The aging palate — recorded albums: studio or live?

I recall eavesdropping on a conversation between two high school classmates. They’d just seen Harlequin, Winnipeg’s own arena-filling rock band, in concert and were sorting out which songs sounded most like they did on record.

That epitomized my official thoughts on what rock music ought to be, at the time. I figured the studio release must be the ideal version of the song — after all, every single element that went into the song was 100% in the artist’s control, was it not? Thus the extent to which the band reproduced the sound recorded was, quite naturally, the extent to which they put on a good show.

Paul Simonon, clearly frustrated he is not getting that posh studio sound.

It only took a few, choice, small-venue concerts for me to recant of that particular bias. Still, the bands I dug the most were adept manipulators, who understood the studio album to be one “product,” a live concert another, and a recorded live release something else still. A concert bootleg might be revelatory, but only in the way Joyce’s unpublished work is revelatory of Finnegan’s Wake.

Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense was the ideal. I loved the studio versions of those songs, but the versions in the movie brought something new to my appreciation for them, as did the visual spectacle. And David Byrne’s instincts for the initial soundtrack were spot-on — it was better for the soundtrack to be evocative of the movie, rather than extracted from the visuals and presented as a half-portion of the thing itself.*

During the child-raising years most of my music listening was conducted through two speakers in the kitchen. And I generally preferred studio work — if the volume is loud enough to cut through the sizzle of minced garlic and anchovies in a pan of hot olive oil you can catch some surprising nuances and subtleties laid out on the, uh, reel-to-reel.**

These days, however, I typically reach for recorded live shows. The “live” sound is so much better than it used to be, for one thing (thank you technology). Also, these hairy old ears aren’t catching nearly as many studio layers as they used to — making the pared-down sound of a recorded single take a better match for them.

Which is a little odd, considering how grumpy I get at concerts. How many times have I announced my “retirement”? My wife took me to task on the most recent. “You’re not retired,” she informed me. “We still haven’t seen the one act I want to see live, with you — Los Lobos.”

Good point. Perhaps a beloved band performing in a spanky up-to-date theatre with actual seats will be just the thing. After all, Steely Dan was an absolute gas.

Stay tuned.

*To my earlier three categories, we could now add a fourth: the home video. I will never forget the first time I queued up Stop Making Sense on the VCR, only to realize within minutes that I was hearing elements in the soundtrack that were not present in the footage I was watching. This had escaped my notice in the immersive environs of the movie theatre. Now here I sat, slack-jawed. Nobody owed me “accuracy,” and I knew as well as any slavering fan that perfect fidelity was a dangerous myth — again, concert bootlegs are obscurities for good reason. Still, the blush of disappointment was real.

**A sit-down listen of Porcupine Tree’s Signify still retains its capacity to elicit goosebumps. But while I note that I should also say I have more love for Steven Wilson’s live version of “Home Invasion/Regret #9” — chiefly because of the rhythm guitar he provides, particularly at the 7-minute mark onward. It’s so simple, but it gives such a propulsive energy to the song. I actually miss it on the studio version.