Best Ever Albums

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RawlsRE — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 16:37:56 GMT

Author: RawlsRE

Posted: 01/22/2014 21:37

Quote:

Thanks RawlsRE for taking the time to explain the academic take on these issues

Ordinarily, explaining the academic take on these or any other issues only earns me a punch in the mouth. I'm very pleased that I haven't (yet) received a punch in the mouth/internet equivalent of a punch in the mouth.

Of course, I haven't really given you THE academic take. I've just been applying certain categories from metaethics and theory of normativity to aesthetics. What I've said about Kant is drawn from his moral philosophy, and not from his book on art and teleology (which I haven't read). Actually, what little philosophy of art I have read was extremely boring (that is, more boring even than what I've written about so far). Articles asking 'what's the ontological status of fictional characters?', 'is art created or discovered?', 'is a director's cut of X a more genuine instance of X than its original release?', all 'who cares?' questions as far as I'm concerned. And anyway, you're probably better off in a cultural studies department than a philosophy department if you want to get to the heart of these issues.

Quote:

It seems to me the distinction between experiencing the world in "largely the same way" and exactly the same way is an important one here. I know I have some objectivist tendencies because when someone who I know is an inexperienced music listener says to me that Loveless is terrible, I tend to respond that they're not listening hard enough. However, I'd be less comfortable attempting to establish an exact position for it on a list of all-time greatest albums. I think a lot of the users here fit in this same gray area. Is there a label for this attitude or would you just say that we're sitting somewhere on a spectrum between SAR and objectivist/intersubjectivist?

Value pluralism is worth a shot here. That's the position according to which there are several (perhaps even an infinitely large number of) objectively right answers, while at the same time allowing for objectively wrong answers. Pluralists want just the right amount of toleration, not too little, not too much. So, for instance, an atheist pluralist can see the value in a theist's way of life and vice versa, which is good since we want them to tolerate one another, but then both will recognize that a life of drug addiction is pretty miserable, which again is good since this will motivate them to interfere.

If I subscribe to aesthetic pluralism, I can hold to the belief that Led Zeppelin is aesthetically valuable even if I don't quite understand what makes them so great. But I can also rescue inexperienced listeners from a life without Loveless, since such a life would quite clearly otherwise be a complete waste. That's a pretty satisfying middle path, but as with the others it's fraught with its own distinctive complications.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RockyRaccoon — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:21:21 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 01/22/2014 17:21

Listmeister wrote:

The purpose of music critics is to bring possible music that I might enjoy to my attention; a successful critic is one who can explain why I would enjoy album X, and then when I listen to album X, I find that I do enjoy it.

Is a critic's job to also say "Don't waste your time/money on this album, it isn't worth it" as well as bring good music to your attention?

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Listmeister — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 11:35:11 GMT

Author: Listmeister

Posted: 01/22/2014 16:35

A definition of terms might help at this point.

When we speak of good music, we mean one of four things:

1. Music that I happen to enjoy: the Subjectivist
2. Music that a majority of people enjoy: I'll call this the Billboardist position
3. Music that a select group of people that I respect enjoy: Call this the BEAist position.
4. Music that conforms to an objective standard, that the speaker has in mind. The Strict Objectivist position.
5. Music that conforms to an objective standard, even though the speaker is not clear about what that standard is. The I-Know-It-When-I-Hear-It position.

Most obnoxious is a person who claims his position is 5 when he really means position 1.

Personally, I tend to position 1 informed by 2 and 3, but I try to be clear that what I'm talking about is "Music I happen to Like".

The purpose of music critics is to bring possible music that I might enjoy to my attention; a successful critic is one who can explain why I would enjoy album X, and then when I listen to album X, I find that I do enjoy it.

One more thing, the Turtles are awesome according to standards 1, 2, 4, and 5.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 20:06:19 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/22/2014 01:06

Thanks RawlsRE for taking the time to explain the academic take on these issues in a clear and non-dogmatic way. I like that we now have labels for the "devils" on the extremes of the philosophical spectrum.

RawlsRE wrote:

[Intersubjectivity may be the result of (a) some external Radiohead-obsessed power imposing its aesthetic will upon us, or (b) of your suggestion, namely that we are all relevantly alike, so that we experience the aesthetic world in largely the same way (you know, the Radiohead gene - evidently, present in 98% of the population). In the first case, we're probably dealing with cultural relativism. In the second, we've pretty much arrived at objectivism, though by way of a different metaphysics. It's worth noting that Kantian and Humean ethics are intersubjectivist as well, but their objectivist bite is as fierce as Mill's or Aristotle's.

