Music as an experience: reciprocity between performance and recording

I have been a Coldplay fan since I can recall. I have been glued to the TV every time a concert is broadcasted, to my computer checking release and concert dates, and to Amazon, waiting to get their latest CD. 

I part of the seeming minority who thinks that having the CD of your favorite band is way better than just downloading it from iTunes or listening to it online. Old fashioned, I know, but also very exciting.

It 2011 Coldplay started to release singles from their new album Mylo Xyloto and I’m sure all loyal fans enjoyed them as much as I did; however, not everybody knew about or could download them due to copyright restrictions, lack of advertisement, etc. A real shame, because Mylo Xyloto was beyond everything Coldplay had ever done before.

I was very excited to see that a stream of their performance at iTunes Festival in London was available for free downloads on iTunes Store. I was ecstatic and downloaded it right away, for me there couldn’t be better entertainment than that. That was the only purpose of the concert, entertainment. So, on a Friday night, seating with my Mac on my lap and a plate of Chinese food in the desk next to me I watched the concert as if I were there.

It was as expected, full of light effects, confetti and the band jumping all around while the music flowed enlivening the audience in London and around the world.

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At about minute five of the almost two hours long performance, Chris Martin, Coldplay’s front man, made a remark stating how the concert was free to the public, everyone could go for free, the only thing they had to do was “giving the band some volume”. 

I couldn’t understand it, why would a band such as Coldplay do an open-to-everybody, free concert? 

As minutes of delightful songs went by I got the answer: profit. Their songs hadn’t been adequately advertised, they needed to do a concert that everyone could attend or watch in iTunes so that people  buy the album.

It was purely commercial and, with that concert, they totally nailed it. Never in my years of almost stalking the band had I seen a concert so full of energy and vibe such as that one. It was an entire spectacle, a marvel. Even those oblivious to Coldplay wanted to pre-order the album online after they saw the performance, my sister in Venezuela included. In what they did, the band managed to engage us all, they made us crave for the album, mark the days until the release day.

This experience was all I could think about when I read the article "So What Can The Music Industry Do Now?," especially the section dedicated to explaining how, in order to profit, the industry has turned music back from being a recording on a cassette or CD, to becoming an experience. 

As I believe the anecdote above exemplifies, in this world of music as an experience, there is a reciprocal relationship of benefits between recordings and performances. In this world, as the article argues, "Recordings often function as more as ads for concerts than as money-makers themselves," but  I would dare to add that performances can also function as ads for the recordings (both in CDs and on iTunes, etc.). Be them legitimate or not, as the article suggests, recordings could incite people to go to concerts, but concerts also incite people to find songs, exclusive singles, or just feel a need for having the legitimate, original copy of the songs they heard at the performance.