Studio Recordings vs. Live Recordings

Generally I prefer a studio recording but it can be fun to have a live recording of shows that already have studio recordings. The quality of live recordings tends to vary greatly. The On Your Feet cast album has some serious flaws, especially during the dialogue moments. There is lots of stage noise and distracting volume levels between dialogue and song. The live cast album of the recent Miss Saigon revival often sounds as good as a studio album to me if it were not for the applause at the end of songs. I don't understand the technology enough to understand how one can sound so poor and the other so flawless but it was something I was able to observe. I am looking forward to the upcoming Mary Poppins revival cast album which I believe is another live cast album from the West End.

It definitely depends what I'm listening to and whether I want just one song or I'm listening to the whole album to re-experience the show, and part of that also depends on how much dialogue studio albums prefer to put in vs how much acting is done on the album.  For example, in Phantom of the Opera, when Christine sings Think of Me, she's supposed to start out timid and then become more confident, but if I just wanted to listen to that song alone, I'd rather just hear her sing the song as an aria rather than being in that moment of the show.

I also second what people have said about the audio quality of live albums as well, but I do appreciate that sometimes you get a little more than the usual songs (again this depends on how much the studio album chooses to include).  I rather enjoy the 2010 Les Mis tour cast album because it's the most "complete" version of Les Mis with new arrangements (and the two leads are great), so you'll hear things that are often cut from other albums (like the Master of the House intro).  I think it would be cool to have live albums as well for shows like Six, where it's such a different environment listening to each song as a "single" as opposed to the concert setting of the show.

There's also a new Les Miserables live album out next month from the 2019 staged concert at the Gielgud Theatre. I knew the blu-ray was coming, but I didn't realize there would be an album as well.

In addttion to the issues of sound already mentioned, there is the concern of shaping the recorded performance to communicate for the ear alone what is conveyed on stage visually.  Goddard Lieberson at Columbia records was a master at this.  He would adjust tempos to create more aural excitement or expand on an emotional moment.

 

He also knew how to judiciously edit a song to make it a single stand-alone number for the record. A live recording does not allow for that type of manipulation. Also, some dialogue needs to be re-configured to include important plot points.

For me I prefer to hear the songs without applause and cheers overtaking at the end or even sometimes in the middle of a number.

The talk about the DREAMGIRLS recordings reminds me what a huge let-down the original LP release was. It arrived a few weeks after I saw the show in March 1982. What I heard on the album had the drama and power of the show eliminated because the record producer had no concept of how to make the material work on records. The Film Soundtrack and concert cast recordings preserve most of the score but without the dynamic original performers.

 

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almost always studio. however there are some live recordings i love: Hadestown, Follies in Concert, Chess in Concert, Dreamgirls in Concert. the first two in specific i prefer to the “original” studio recording (Hadestown came later but it’s worse)

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I'll take a bootleg over a live recording, and sometimes over a poor studio recording. I'd be curious to know more about the forces behind modern studio recordings, which are typically dry as a bone both musically and dramatically. Part of this is probably just how producers want albums to sound now, possibly with consideration of how people are actually listening to music.

I used to have almost all of Sondheim's OBC recordings on vinyl record, and when played on my stereo the effect was thrilling because the producer, Thomas Z Shepard, is incredibly good at creating space for the music. Compare the finale of Someone in a Tree from the original Broadway album and the 2005 revival album. In the former, it's like this wonderful, textured wave of sound, which is partially thanks to the bigger orchestration but also the space and reverberation actually given to the voices. In the revival album, it's almost the exact opposite, every voice in a crisp box, never really merging even when they're all put together, which has the weird effect of making it feel both less intimate and less grand.

There's also the way that modern vocal performances, particularly in choral moments, lean towards a scrubbed glee club style, which contributes to a lack of blending. As Ravenclaw mentioned, the Oklahoma! revival album sounded very, very clean. In the theatre, the big choral burst at the beginning was exactly that, a burst, a communal voice, but on the album it sounds more like a timid barbershop quartet. It's a very frustrating trend.

I find most modern cast albums sound very compressed - there's this prevailing attitude that loudness is most important, so the signal is squashed to the point where there's no dynamic contrast. I agree that modern cast albums have a tendency to sound lifeless and over-processed in a way that older albums don't. Part of it is the reduced orchestras and extra synths, some of it is modern technique which is not always my favorite thing in the world, and also now that studios are smaller they're often using less good microphones and equipment. And mixing is an art, and mastering as well. I thought the "Dr. Zhivago" album actually sounded better than most, though I have no desire to actually listen to the score. So it can be done but more often than not it isn't.

Chamber-style productions have certainly benefited in many ways, that’s true! The Fun Home cast recording is terrific, and I think they did a really good job with the Falsettos revival. I still crave a bit more plushness in the actual recording, but it’s a better use of the techniques than something like Tootsie, which took the jubilant energy of the live production and squished it into a cast album with all the vitality of a stale oyster cracker.

I can't imagine a better representation of the show than Movin' Out's live cast recording. I think it captures the energy of the live music and dance. (I do miss the show's prologue, though.)

Two successful live recordings came out this past season: American Utopia and Octet. I think the sound quality of both is really great. American Utopia captures the feel of an inclusive, bolt-of-energy theatrical concert experience. Octet displays the incredible skill of the cast, and the flaws make the rest of the recording super impressive.