I can't believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit at home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can't imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen.
For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it -- even of my own music -- with the same nuances forever.
I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.
People have a good reason for saying that because the Japanese have been smart. They have visited Jamaica and they bought maybe 90 per cent of our vinyl collection and that vault is now in Japan. I talking classic vinyl that your grand parents used to collect. The Japanese came here and they knocked door to door and bought out the vinyl records…so most of our catalogue is in Japan.
We did not see the value in vinyl, and so we were quick to sell them to the Japanese, and now they have all the gold.