Best Ever Albums

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Thad — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 17:17:34 GMT

Author: Thad

Posted: 08/25/2016 21:17

I think that taste is definitely subjective, but that some people understand their taste more than others. I don't think that understanding why you like something makes your taste objectively better, and I don't think that listening to a lot of music makes your taste objectively better. However, if you are only listening to what you hear on the radio or what your friends like and aren't really exploring at all on your own, I think we can ask how much that person really understands their own taste. Your friend who's favorite album of all time is 1989 by Taylor Swift might actually end up really liking harsh noise and industrial metal but it's just something that they've never been exposed to.

So, basically I would say that taste is entirely subjective for everyone, no matter how educated you are on music history, theory, etc. - it's just that some people have explored enough to have a more developed taste, but not necessarily better.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

cestuneblague — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 04:22:56 GMT

Author: cestuneblague

Posted: 08/24/2016 08:22

Applerill wrote:

If someone thinks liking Muse makes them sophisticated, it's hard for me to take them seriously.

... says the Paul Blart: Mall Cop fan.

Wagging your finger at someone for their percieved lack of taste is only going to come back and eventually poke you in the eye.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

RoundTheBend — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 22:43:42 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 08/24/2016 02:43

Totall agree with craola.

I know a woman who studied at Juliard violin performance. She easily had 16518498161 hours of intense music training/playing/listening to "sophisticated" [ 🤣 🤣 ] music.

Yet she couldn't stand listening to it... she wanted Coldplay and Muse. It was more enjoyable for her to listen to that.

So absolutely, taste is taste.

On a similar note, there's members of this site who love like Britney Spears, yet they have very solid/experienced/educated/cultured/sophisticated [ 🤣 🤣 ] taste.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

craola — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 12:50:01 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 08/23/2016 16:50

this is a little tangent,,.,,, but people like what they're going to like.

i have a friend who played in a pretty decently established jazz group back in the 70s. //knew jaco pastorious on a first-name basis. all that jazz. anyweigh, he's got great taste in music.

he also thinks U2's Vertigo is the greatest pop song of the last twenty years. i can't agree with him in the slightest, but it's his opinion. it's what his ears are hearing. it strikes me as odd, given his everything, but what gives?? objectively, i can't fault the song for anything. it's in tune. the band is pretty tight on the track. the production is solid. Bono's voice is pret impressive, as always.

subjectively, it's chalk'd up with too many cliches for my liking, but that's my own agenda on the table. Muse... i suppose i get to feeling the same way with Muse post-OoS. cliches abound. i can respect someone who digs it though. i get it. there's some cool stuff there. impressive stuff. objectively. as a singer and musician, matt bellamy's got chops. so do the other two guys.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

craola — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 12:42:02 GMT

Author: craola

Posted: 08/23/2016 16:42

Applerill wrote:

sophisticated

i have a hard time taking this word seriously.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Applerill — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 12:40:51 GMT

Author: Applerill

Posted: 08/23/2016 16:40

If someone thinks liking Muse makes them sophisticated, it's hard for me to take them seriously.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Rhett — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 10:19:13 GMT

Author: Rhett

Posted: 08/23/2016 14:19

"I'm more likely to just zone out with someone who just listens to whatever's on the radio."

Haha. My bias is against people who talk over music.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

boyd94 — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 05:12:58 GMT

Author: boyd94

Posted: 08/23/2016 09:12

It's easier for me to talk about my views on this matter in the abstract, of course art is subjective, but in reality when I'm having a conversation with someone about music, hearing someone's opinions about certain songs/artists, taking recommendations etc., the depth and width of their musical knowledge and listening will determine how much weight I put into their words.

I will still disagree with a music listener more enthusiastic than I, but I'll have more respect for their view and it might even cause me to revisit and investigate those points of disagreement when I get home to my music collection.

I'm more likely to just zone out with someone who just listens to whatever's on the radio. We don't have remotely similar points of reference.

It's elitist, but I can't help it.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

RoundTheBend — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 23:48:04 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 08/22/2016 03:48

Great points about what it means to be educated Applerill. I think just because someone is a professor, doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. I feel like education in America=you had money to go to school, not that you actually know anything. I mean that is an oversimplification, and there are perfectly brilliant professors, but I hope you understand what I mean. Another way of saying what I mean is I knew a guy in Germany who failed his entrance exams to become a psychiatrist. And by failed, I mean he didn't get above a 70% or something like this. He will NEVER be a psychiatrist in Germany... if he came to America and had the coin... well he'd probably be accepted somewhere and eventually become a psychiatrist. (this is all besides the point... but just thought I'd ramble on about the status of a professor isn't what it used to be.

I think Muslim-Bigfoot hit it on the head on what it meant to be a master and where an educated/mastered experienced opinion does make a difference (but was also perfectly smart in being vague about it, because it isn't as black and white as I write... heehehe).