Quote:

...this because this site is, in a manner of speaking, built around a consensus conception of aesthetic truth. The Overall List is presented as having some special authority (or am I wrong about this?) because it represents an aggregation of all of the individual lists.

Oh, now there's a can of worms. Let's just say that a lot of the people on the forum don't hold the overall list in very high regard...

Quote:

maybe it's better to characterize it as a datum of musical sociology.

Yeah, that's more or less the way that I approach it.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RawlsRE — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:41:41 GMT

Author: RawlsRE

Posted: 01/21/2014 22:41

Quote:

Is this "subjectivist aestetic relativist" a real term? Or is it just something youre using to specify a point?

Subjectivist relativism and cultural relativism are terms inherited from a number of academic debates. I suppose in using them, I'm channeling a course I took on the realist-expressivist debate in 80s Anglo-American philosophy. As it happens the realists won, but only in the moral context, where the case for objectivity is stronger than in aesthetics. Also, it doesn't really matter what philosophers believe, since they're all schmucks.

Quote:

Because Im having a hard time distinguishing it from "cultural aesthetic relativism". SAR, from how you are describing it, sounds like it is mutually exclusive from CAR which doesnt make sense and Im not sure anyone would argue that. Of course our culture, our experiences, our relationships, our lives, etc help shape our music taste (among other things).

Subjective aesthetic relativism takes the aesthetic value of a given object to be determined by each individual observer. Cultural aesthetic relativism takes the aesthetic value of a given object to be determined by each individual culture. I think they are intended to be mutually exclusive. The advantage of subscribing to SAR, as I see it, is that it enables me to describe my musical experiences as being uniquely my own, and to attach tremendous significance to their being my own. CAR says that my musical experiences are just manifestations of cultural forces. CAR is the view that contemporary postmodernism prefers and this is because postmodernists deny that we can talk about aesthetic preferences outside of a social contexts. You get Nietzsche-types resisting this trend from time to time, but I get the sense the CARs outnumber them substantially.

Quote:

I think this is over simplifying subjectivity or the platform it stands on.

You're right. I slipped from playing devil's advocate to playing straw person. Goofy objections to SAR are easier to take down. But then, philosophical categories like these will always be pretty ridiculous. I don't think they're intended to actually capture our beliefs (though that would be great), but rather they establish limit points, or landmarks, against which we can orient those beliefs.

Quote:

If there were an absolute truth behind good/bad music, then that hypothetical conversation wouldnt be any better in terms of depth.

"I like the Turtles" "I dont" "You're wrong." "Drat"

I think a lot of objectivism really does amount to this kind of absolutism. Still, in fairness to the position, it's possible that objectivism is supposed to work this way - "I think the Turtles are great and here are my reasons" "I think the Turtles are awful and here are my reasons" "Great, let's measure our reasons against one another to determine who's right" "Shared deliberation certainly is the most profitable mode of discourse, isn't it?". But I think you'll agree that this just never happens.

Quote:

There is plenty of room for discussion not just on what you like but also why.

This looks like the right way to defend SAR against a number of the objections I mentioned.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RawlsRE — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:16:24 GMT

Author: RawlsRE

Posted: 01/21/2014 22:16

Quote:

Consensus doesn't equal objectivity. If objectivism were the case, everyone could agree with each other but all be wrong.

Right, intersubjectivity is not identical to objectivity. But their practical import in certain cases is the same. If theoretical physicists reveal that music takes place in an additional six dimensions, the likes of which we as humans (with our puny little perceptual apparatuses) can't experience, I can't see how that would make any tangible difference to how we consume music, talk about music, evaluate music, etc. Perhaps it would impact on the technology with which music is made and distributed, but these changes would only be meaningful inasmuch as they could be registered by human ears. That's what Kant's getting at anyway - he acknowledges that it's impossible to show as an incontrovertible metaphysical truth that we are free. But as a psychological matter we can't help but conceive of ourselves as free - we can't help but construe our movements as in some sense issuing from ourselves - and in light of this we ought to design our norms so that they address free agents.

