Music and "the details"

[acroyear]

"The way that music is made, and by whom is as important, probably more important than the music itself." -- David Singleton (engineer/manager for DGM). He's working on his own album, while dealing with other DGM affairs, and left this comment in his diary:

Downstairs, the music continues to be both wonderful and eternally frustrating. Take a badly sung, bad played acoustic guitar rendition of a track. Replay it, re-sing it, and guess what? The original, out of tune and out of time is better. It has a sense of itself. Of the music.

I find myself increasingly intrigued by what makes us connect to pop/rock music (as compared with orchestral music). Today, my vote goes to a personal connection with the artist. An identical sounding track played by a different artist WOULD be different. Would I connect to the new Fripp/Eno album in the same way if I did not know that it was by them ? Or with soundscapes, if someone was playing identical music on a keyboard synthesiser. The way that music is made, and by whom is as important, probably more important than the music itself. No doubt this thought is not as new to my reading public as it is to me.

Anyways, this to me has been an eternal truth. Knowing why the music was made, by whom, and how, and "what were they thinking?" makes it more important. It increases the value of the music, rather than trivializes it as some might think.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for liner notes.