How important is intellect or intelligence when it comes to music? Does music have to be intelligent in order to be good? Can intelligent people enjoy "stupid" music? What even makes music intelligent or Intellextual?
How important is intellect or intelligence when it comes to music? Does music have to be intelligent in order to be good? Can intelligent people enjoy "stupid" music? What even makes music intelligent or Intellextual?
Dunno. No. Yes. Dunno.
meccaleccaVoice of ReasonProfile The Land of Enchantment
Music doesn't need to be intellectual to be good, but it certainly doesn't hurt. Poorly articulated, dumb lyrics will make an artist sound dumb. Stupid people may relate better to that than the Mountain Goats or something, but that's their problem _________________ http://jonnyleather.com
ButterThumbzI always used to wonder if she wore false earsProfile O'er the hills and far away
How important is intellect or intelligence when it comes to music? Does music have to be intelligent in order to be good? Can intelligent people enjoy "stupid" music? What even makes music intelligent or Intellextual?
Intellect in music is just like any other quality, It's either a benefit or it's detrimental.
Good music can be visceral, instinctive, emotional. I'd go as far as saying that most great music isn't intellectual.
Intelligent people should be capable of enjoying any kind of music.
Simply employing your intellect in the construction a piece of music is what gives it the quality of being intellectual. Having said that, you may also employ your intellect in an attempt to make music that was intended to sound unintellectual, but whether it actually qualified as being unintellectual is another matter.
To paraphrase David Byrne, often music is understood by the body before the head.
That being said, I definitely think there's wiggle room. Hell, I'm listening to Frank Zappa right now. Really intellectual music, not so much so on the lyrics. You can always go too far in either direction, but as for my personal tastes, I've always found it easier to enjoy overly intellectual music than excessively stupid music, I think mostly because (to para-paraphrase Tolstoy) all moronic music sounds the same, but bad hyperintellectual music fails in its own unique way
Intellect is so hard to define, so is 'stupid music'.
People can enjoy whatever music they want, I don't think intellect is a factor. One of the smartest guys I know (like seriously, top 0.01%) loves Nickelback - whatever you want to call Nickelback, even they wouldn't call themselves 'intelligent music'.
Likewise, music that's caught up with being intelligent usually falls flat. I find progressive rock is so caught up in how 'smart' and 'deep' it can sound that it becomes too self absorbed.
I think there's a difference between general intellect and musical intellectualism, though.
I do think there's such a thing as "good" taste in music, even if it goes beyond some canonical list of what's good and bad music.
I hesitate to put any one band on a shitlist, or to rag on Nickelback ad nauseum, because that's just been done to death, but I will say that there are just some bands out there who are clearly more interested in being a band than making good music, and I resist the kind of universal egalitarianism that says it's okay to like *anything*.
I mean, of course on the most basic level a person can like whatever, but hey, maybe that means they have bad taste in music.
Also: To answer one of your initial questions, I think what makes music, specifically, "intellectual" is paying attention to and making critical, thoughtful use of different trends and styles of music, or to go beyond that, just sound in general, because otherwise nobody'd ever really push the boundaries of what music can be.
RockyRaccoonIs it solipsistic in here or is it just me?ModeratorProfile Maryland
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