Perfect digital loopable music at the whim of a person is a very recent phenomenon. For thousands of years, people have enjoyed music, and comparing modern musical trends to ancient or classical music, one could even say that they enjoyed it more and were more engaged with it. Modern listening habits revolve around listening to perfectly recorded audio for hours, while the audiophiles are claiming that sound should be even more precise and perfect. Perhaps, due to recency, many people don't see that with an increased audio quality, we have lost something very important in music. This is the case for imperfect music.
In this article you can click on subheadings to listen to music. Try it below!
Now, let's go back to the beginning. The first music was live. It was performed by real people and those people had all the properties of a normal person - you could talk to them, ask them for a favour (a musical favour of course), you could ask to join them. These people could be your friends, or maybe you have seen them a couple of times. These people made mistakes, could improvise. Skilled musicians can even add swing or slightly alter music. Even if they were literal slaves, they would still make mistakes, improvise, and be human. Music was very much a social experience. Often, people like live music the most, even when they don't get the social appeal from being able to talk to musicians at all.
After quite a lot of time, recorded audio has been created. First to be somewhat available have been musical boxes. These tiny delicate contraptions would play back a song once wound up. However, there were serious limitations. Firstly, they were very expensive and unavailable to most people. Secondly, musical boxes would play back slowly and had limitations for how many notes could be played in quick succession. Thirdly, a musical box almost always had only one instrument.
After less time than the last wait, the gramophone was invented. The gramophone later became much more available to the everyday person, and the music quality of it got better over time. However, its musical quality was still quite limited, especially so for early recordings. People that listen to vinyl today say that it sounds warmer. This is true - the colder tones are off-limits for gramophone which is why it sounds warmer. And yet people like it more.
This type of recorded music was used much more casually. One could start a song while getting ready for the day, or while having breakfast. Yet due to its limitations and lack of social experience that you would have with live music, this music was not the preferred choice, but rather a compromise. While a person would certainly like to listen to a quartet while at his friend's house, there is no way he can summon a quartet, and so gramophone can be a compromise. But if the friend has a piano at his house, then they don't have to compromise, as the host can play the music for the guest, and the guest can influence the music being played. That is identical to how a host usually offers food for the guest. A gramophone is intentionally more casual, meant more for solo listening experience, or to be used when live music would be a poor option - for example it would be a poor experience for one person not to eat at a feast at all because he's busy playing music.
The modern listening habits gravitate around either listening to one song on repeat, thus the popularity of 10 hour music videos on youtube; or listening to many songs accommodated to one's taste, thus the popularity of music streaming platforms like Spotify that automatically start the next song based on your taste. Unlike live music, this music does not have the social appeal, nor does it have any variation, or a way to really influence it. Unlike earlier recorded music, you have endless choice at just a click away at perfect quality. In a way, such an appeal of perfect digital music draws away from live music - why would one go to a live event or even ask a friend to play it, when one can listen to a perfect piece of audio, that must be better?
Well, to counter this argument, let's imagine a concert. Not a rock or a pop concert, but in an actual concert hall. People take their seats, talk a bit, then the musicians come out. A round of applause, silence... And then the musicians stand there as the digital prerecorded version of the music begins to play. Of course the crowd would be angry. But why? The music was of perfect quality, perhaps it was played over multiple speakers in an acoustically sound hall. Why were the people unhappy? I mean, one can take a listen:
This vs this (listen to the second one for a minute or so - or as long as you like!)
Putting it into words - the people want a live, risky event that undermines their expectations, rather than the same boring music played "perfectly".
Another thing is presentation. Top chefs agree that presenting food in a pretty way on a clean platter is much more appealing to the one tasting it and that the food is perceived as more tasty. Our experiences are true as we percieve them - if I feel that it is more tasty, then it means that it is more tasty for me. Very similar thing can be observed with music - vinyl requires taking out a disc, flipping sides, putting the needle on it, and hearing music. The physical manifestation of the disk makes a much better presentation than a flat picture on the screen, or - more and more commonly - no presentation at all. It makes a song feel more important, elevates it, and makes it be more like a special occasion. And its lower quality makes you long for the live version and the memories of the social aspect flood you, so you want to socialize more as well.
One could argue that what I'm proposing is musical ascetism - to listen to poorer quality versions to enjoy the full quality versions more. While there is a bit of truth in that - don't overlisten to your favourite song - that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying that people enjoy the lower quality music more because the situation for which they are listening it for is not as intense or literal as in the music. If a music describes a desperate battle or a specific emotional climax, I'm probably not in the same situation while listening for it. But if the music is less crisp and more vague, then it kind of fits my situation too. It doesn't have as many details and so it doesn't require as much attention. It is more background, more suitable for frequent exposure without worsening the quality of the original.
Quite a few modern composers (Toby Fox, Laura Shigihara, Myuu) release multiple versions of their music specifically for that purpose. One version is suitable for endless relistening, while the other version is meant for the exact emotional moment that is supposed to happen. Similarly, people like vinyl more precisely because it sounds warmer and more background, which is precisely how people listen music nowadays, because it sounds more like a memory of a good time than a disappointment that you are not experiencing the same feelings again.
Now the world often likes to make fun of audiophiles - they obsess over small differences between DACs and cables and audio formats, and they often fail blind tests. And while I will agree any day that lossy music formats like MP3 are really bad and take away a lot from music, I feel like what audiophiles want is misdirected. They often chase after small audio improvements, the last few percent of possible improvement while ignoring the social context, the point that a track is trying to make, the emotions that music once used to bring, the ritual behind it. I believe that the quality should be good enough to hear all the details of the lower quality version of a song, but after that, one should chase after live music, experience, ritual, and other secondary cues rather than just the quality alone. And when I speak of a lower quality version, I don't mean intentionally making it sound worse, or downloading it in lower quality, but rather listening to vinyl, or to the official version in good enough gear. In other words - perfection and infinite replay are not what make music good or meaningful.
I believe that music should either be a live, fragile, social experience; or it should be a nice modest recording of it; whereas constant max quality music and chasing after perfection is fruitless labour that doesn't by itself define the quality of the experience that you have.
I want to close this article with the wrong notes meme. Squidward not hearing his own wrong notes is a direct jab at audiophiles who often fail hearing tests, but even if Squidward would play it correctly, he still wouldn't reach the liveliness and spontaniety of Spongebob who plays his music with a mere piece of paper. Most people would prefer the worse sounding, but live paper, than even a perfectly played clarinet. Music needs personality, imagination, and is better live, or less intense if prerecorded.