Louder: Concerts Aren’t Back. Can Livestreams Do the Job?

July 24, 2020

By Caryn Ganz

Pop Music Editor

It’s become increasingly clear that live concerts the way we’re used to them, with fans sharing armrests, mosh pits or lungfulls of indoors air, aren’t coming back this year. What do we have in abundance? Livestreams. This Sunday’s Arts & Leisure coverage package is devoted to the experience (and business) of playing and watching shows through a screen.

David Peisner walks us through the current terrain, and its big questions: Can the streams edge closer to the experience of an in-person show; can artists adjust to playing to a camera, rather than a crowd of screaming fans; can fans be convinced to pay for something they’ve been getting mostly for free? Erykah Badu, one of the fastest to embrace virtual concerts, tells Melena Ryzik about her work to develop her own streaming platform — her own way, of course. Our chief pop critic Jon Pareles, a concert aficionado, writes about his life as a stream viewer, deciding “intimacy is overrated"; bring back the wonder and the artifice. And Jon also gives you 10 streams that are worth watching, from the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra to Post Malone.

Also this week: colleagues across the newsroom published a special package on the Americans With Disabilities Act at 30, which includes entertainers speaking about how they have navigated their careers, and a playlist of rappers from Krip-Hop Nation mixtapes, which showcase a worldwide network of musicians with disabilities.

And yes: Taylor Swift returned with a surprise album. (Kanye West, however, hasn’t delivered his — yet.) Much more on that next week.

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Concerts Aren’t Back. Livestreams Are Ubiquitous. Can They Do the Job?

With no return date for shows in sight, fans and artists are adapting to a new way of experiencing music together. Whether it’ll keep everyone satisfied — and paid — is still unclear.

By David Peisner

Rahim Fortune for The New York Times

Erykah Badu Is Blazing a New Trail (From Badubotron)

When the Covid-19 shutdown hit the music industry, an artist who has never taken the conventional route started rethinking how she’d produce, play and interact with fans at concerts.

By Melena Ryzik

Out of Office

Critic’s Notebook

Intimacy Is Overrated: Concerts in the Livestream Era

What’s lost when audiences can’t be close to musicians, applause is virtual and over-the-top artists are crammed into screens? So much.

By Jon Pareles

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10 Best Quarantine Concerts Online

With in-person shows still mostly on hold, musicians are finding new ways to insert life into livestreams.

By Jon Pareles

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Taylor Swift’s Heartbreak Dreamscape, and 9 More New Songs

Hear tracks by J. Cole, the Avalanches, Courtney Marie Andrews and others.

By Jon Pareles, Jon Caramanica and Giovanni Russonello

album review

Lianne La Havas Traces the Arc of a Romance

With supple guitar and a freewheeling voice, the English songwriter delves into matters of the heart on her self-titled third album.

By Jon Pareles

Remembering Ennio Morricone, the Film Score Maestro

His music was dynamic, bold and idiosyncratic, setting a high bar for composers connecting sound and vision.

Jonno Rattman for The New York Times

‘It’s a Risk for Everybody’: Why a Jazz Pianist Chose to Perform

More than four months after his last public performance, the Grammy-winning artist Bill Charlap played at a storied Pennsylvania club, a glimpse into what may be the new normal for musicians.

By John Marchese

PLAYLISTS

playlist

12 Forgotten Classics by Women-Led New Wave Bands

Listen to lesser-known songs by Nervus Rex, Josie Cotton, the Waitresses and more that arrived in the early 1980s.

By Doug Brod

Krip-Hop Nation Showcases Rappers With Disabilities. Meet 5 of Our Favorites.

Hear tracks by hip-hop musicians addressing otherizing media depictions, challenges and perseverance.

By Christopher R. Weingarten

Continue reading the main story

Emitt Rhodes, 70, Dies; Singer-Songwriter Vanished After a Splash

He resurfaced a decade ago, after having built a fan base that compared him to Paul McCartney.

By Ben Sisario

Annie Ross, Jazz Vocalist of ‘Twisted’ Renown, Dies at 89

She rose to fame with the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and, after personal struggles, found success as both an actress and a cabaret mainstay.

By Peter Keepnews