Are the songs used in a mash-up not "a referential being or a substance" in themselves? "Ray of Light" was not a recording of one, ephemeral performance- it likely required more technical work than "Ray of Gob." It is highly abstracted from the original recordings, but is THE song "Ray of Light" and nothing that took place in the recording booth would be considered the song "Ray of Light." Can a song be both a simulation and the original?

I think the "lifelessness" of recordings is maybe too extreme. It makes sense, but it overly simplifies original and recordings, possibly by neglecting agency of the audience? What would we call a reproduction of a song only ever heard live, and only ever performed live? Is that live performance of another's live song then dead, because it is attempting to reproduce an ephemeral moment, but is also itself an ephemeral moment? I think this complicates the binary, but I'm not sure lol

This is interesting, a clear example of where the value is placed- or was, at the time. This is not so much the case with popular music today, where entire songs can be composed, produced and published on the computer, with no audio recording by the author necessary. Is one still considered a musician if they haven't played music, but made a song?