Looking at the list of the Spotify Singles series, there seems to be an indirect debate whether they’re live or not. They’re technically recorded in a studio, and you can see where in the release page itself, for example the Carly Rae Jepsen’s was recorded at the Electric Lady Studios in New York. Some other examples, post-pandemic, had the artists record the tracks at their own homes. So, do you think those quality as live recordings or not?
There are also some similar projects like A COLORS SHOW and THE FIRST TAKE, which are also recorded in studios, but the artists are requested to sing in just one take, usually accompanied by a band or a backing track. I feel like this is an important debate because being live or not defines the type of their release groups and also the corresponding works for the recordings.
…seems to be a live version.
I would say:
“Live” is when it has been performed live in front of an audience, even if only online. The location of the recording and its size are irrelevant.
Only one-take isn’t automatically “live” but there will be gray areas.
For the Spotify Singles you have to look in detail.
None of those two sources on Wikipedia even mention the Spotify Singles version, for all we know, the user just wrote “live” based on their own perception of what he considers those recordings to be.
I did find this tho. It’s an article from Spotify itself calling the Electric Lady Studios recordings a Live EP series. However, what about all the other studios that are used? The recorded at home ones? Like you said, “the location of the recording and its size are irrelevant”, but it seems like Spotify is considering these specific recordings to be live based on the studio alone. I’m even more confused now. lol
My bad, that article is actually referring to a new series that’s different from Spotify Singles. Those seem to be indeed live and even mentioned in the release title.
Anyway, I just checked the guidelines and I’m with @chaban. “Use the “live” attribute when the performance had an audience at the time it occurred, i.e. was not prerecorded.” Like it or not, there’s no audience on these recordings and they’re not streamed either, so they probably go through some minor editing before being released to the public. Based on this, I’ll be removing all live relationships and secondary types from the Spotify Singles series, if anyone else wants to chime in, feel free to or vote yes/no on my upcoming edits.