In the Studio

These days, I often find that the kids absolutely love live music. A music fan should always appreciate, say, an accoustic or live version of a great song, especially when a good ban improvises or changes it. For example, a lot of live recordings of Jimi Hendrix are staggeringly good. Aside from their clarity, they often consist of some crowd noise, an intro from Hendrix, and then a string of rock without interruption. You can hear the man play, and any doubt of his talent goes away. The Who's Live at Leeds is another great disc, as the band goes apeshit on some songs, and are practically their own unique versions.

But sometimes live music has its own problems. Not when you are there usually, but if you are listening to it on CD. When you are at the show and the whole crowd is singing along with the lyrics, it is a damn good feeling, as everyone gets lost in the music. But go ahead and record that, taken completely out of the moment. Usually that doesn't sound too good to me, especially with a lot of the jam bands that college folks fawn over, where the singer sounds terribly lazy and/or stoned and the audience seems to do more singing than they do (John Mayer can also be placed here). I came to hear the performers show off their talents, not to hear how much of a fan you are. I'm not blaming fans for that, as I would be doing the same if I were with them at the show. But that's one reason why we go to the show, rather than listen to an album at your desk. There is a certain magic that comes from live performance, and trying to capture that on disc is impossible. Some would disagree, and so they continue to listen to really poor recordings and bask in the placebo affect.

What got me thinking about this were some musings on the opposite of the stage: the studio. When it comes to recording music, the studio can be a blessing and a curse. Some bands have used the technology and the variety of instruments one can fit into a studio and used them to great extent. Sgt. Pepper was recorded with a variety of experimental recording techniques, and the amazing drum sounds in When the Levee Breaks were made by placing John Bonham in the bottom of a stairwell. Also, while I'm not a huge fan of Radiohead, I appreciate some of the comments made about recording Kid A, where the band felt that the recording process involves so many different steps to get from mic to your speaker, that it is silly to say that the sounds of a recorded guitar are any more real than something generated electronically. In the end, it is all music, and we should not fear the studio if it means the sounds you hear were not naturally produced by a human plucking a string or hitting a key.

The dark side to this is that the studio can also destroy and deceive. Technology allows a smart studio to create an image around a person, and alter their voice into a perfect sound. It also allows engineers to participate in the so called "loudness war", where dynamic range is sacrificed in order to make songs louder. It can be difficult to determine what a performer can really do, or whehter certain affects were even their decision. What is genuine, what was cobbled together? Maybe we are missing out on some rich sounds? Because of these issues, more and more people seem to be afraid of studio music. I feel torn about the issue; as a lover of technology, I recognize the benefits and dangers of it, but I do not feel like innovation should be held back by an insistence on analog, vinyl, and everything in between. When it comes to music, the importance is how it sounds, more than how the sound got there.