Here's an idea.
An MP3 is just as good as a record or a live performance.
[THEME MUSIC]
This old gem.
The age-old debate-- well, 20-year age-old debate--
that a vinyl record is better than an MP3.
The sides of the debate are impassioned,
destined to meet time and time again
on the field of sonic battle, exclaiming--
Pssh.
It just doesn't sound that good.
Both sides of the argument have their points.
Record collectors say that MP3s sound flat and compressed
and just bleh.
But records aren't portable, and they
require care and a mountain of gear to play.
But as the conventional wisdom goes,
at least, records sound better.
These sound better.
Analog gear doesn't slice, dice, convert, or transform,
at least not nearly in the way a computer will,
which is sometimes true.
And so a record's reproduction is more faithful.
It's more natural, more musical, more live.
But you can take MP3s anywhere, and they're good enough quality
for most people.
So the debate goes back and forth, forever
and ever and ever.
Let's stop the dolphin here for just one second.
Regardless of whether you like mp3s or records,
ask pretty much anybody what the ideal experience
of a piece of music is, and they'll say, live performance.
Philosopher Stan Godlovitch says that the musical work only
fully emerges through its performances,
and that until it's heard live, it's impossible to know.
But why do we think this?
I mean, yeah, it's present, and exciting,
and in your face, and intense, and adjectives.
But let's think about what live performance really is.
99.9 repeating percent of the time,
it's the IRL experience of a piece of music
that the listener already knows from a recording.
(SINGING) You've got the touch.
Like when "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"
just pops into your head for no reason, because you're
definitely not a Taylor Swift and there's no reason
to happen, you think of the recorded version
that got released last year.
And when you go see Taylor at the Palladium
or the Garden or the Sentrum or wherever,
you compare that live performance
to the recording that's in your head
that you know every note and nuance of.
(SINGING) I'm telling you we are never, ever,
ever getting back together.
We--
Mix engineers even try to make the live show
sound like the record, because that is what we are expecting.
The fidelity of a format like mp3 or vinyl
is judged by how mediated the experience sounds compared
to the live experience, while the live experience itself
is mediated by those recordings, which especially for pop music,
are cheaper, easier to get, and more common
in pretty much every way than a live performance.
Music, unlike 250 years ago, is now
more of a media type than a performing art.
We consume it almost entirely as a disembodied stream of audio,
not as a performance of things by people
in a place with a room, with air,
and a coat-check room with a cute attendant.
I mean, we call them recording artists, for glob's sake.
Not musicians, not performers-- artists that make recordings.
Yet many listeners think of a live experience
as the one with the most authority.
But confusingly, we want those live performances
to sound perfect, like a record.
And we want our recordings to sound live, like we're there.
Heck, at a certain point, even the Beatles
stopped playing live, because they
felt like their shows were not about them playing their music
the way they wanted to.
The studio was where they could express themselves.
In her book "Scripts, Grooves and Writing Machines,"
media historian Lisa Gitelman talks about the difference
between reality and realism.
Here, reality is the IRL performance,
while our media has a constructed realism.
They have been nudged, edited, and published
to sound "real" and correct.
(SINGING OFF-KEY) Keep us going--
And as a quick aside, this all takes
on a very different meaning when the pop star is
factually a media construction.
So when you go see Bruno Mars or even Peter Brotzmann live,
in reality you are, in some sense,
expecting parts of that constructed realism.
It's sort of like if you go see the "Mona Lisa,"
you might be kind of disappointed
that it's just the small, sort of well done picture of a lady.
Your experience of the "Mona Lisa,"
"The Scream," or maybe even Mount Rushmore
is mediated by all of the times you've seen the "Mona Lisa,"
"The Scream," or Mount Rushmore, but not actually seen them.
And if the reality doesn't match up to the realism constructed
by the media, then oof.
The BrooklynVegan review of the "Mona Lisa"
live would be brutal.
This is why the argument about the qualities of formats,
like MP3, FLAC, vinyl, tape, 8-track, and MiniDisc,
is really tough.
Sure, one might sound better.
But "sound better" is a really wobbly pedestal
to put something on.
It's built upon a shifty idea of quality
that's concerned with imitating the thing that
imitates another thing imitating that first thing.
It's an imitation ouroboros.
Sort of like an imi-tor-obour-ous.
That worked out better than I thought it would.
The constructed realism of media formats will never be reality.
So the concern that something sounds real
is sort of pointless.
They are separate imitations, both with pros and cons,
but one is not better.
They are distinct.
And though we, still and maybe always,
will think of the live show is the experience with more
authority, it's difficult to deny the influence of realism
on reality.
In the most common situations, it's hard-- impossible,
maybe-- to have an unmediated listening experience.
Godlovitch says that the work survives through the continuing
diversity of its instances.
But what if its instances are not sufficiently diverse?
It must then survive based on something else.
And maybe that something else is the constructed realism
of the recording.
What do you guys think?
What is the relationship between a performance and a recording?
And do formats change that relationship?
(SINGING) And your friends talk to my friends talk
to your friends, please subscribe.
Did you guys know that the first dictionary definition
of our "artful" means tricky?
Because we certainly didn't.
Let's see what you had to say about art and video games.
So there were five games that came up a lot in the comments
that people think should be considered great works of art,
so we're going to talk about those right now.
So a lot of people felt strongly that "Journey"
is a very effective video game and great work of art, which
I am totally on board with.
It looks incredible.
It's really experiential.
And the ending part, when you go up the mountain randomly paired
with someone else, is just-- it's kind of beautiful.
A lot of people also felt strongly
about "Limbo," which is this really dark,
puzzle-heavy platformer, where you're a little kid trying
to save his sister.
I don't know how I feel about "Limbo,"
because to me, scaring people is always
kind of a shortcut to getting a reaction.
But I will say that "Limbo" is beautiful.
It looks amazing, so it has that going for it.
The next game that came up a lot was "Shadow of the Colossus,"
which I think if I could go back and redo this list,
I might replace "Final Fantasy VII"
with "Shadow of the Colossus."
It really is-- it's an amazing game that is deeply affective.
A lot of people also felt really strongly about "Braid"
being an affective work of art, which
it's just-- it has this great marriage of game mechanic
and narrative.
So yeah, totally.
And finally, a lot of people talking
about the "Walking Dead" game, which I've never played,
but a lot of folks seem to be deeply emotionally affected
by it.
So I will add that to my list of things.
As long as it's not like "Heavy Rain."
Not interested.
Christian Skovgaard wonders why video games want so badly
to be considered works of art.
And AlsoPjunk responds by saying that it's
important for the legitimacy of the industry,
and also people who enjoy video games,
that they be considered a worthwhile creative endeavor
on the same level as, say, a movie, which
is something I agree with.
To Moger, I usually play sharpshooters,
so I am a loyal Jacobs customer.
And thanks, everybody, for letting us
know your thoughts on the new list format.
We're going to go back to the drawing board,
maybe try it again sometime soon.
But don't worry, our normal format is not going anywhere.
[THEME MUSIC]