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Applerill — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 21:27:34 GMT

Author: Applerill

Posted: 08/22/2016 01:27

I honestly don't know what "educated opinion" means anymore, though, particularly when it leads so often to purism. This past semester I took a recording class taught by a professor that thought that hip hop "hadn't proven itself as an artform", and that Beyonce "should focus on learning her history instead of being on American Idol", and that "music is the most worst its ever been because of the loudness war". These are all expectations I expect from someone in their forties, but even in regards to things he should've been qualified in he was often mistaken, like when he thought Syd Barrett was in Henry Cow. Even though I've historically not considered myself much of an anti-intellectual, part of that inevitably made me wonder, "Is this really what having an 'educated' opinion looks like?"

In general, I just find it hard to believe in these "objective truths" in music without being a douchebag. With the girlfriend I had two years ago, I'd technically listened to many more albums than her, but every day I become more convinced that her taste was better than mine.

Then again, maybe "educated opinions" are a lot more specific than that. Maybe this is like the people in Louisiana who were there for the foundational Big Freedia shows in the early 2000s, or maybe people who studied in Italy with the most famous spectralist composers. But it seems like 99% of those who claim to have an "educated opinion" really just have a cloud to yell at, so I think I'm gonna keep on listening ephemerally while still reading as much as I can on why other people like something.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Rhett — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 20:15:48 GMT

Author: Rhett

Posted: 08/22/2016 00:15

>>The bolded statement though... does that mean DSOTM=...Baby One More Time, or it just isn't significant enough to matter?

Most of us were probably surprised at the revelation, but Richard Thompson taught us that Max Martin's Britney tunes are pretty damned good.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/video/2010/may/30/richard-thompson-meltdown-festival

Re: No Accounting for Taste

RoundTheBend — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 20:13:21 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 08/22/2016 00:13

Ok cool, thanks for clarifying. And yes adages are oversimplifications, so I appreciate the clarification.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Muslim-Bigfoot — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 20:06:43 GMT

Author: Muslim-Bigfoot

Posted: 08/22/2016 00:06

sethmadsen wrote:

Ok, so I think you are basically saying the old beauty is in the eye of the beholder adage? Almost harkens back to the Reader Response idea of its the interpretation that matters.

But in this situation of Uzbekistan culture vs an interpretation of it... (back to the original question from Gowi)... does it matter? Is it all the same? Is the Uzbek way of looking at it better than the uninformed/uncultured? (am asking everyone)

In other words, to a 5 year old, you or I playing the trumpet might actually be an amazing thing, right, because to them, they haven't really heard a trumpet before.

So is becoming "cultured" (learning theory/scales/form, etc.) increasing the value of the trumpet experience? To be cultured do you have to be a master and have perfect knowledge and form, or can you be "good enough" and still be considered cultured? I mean Jazz is a perfect example of this because the whole base of jazz (almost... at least from what my 5th grade history class taught me) was that it wasn't the extreme perfection of culture... rather the antithesis of it (meaning they broke all the rules of what it mean to be cultured, which I guess this goes back to that whole value system argument).

Kurt Cobain is considered by many one of the greatest "artists" of our time and was terrible (more or less) at both guitar and singing if you compare him to the metal community (they'd make fun of him all the time for it - not being in tune and the such). Yet as a better artist (in my opinion), he connected with people with emotion instead of the predefined intellectual I can hit a high C because I was castrated metal heads (totally uncalled for but I said it cause I'm a terrible human being).

No, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a one sentence oversimplification and that's what I'm trying to avoid. I think what I'm trying to say is that context defines our words: "better", "objective", etc. I think in the game of "listening to music as a pop product" you couldn't really object to the guy that likes my imitation. But in the game of "listening to Shashmaqam" you probably could, since what he is doing is not participating in the game properly as he isn't playing the game of "listening to Shashmaqam" at all.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

RoundTheBend — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 19:53:59 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 08/21/2016 23:53

Muslim-Bigfoot wrote:

sethmadsen wrote:

Yup.

The bolded statement though... does that mean DSOTM=...Baby One More Time, or it just isn't significant enough to matter? Not that I really have an opinion, just trying to clarify yours. In other words, what do you mean by popular music?

Great chess analogy.

I think it's very unclear ( 😉 ). In case of math and chess there's a close relation between skill and beauty that doesn't translate to popular music as strongly; but skill still matters and I think here you can argue for some level of "relative" objectivity. I mean if I pick up the trumpet right now you should be able to decide very easily who's the better musician, me or Miles Davis. But also skill isn't everything, so it has been argued regularly against Miles Davis' technical ability but you can't argue aesthetically based on that point. I think in other forms of music this relation between skill and beauty is stronger (in modal traditions of central Asia and middle-east); if I listened to Shashmaqam or qawwali and made an album of my caricature imitation of the singers of those traditions, a listener in the west that doesn't "know" anything about Shashmaqam may like my imitation and upon hearing the real thing prefer my rendition but I would consider that a parallel to a novice in chess appreciating smothered mate more than Shirov's Bh3 (a move best engines in the world still have trouble to find). Of course I can't argue against this person's enjoyment of my imitation because clearly viscerally he's enjoying it more than the actual version but I guess you see what I'm saying. If you made people in Uzbekistan listen to my imitation, they'd burst out laughing and they're the ones that know about Shashmaqam and have listened to it their whole lives.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Muslim-Bigfoot — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 19:38:13 GMT

