My musical tastes are rather more eclectic than most; I can tolerate just about anything, and my musical passions run the gamut from Jazz (Maynard Ferguson) to Classical (Mahler) to Pop to Rock to Rap to Alternative to Whatever New Genre We’ve Come Up With This Week. My iTunes playlist has a weird variety of stuff, reflecting those tastes. However, 98+% of those tracks have one thing in common: they were recorded in a studio, and not in front of a live audience.

I’m not sure where it happened, but I have rarely had a desire to have a “live” recording. I think it’s because the studio releases are more pristine and more true to the vision of what the composer, artist, and producer envisioned.

On Friday, Coldplay released a new album, LeftRightLeftRightLeft. And they released it for free on their website. Who can turn down free music? So I downloaded it, imported the tracks into iTunes, and started to play. It surprised me when the first sounds I heard were those of the crowd, screaming. I don’t know why I expected it to be a studio album; I just wasn’t thinking, I suppose. In any case, I almost immediately deleted it. However, something shiny distracted me, and I left it playing in my headphones.

Viva la Vida is an excellent song in its original (studio) state. However, there is a palpable energy in the audience when it’s played live. You can feel the excitement in the air as the audience sings along, and there’s a give-and-take relationship between the band and their fans. It’s made me face up to the reality that, “Hey, there may be something to this live music stuff.”

That shouldn’t surprise me. I’ve been in a band, and I’ve performed with various musical groups since Beginner’s Band in 6th Grade (RIP Don Knapp). One of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had was playing for a crowd of 2,000 teenagers in North Carolina in the summer of 1981. And yet, I never thought that those sorts of experiences would translate to the recorded medium.

Hm, I must rethink this.