Not everyone's comfortable with this move. Apparently, this is why Bertrand Russell gave up on Kant (that and the whole synthetic a priori thing). Perhaps we have a standing obligation to live as far as possible in a de-anthropomorphized world, to see it as it really is rather than through our human lenses. After all, human lenses can change, are very racist, are reactionary, etc.

There are also consensus conceptions of truth. Some believe that democratic processes reveal political truths. So, for instance, since the best way to determine the next president is by way of an election, we might take the truth of 'the best president' to be revealed by electoral results. This strikes me as a little deranged, but it's popular in certain parts of Europe (and it was very popular a century ago) where the will of the people plays a big (and very scary) role in political discourse.

I mention this because this site is, in a manner of speaking, built around a consensus conception of aesthetic truth. The Overall List is presented as having some special authority (or am I wrong about this?) because it represents an aggregation of all of the individual lists. I'm not sure many contributors actually endorse this conception of the Overall List - maybe it's better to characterize it as a datum of musical sociology.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Necharsian — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 20:19:35 GMT

Author: Necharsian

Posted: 01/21/2014 01:19

Is this "subjectivist aestetic relativist" a real term? Or is it just something youre using to specify a point? Because Im having a hard time distinguishing it from "cultural aesthetic relativism". SAR, from how you are describing it, sounds like it is mutually exclusive from CAR which doesnt make sense and Im not sure anyone would argue that. Of course our culture, our experiences, our relationships, our lives, etc help shape our music taste (among other things).

RawlsRE wrote:

(4) and it explains aesthetic disagreement a little too well. In fact, it eliminates it. If I say I hate the Turtles and you say you love them, this certainly seems like a disagreement, but according to SARs, we're just talking past one another. I'm just reporting MY opinion about the Turtles and you're reporting YOURS. Since we're talking about different things, we're engaged in two parallel monologues rather than a conversation. Again, some might think this is a good thing, but it certainly makes a lot of us look like dopes.

I think this is over simplifying subjectivity or the platform it stands on. If there were an absolute truth behind good/bad music, then that hypothetical conversation wouldnt be any better in terms of depth.

"I like the Turtles" "I dont" "You're wrong." "Drat"

No conversations go like that and none really go like the one you proposed. Just because I believe everyone's music taste is valid it doesnt mean I cant disagree while curtsying and being on my merry way. There is plenty of room for discussion not just on what you like but also why.

I dont think Im really disagreeing with you that much. I do think SAR is silly, but only in the way that you're portraying it (that being a sort of bubble which excludes any external forces that help shape our music taste). The Kantian normativity deal probably exists, with respect to music, in what we personally deem as good or bad but it's still not fact even if it is Radiohead.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

SquishypuffDave — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 20:08:44 GMT

Author: SquishypuffDave

Posted: 01/21/2014 01:08

RawlsRE wrote:

Intersubjectivity may be the result of (a) some external Radiohead-obsessed power imposing its aesthetic will upon us, or (b) of your suggestion, namely that we are all relevantly alike, so that we experience the aesthetic world in largely the same way (you know, the Radiohead gene - evidently, present in 98% of the population). In the first case, we're probably dealing with cultural relativism. In the second, we've pretty much arrived at objectivism, though by way of a different metaphysics.

Consensus doesn't equal objectivity. If objectivism were the case, everyone could agree with each other but all be wrong.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RawlsRE — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 19:44:52 GMT

Author: RawlsRE

Posted: 01/21/2014 00:44

Quote:

But can't our subjective experiences just be similar without having to resort to objectivism? Suppose we made contact with a type of intelligent life whose body chemistry was completely different from our own. It seems unlikely to me that their preferred music would be similar to ours (if they even enjoyed music at all). So our subjective agreements would then only be an artifact of the similarities between us, rather than an indication of some objective truth about music quality.

Right. In this case, we'd have aesthetic intersubjectivity rather than objectivity. Intersubjectivity might be easier to explain than objectivity, but I'm not sure how either are compatible with subjective relativism. Intersubjectivity may be the result of (a) some external Radiohead-obsessed power imposing its aesthetic will upon us, or (b) of your suggestion, namely that we are all relevantly alike, so that we experience the aesthetic world in largely the same way (you know, the Radiohead gene - evidently, present in 98% of the population). In the first case, we're probably dealing with cultural relativism. In the second, we've pretty much arrived at objectivism, though by way of a different metaphysics. It's worth noting that Kantian and Humean ethics are intersubjectivist as well, but their objectivist bite is as fierce as Mill's or Aristotle's.

