Barthes: Music, Voice, Language & Led Zeppelin

"Since then, I have not stopped listening to his voice, on the rare, technically imperfect records he has made: Panzera's historical misfortune is that he ruled over French art songs between the wars but no testimony to the reign can be directly transmitted to us: Panzera stopped singing at the very advent of the long-playing record; we have only only some 78 rmp's of his work, or imperfect recordings. Nonetheless, this circumstance retains its ambiguity: for if listening to these records may disappoint today, it is because these records are imperfect, and perhaps more generally because history itself has modified our tastes, so that this way of singing has lapsed into the indifference of the out-of-fashion, but also, more topically, because this voice participates in my affirmation, my evaluation, and because itis therefore possible that I am the only one to love it." Roland Barthes, 'Music, Voice, Language,' pp. 280.



It seems here Barthes is suggesting the voice, disembodied by its recording--the medium on which it is recorded and then presented--loses its import, its eros when that medium falls out of fashion, which is to say, when the technology that created the medium is seen as obsolete or inferior or "imperfect" and thus the voice contained therein. The 78 rpm records were "imperfect" in comparison to the newer 33 rpm long-plays and so Panzera's voice became imperfect. Here, the performance of "Babe I'm Going to Leave You" by Led Zeppelin is "imperfect": the film is blurry, black and white when compared to the high definition color "film" of today; the sound too lacks, the decibel levels peak beyond the capacity of the equipment recording it. The bass distorts in its lowest octaves, the gain of the guitar bleeds over the other tracks; the vocals fight the hiss of the magnetic tape; the drums are subdued in the mid and high ranges of the frequencies; And as a live recording the performance lacks the expected 'polish' and preciseness of real time auto-tuning, processing and backup tracks. However, these imperfections are no longer entirely of the contemporary. We are in a time of over-production, where perfection is seen as over articulation, and thus inauthentic. This performance is then more valuable than it was perhaps a decade ago, perhaps even more than when it first aired on television. Today it is more 'raw,' more authentic because the "imperfections" signify as much, its eros was reduced in history then made stronger and more potent. In this way, the disembodied voice is susceptible to degradation and amplification, strength and weakening only in relation to it disembodied self. This can be both positive and negative, it seems Barthes is saying, and yet never quite the original.