Author: Muslim-Bigfoot

Posted: 08/21/2016 23:38

sethmadsen wrote:

Re: No Accounting for Taste

RoundTheBend — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:56:20 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 08/21/2016 22:56

Muslim-Bigfoot wrote:

Bottom line is values don't exist in the physical world. All value-judgments are based on implicit principles that we choose to take for granted. Objectivity in the realm of values can only be meaningful in an axiomatic sense (i.e. if you agree on the principles that you're gonna take for granted); Beauty in areas other than music has been shown to be somewhat objective (in the sense that there's consensus on those principles and what they entail in some comparative cases); in mathematics you'd be very hard pressed to find someone that thinks proof of sum of angles in a triangle is 180 as beautiful as Brouwer's fixed point theorem (if you found that person though, you'll have no argument that he's wrong because as we said there are no values in the real world and he's simply not playing the game as you'd expect him to). Also a game of chess played between two newbies ending in a ladder mate is definitely no match in beauty to a positional masterpiece by Karpov taking down his very skilled opponent without him making any apparent mistakes. Of course to see the beauty of latter cases you gotta know some math and chess. I don't think there's a similar situation in popular music tbh.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

RoundTheBend — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:51:04 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 08/21/2016 22:51

dividesbyzero wrote:

my taste is correct and proper and all others are those of heathens and scoundrels

Truth with a capital T. 🤣 🤣 🤣

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Anonymous — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:34:23 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 08/21/2016 22:34

my taste is correct and proper and all others are those of heathens and scoundrels

Re: No Accounting for Taste

Muslim-Bigfoot — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 18:00:56 GMT

Author: Muslim-Bigfoot

Posted: 08/21/2016 22:00

Bottom line is values don't exist in the physical world. All value-judgments are based on implicit principles that we choose to take for granted. Objectivity in the realm of values can only be meaningful in an axiomatic sense (i.e. if you agree on the principles that you're gonna take for granted); Beauty in areas other than music has been shown to be somewhat objective (in the sense that there's consensus on those principles and what they entail in some comparative cases); in mathematics you'd be very hard pressed to find someone that thinks proof of sum of angles in a triangle is 180 as beautiful as Brouwer's fixed point theorem (if you found that person though, you'll have no argument that he's wrong because as we said there are no values in the real world and he's simply not playing the game as you'd expect him to). Also a game of chess played between two newbies ending in a ladder mate is definitely no match in beauty to a positional masterpiece by Karpov taking down his very skilled opponent without him making any apparent mistakes. Of course to see the beauty of latter cases you gotta know some math and chess. I don't think there's a similar situation in popular music tbh.

Re: No Accounting for Taste

RoundTheBend — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 17:48:36 GMT

Author: RoundTheBend

Posted: 08/21/2016 21:48

Gowi wrote:

Pushing this to the top of the deck since perspectives three years later might find the conversation interesting or prove a viable discussion. But to echo myself here, I still very much believe in the This argument can be simply summarized as "A valid opinion is an educated opinion" ideology.

Fantastic discussion, thanks for bringing it back. Anyone know how to quickly find if I replied to this before without reading it all again?

Also VERY much liked SquishypuffDave's recent comments.

Applerill speaks to pluralism, so me likey that aspect.

Also I don't think this is a discussion about what people like in a teenage peer pressure way, rather a philosophical discussion on whether "high art" exists, is valued higher, or was/is that just a social construct, etc. If it were a discussion about caring , it wouldn't be as interesting as it is.

I think my quick opinion on whether or not an "educated opinion has more value" isn't that the high culture is or should be valued more, a value system on someone's ability to be "cultured/educated" is a bit backwards. I think this all stems from more colonial thought processes which attempted to separate themselves from the heathen/savage. It is kind of a fruitless exercise. A large part of the message of Post-colonialism is to find value in non-Western values, including the arts. Just because another culture isn't as "educated" or refined through "western religion" doesn't make their value any less.

Having said that, I do agree that if all you listen to is Britney Spears and all you watch is re-runs of Friends, you are limiting yourself. Does that make the value of Britney Spears or Friends less... idk, to be honest. Value systems are too complex for me to understand. Also, does it really matter if they do or don't try and listen to more music... stretch themselves with the music they listen to? It's kind of like getting on to me for not knowing trigonometry very well. I suck at it. An elitism of knowledge in this day and age is a laughing matter... not one person could truly be the "Gebildeter Mensch" or Renaissance Man these days... it was easy in those days because they had very limited collective knowledge like we do today. If you were to just read, not understand, but just read every article in Wikipedia (which is totally the source of all truth, right? ahhaha), it'd take you 568498 years (I never make up statistics).

So I suppose it comes down to what value does art really have (according to many German philosophers/artists, art/mythology was to replace religion in the 1800s) in our day and age? Is it just entertainment or does it have other value to it and why?

Meanwhile there's Netflix binge watching and video games that are part time jobs...