*wipes sweat from brow* that was a poor use of my break. Back to my paper...

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RawlsRE — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 19:31:09 GMT

Author: RawlsRE

Posted: 01/21/2014 00:31

Quote:

Great, so then our devil has a name: a subjectivist aesthetic relativist. Quite a mouthful, but it seems he has a lot of sympathizers. We still have the nagging concern that some music can be made with the specific intention of not creating a pro-attitude (Metal Machine Music, perhaps?), but that is obviously a rare exception.

You say that the view is only "a little right." What are the problems with it, as you see it?

Artists' intentions are pretty hard to track. I'm not sure they're worth paying attention to. Better to focus on the piece rather than the person who made it. Apparently the Turtles were trying to lampoon popular music when they wrote Happy Together - that's fine, it's still a swell song.

I'll abbreviate subjective aesthetic relativist as SAR. This way subjective aesthetic relativists are SARs, which is only fitting since it is, after all, a disease. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Problems with SAR...

(1) it pulls the rug out from many existing aesthetic institutions. If SAR is true, music reviews wouldn't be about albums - they'd be about the reviewer. Many features offered on this site would be a sham. A good chunk of the music-creating world would be operating under the wrong set of aesthetic norms. The threads of this forum, list ratings, list feedback, etc., would be exercises in musical psychology/sociology rather than music appreciation. I imagine quite a few SARs would be happy to see all this go, but then it's hard to say exactly how deep the rabbit hole goes. Exorcising the specter of objectivism is likely a very long and alienating process, and it's not clear that what comes out the other end will be recognizable as an iteration of what went in.

(2) SAR reduces all aesthetic talk to PERSONAL opinion. But, at least where aesthetics is concerned, no experience is uniquely our own. Our every confrontation with music is saturated with social and cultural expectations. Often these are invisible, or at any rate hard to spot, but they're there. It's not as though our best album lists are overflowing with Caucasian, Male, English-speaking musicians because we're all sexist, racist, Anglo-centrists. No, we've just acquiesced unconsciously to sexist, racist, and Anglo-centric social pressures.

(3) as I mentioned in an earlier post, SAR can't explain aesthetic agreement.

(4) and it explains aesthetic disagreement a little too well. In fact, it eliminates it. If I say I hate the Turtles and you say you love them, this certainly seems like a disagreement, but according to SARs, we're just talking past one another. I'm just reporting MY opinion about the Turtles and you're reporting YOURS. Since we're talking about different things, we're engaged in two parallel monologues rather than a conversation. Again, some might think this is a good thing, but it certainly makes a lot of us look like dopes.

(5) this point is related to the last, and it's the one that's most popular in the anti-relativist literature (in the context of ethics, rather than aesthetics, but there's a lot of overlap here). Relativism translates talk of beauty into talk of our opinions about beauty. So, if I say 'Loveless is beautiful' a relativist would translate that to 'RawlsRE has a belief that Loveless is beautiful.' This gives rise to myriad philosophical headaches, but the worst of it is that it amounts to having a prissy philosopher slap your wrist and correct your grammar whenever you talk about music.

Cultural aesthetic relativism (CAR? not to be confused with the African state) gets around problems (1)-(4), but then it reintroduces aesthetic normativity, and in a very weird way (if my culture says Automatic for the People is good, does this mean I like Automatic for the People?). I'm guessing quite a lot of SARs adopted SAR in order to come down against 'my tastes are better than yours'. CAR exchanges that rudeness for 'my tastes channel the zeitgeist better than yours' rudeness, which is probably worse.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:03:53 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/20/2014 21:03

RawlsRE wrote:

The trouble is that subjectivist alternatives to objectivism are badly equipped to explain aesthetic agreement. Quite a lot of people think Loveless is great. We may be driven to objectivism in order to explain this.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:24:10 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/20/2014 20:24

antiloopje wrote:

I simply don't think we have an adequate definition for 'good'.

