in the moment” with a lot of great music. While not being able to enjoy the music at that time, I definitely enjoy it now. It also took me a long time to wrap my head around electronically created music as being legit. But what do I know? At the end of the day, if it moves people… it’s legit.

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Did Wilson review or share his thoughts on Miles Davis’ In A Silent Way? Was he still around for the extreme logical extension of In A Silent Way, Talk Talk’s last two albums: Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock?

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Nope it was mostly about young pop and rock stars. Linked in the article if you want to read the whole thing

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Great post !

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Any style of music from any era, well-executed, can be transcendent. However, I would argue that adding layers of artifice will date music, often times to its detriment. What makes music eternal are the components that can be preserved independently of artifice: rhythm, melody, and lyric. From Moonlight Sonata, to Moon River, to Bad Moon Rising there is a timelessness in those works that makes them feel as if they've been with us forever. Production can never be fully stripped away, but the more you tinker, the more you pigeonhole it to a time, place, and trend.

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This was interesting, thx.

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oh well, all good art is to some degree a parlor trick ( "look what I can do!"). The rest is just a matter of instruments at your disposal.

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