Whoever says things in the music business are just getting worse (Sandow, Lebrecht: you know who you are) should take a look at today’s bombshell of good cheer. The band Radiohead (a favorite if mine, of course) are releasing their newest album themselves – for any price determined by the buyer, even none. There is so much to look forward to with this news that I don’t even know where to begin.The article goes through the obvious benefits of a band releasing their own album, the repercussions of which admittedly demand a “wait-and-see” attitude, and after some very surprising quotes by two industry executives (Radiohead IS the best band in the world, but I would never expect music industry executives to actually recognize that and admit it in print, not in a million years), gets to the real point of all this at the end:
“In July, Prince [another personal favorite, by the way] gave away his album Planet Earth for free in the U.K. through the downmarket Mail on Sunday newspaper. At first he was ridiculed. Then he announced 21 consecutive London concert dates — and sold out every one of them.”
What this points to obviously is a welcome reversal of the traditional model for musicians and their work. For decades, live performance has served to get people to go out and buy the record, since that is where the higher return was – at least for the record label. This practice started to creep into the classical world as well, especially in the US (though not exclusively) and usually in promoting soloists. This was perhaps even more workable with classical music than with popular music – if you shelled out the substantial dough to hear a popular music artist, then you probably already had their record. You don’t need to be sold on them. But with classical music, with so many more people in the hall not knowing what to expect at the start of a concert (maybe they are unfamiliar with the composer or soloist, or have only heard the work being performed once – and a 40 minute symphony or concerto is a lot more to retain than a 3 minute song), the desire to make the experience last by buying a recording of the composer or artist afterwards can be much stronger.
I’ve always felt that recordings are a poor substitute to live performance, especially since so much of the art of a performance – spontaneity, danger, ecstasy – is lost in the recording and editing process (though here one could say it is replaced by another art, but I don’t buy it, as much as I respect the skills of good sound engineers. And yes, Glenn Gould’s recordings are fascinating, even stimulating in so many ways, but they are still just recordings). It is encouraging to see that a lot of music fans perhaps feel the same way – a record is fine, but the intensity of the live experience is worth so much more. Both mediums serve a different purpose, you don’t have to have one without the other, but if you have only time (or money) for one, live performance has no substitute.
What this points to for classical music is of course anybody’s guess, but to see an increased respect for the superiority (the artistic as well as the financial benefit for the artist) of live performance by popular artists is encouraging. At any rate, those who years ago feared that recordings would keep listeners out of the concert hall can take heart at this latest news.