You The point assumes there exists such a thing as 'good music'. Music has several mathematical (e.g. complexity) and emotional parameters associated to it. However you can't use these to create a notion of 'good music'. For example: DSOTM isn't exactly emotionally moving, neither is it the most or least complex piece of music and yet it is somehow 'good'. As for as I know, the only thing making music 'good' is an intuitive liking or not.
Besides, it is obvlious that 'good' is not an universal concept. Not in ethics (I could think of highly hypotetical situations in which a psychopathic children-murderer is good) and even less in music, where you don't need highly hypotetical situations (Perhaps the Pop Group is a good example).

So, in conclusion: Any music that is enjoyed by someone is enjoyed by someone. Nothing more. Nothing less.

A fair point, but aren't you kind of agreeing with the devil then? If music has no quality (good or bad), then there is no point in criticizing it.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:20:19 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/20/2014 20:20

RawlsRE wrote:

Neat, a post about metaaesthetics. I like this stuff. Sure, it's internet poison but then it's such a tasty tasty poison, isn't it.

I think the trouble with the term 'enjoyment' is that its potentially more narrow than what we want to discuss here. If I want to describe myself as enjoying Coil, I don't want to commit myself to the view that my brain releases tingly chemicals as I listen to their albums, or that their albums cause me to perform 'enjoyment-indicating' actions like smiling, head-nodding, relaxed shoulders, etc. I also don't want to suggest that I experience pleasure as I listen to Coil, or that it makes me happy (whether we understand 'happy' as a psychological or metaphysical phenomenon). I just want to describe myself as expressing a kind of pro-attitude qua Coil.

Pro-attitudes are simple things. My pro-attitude qua Coil is simply a disposition to want to listen to Coil, to defend them as a worthwhile act in conversation with others, to list them as worthwhile contributors to industrial/house, etc. As far as I can see, the term 'pro-attitude' is compatible with materialist, physicalist, hedonistic, eudaimonian, etc., conceptions of enjoyment. It doesn't tie us to any one of them.

So the issue, I'm guessing, is whether my pro-attitude qua Coil makes them good, an aesthetic success, a worthwhile endeavour. This is subjectivist aesthetic relativism, a view that's at least a little right.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RawlsRE — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 15:02:12 GMT

Author: RawlsRE

Posted: 01/20/2014 20:02

Quote:

Music can be objectively defined as good or bad, better and worse.

'Objectivity' is a clumsy word. It is an objective fact that I have subjective opinions. It is only via my subjective faculties that I can cognize an objective world. It's a mess.

The idea is that categories like aesthetically good and aesthetically bad belong to pieces of music themselves rather than to our experiences of them. So if I subscribe to an aesthetic objectivist view, I take beauty to inhere in Loveless itself and not simply to be manifested in my listening to Loveless. In this way, objectivism takes beauty out of the eye of the beholder and puts it in the thing being beholded (beholden?).

I think we're inclined to resist objectivist positions because they do such a poor job accounting for aesthetic disagreement. Generally speaking, this is fallacious reasoniong - we disagree about the shape of the universe, but this by itself doesn't imply that there is no objective fact about it. I'd say music presents a special case though. Art involves taste in a way that cosmology does not.

The trouble is that subjectivist alternatives to objectivism are badly equipped to explain aesthetic agreement. Quite a lot of people think Loveless is great. We may be driven to objectivism in order to explain this.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:43:42 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/20/2014 19:43

Enjoyment of music is based on the person. So like if one person says they like something, it doesn't matter if 10 other people say they don't.

There is no good or bad music because people bring their memories to the music. Some albums they dislike may become favorites later.

However outside interferences could make some prejudice to the music beforehand. They may feel like they shouldn't like some music because it is music for "teenage girls". But they still like it?

Still it is the person who brings themselves to the music and they will interpret it different from how the artist intended. But if it is interpreted different to how the artist intended then people can do what they want with it. They can remix it, change it around, steal it, play it at a party or only by themselves on their headphones. 😲

This makes everyones music unique to them...

I'll think more later.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

meruizh — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:20:56 GMT

Author: meruizh

Posted: 01/20/2014 19:20

meccalecca wrote:

Well the numerical system is lazy. By describing an album respectfully with a written review, the writer should be able to also convey whether or not they personally believe something is worth listening to.

But I see the function of the rating system. I just do not see the necessity for complex rating systems. What's the difference between a 7.6 and an 7.8? nothing. Couldn't a system just as easily be based on a simpler approach, such as: Like, Indifferent, Dislike?

