As music becomes less of a thing--a cylinder, a cassette, a disc--and more ephemeral, perhaps we will begin to assign an increasing value to live performances again.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that as recorded music becomes less significant, live performances may regain their importance and value.
David Byrne's quote reflects on the evolution of music consumption, indicating that as the tangible formats of music diminish in importance, there may be a resurgence in appreciation for live performances. This shift highlights the unique and ephemeral quality of experiencing music in real-time, emphasizing the emotional connection and shared experience that live music can offer.
In practice
During a talk about the cultural significance of live concerts.
Forces that you might think are utterly unrelated to creativity can have a big impact. Technology, obviously, but environment, too. Even financial structures can affect the actual content of a song. The making of music is profoundly affected by the market.
When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can't bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.
I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You're not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.
You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.
Real sadness is such an all-encompassing intense thing that it takes you out of your humdrum existence. If you can still function, you want to show it while it's peaking. So when people tell you to cheer up, it's not always the best thing.
I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously.
If I choose to write about sheep, it's just because I happened to write about sheep. There is no deep significance.
When I take a black-and-white portrait, it's not particularly meant to please you. It's meant to talk to you; it's meant to shame you. It's meant to scream out at you, and it has a message.
The desire to survive and the fear of death are artistic sentiments
Every time I hear a recording I've made, I hear all kinds of things I could improve or things I should have done. There's always so much more to be done in music. It's so vast.
He was one of the masters of the thriller and he really was one of the great signposts, because he took the spy thriller out of the gentility of the drawing room and into the back streets of Istanbul and where it all really happened, ... The Day of the Jackal.
All great art is born of the metropolis.
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