Well this definitely has a similarity with a such so called science; Psychometrics. in which people are "classified" by a number, into how Extrovert or introvert, etc a person is, just based on tests. Like saying: On the the scale of one to five, being one complete introvert, or being five a complete extrovert. People may answer a two, but what a hell does that mean? I might think I'm a two, but if a ask the same question a different person, and he as well answers two, that will never mean he is the "same level" of introvert as me, or whatever that means.

For music critics putting a number of music, for me is the most stupid thing there is. Sure make a description of what are the flaws or the good. But it's is just retarded to say an album is a 7.6.

Murphy Paul states “Any programme to establish psychometrics as a quantitative rational science may be self-defeating. Such a programme ignores the possibility that if forced to be quantitative, psychometrics might thereby be irrational (viz. if the irrelevant attributes are not quantitative), in which case, if rational, it would of necessity be non-quantitative ” .

Music should just be rated as: Negative, Average, Good. With more variable if you wish, but never numbers

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

RockyRaccoon — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 12:33:22 GMT

Author: RockyRaccoon

Posted: 01/20/2014 17:33

Defago wrote:

I shall play a very specific kind of demon, the RFNAPLES.

Music can be objectively defined as good or bad, better and worse.

Ah this is always a fun one.

I would say that that is impossible because of the nature of what objectivity really is. For something to be objectively defined as anything, it must be based in empirical, provable fact. It must be void of opinions or baseless information. Whether or not something is "good" or "bad" is an opinion, and thus does not have the ability to be objective. "Good" and "bad" are vague terms at best, often defined by the person using them. Because of all of these flimsy terms, because it is all based on opinion rather than empirical fact, it simply can not be objectively defined as anything other than music (and even that can spark a whole other debate).

Example: let's not talk about music, but still talk about things being "good" and "bad". Let's say I think the color blue is a good color, certainly better than the color orange, that's a terrible color. Is that based in any kind of empirical fact? No, it's not, it's an opinion. You may consider orange or red or green to be the better color. Why? Because of personal preference.

If we determine music to be able to be defined as objectively good or bad, then we have to have the discussion as to whether all art can be defined as objectively good or bad, and then that would necessitate a discussion on whether any or all things can be described as objectively good or bad. Does personal preference mean anything if something is objectively good or bad?

Just because one feels very strongly about an opinion doesn't suddenly make it an irrefutable fact, it just makes it an opinion.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

antiloopje — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 12:10:45 GMT

Author: antiloopje

Posted: 01/20/2014 17:10

meccalecca wrote:

I'm not likely qualified to do so. But, if a review were to say:

"ArcadeFire's latest album The Reflektor runs overly long. With a few minor cuts, and a greater focus on the lyrics, the album may have become a classic for the ages."

Not a great example, but the key is to actually point out flaws rather than simply say something sucks or that it's soulless trash.

But isn't any sort of this "constructive" criticism also implying destructive criticism? Basically what you mean is: "Reflektor is too long and doesn't focus enough on the lyrics. Thus I cannot like it as much as I would have if they made some changes."

I do agree though that criticism should focus on describing the music, the mood etc.

As for the original point:

sp4cetiger wrote:

Any music that is enjoyed by someone is automatically good

I simply don't think we have an adequate definition for 'good'. You The point assumes there exists such a thing as 'good music'. Music has several mathematical (e.g. complexity) and emotional parameters associated to it. However you can't use these to create a notion of 'good music'. For example: DSOTM isn't exactly emotionally moving, neither is it the most or least complex piece of music and yet it is somehow 'good'. As for as I know, the only thing making music 'good' is an intuitive liking or not.
Besides, it is obvlious that 'good' is not an universal concept. Not in ethics (I could think of highly hypotetical situations in which a psychopathic children-murderer is good) and even less in music, where you don't need highly hypotetical situations (Perhaps the Pop Group is a good example).

So, in conclusion: Any music that is enjoyed by someone is enjoyed by someone. Nothing more. Nothing less.

EDIT: after writing this thing, I noticed Defago's post. What I wrote here also applies to his statement.

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 12:05:40 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 01/20/2014 17:05

Like... based on the amount of people the music touches?

Re: Playing Devil's Advocate

Defago — Mon, 20 Jan 2014 12:04:35 GMT

Author: Defago

Posted: 01/20/2014 17:04

I shall play a very specific kind of demon, the RFNAPLES.

Music can be objectively defined as good or bad, better and worse.