Point of Discussion: Album Staying Power

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meccalecca
Voice of Reason


Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment
United States

  • #111
  • Posted: 02/11/2016 14:31
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Satie wrote:

I'm really not trying to come off as irritated or pissy, but I'm just getting frustrated because I feel like I'm answering the same question time and again in as many ways as I know how. Maybe someone else can phrase it in a way that's more useful.


I was honestly having a tough time getting what you were saying as well. I think this time around I'm much closer to understanding thanks to your Shakespeare example. I guess what you're saying is that interpretation needs grounding. If a critic is stating that a song is, for example, an "anti-feministic ballad", then it's imperative that the critic be able to provide reasoning based around the more indisputable characteristics of the song [lyrics, elements of the songwriting, history, etc]. We need to be provided some understanding of how critics arrive at less than obvious theories/perceptions like that of Applerill regarding Brokencyde.

If this is what you're saying at all, I agree. A good critic doesn't just make claims but provides logical reasoning regarding how they were led to believe those claims. Otherwise, why should we believe them.
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Satie





  • #112
  • Posted: 02/11/2016 14:37
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Exactly. The interpretation process, whether you're interpreting data or more qualitative things like art, is a creative process of its own, open to subjectivity and relatively boundless if you just say it's up to individual intuition. I say that that's a positive thing, but for us to then continue to the level of dialogue or criticism (which I think is inherently discursive) and move out of our own minds, we have to demonstrate what parts of something made us come to that interpretation. In that Hamlet example, you can have myriad correct and conflicting interpretations of what Hamlet's character is thinking/doing/desiring/whatever. These perspectives can all be valid, but they all require an assessment of the text itself in order to actually come to an argument. It's not a 1:1 linear process of argumentation, and it's not a simple description of a work's formal elements. I also hasten to add that artistic interpretation is not a scientific process where you're (attempting to be) deriving an ultimate truth at the end, you're just substantiating and grounding your opinion. But it incorporates such things to make it where you aren't essentially, like I said, writing diary entries under the pretense of analyzing or interpreting art. Things like theory and context also come in at other levels to help frame our criticisms further and put them in dialogue with other opinions even more directly.

Let's take Pentagonal's assessment of the Not Waving album in the ALC this week. I don't buy his interpretation of the album at all, but he provided examples of where the music turned in certain ways and gave his impression of what that represented. Because music is a much more abstract medium than, say, literature, where there's a general consensus on what signifiers mean, these more imaginative interpretations are all the easier to arrive at. I disagree with Pentagonal's assessment, but I find it valid because he gave examples in the music that clarified his interpretation. I don't think he's convinced that's "the ultimate true meaning," and I'm not either, but that's not the point because it's art where there's no such thing.
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Applerill
Autistic Princess <3


Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago
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  • #113
  • Posted: 02/11/2016 14:48
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Hmm, I'm still trying to figure out how much this (really great) advice is in regards to my "pop" reviews. The original reason I got into pop criticism in middle school was because I couldn't find anyone else writing about it, and in that sense it really did seem like everything was from the text. But that also meant that it was really hard to verify whether any of my thoughts (whether they be through intuition or deep contemplation) held any merit. of course, I could use primary sources like interviews to assume things (as I did in a piece on Vanessa Carlton, where I suggested that her early music was influenced by depression. I still don't know what to think of that decision), but that only goes so far.

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Satie





  • #114
  • Posted: 02/11/2016 14:54
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I think interviews with artists count more as context around the work. I consider the text to be the art object itself. That can be defined in different ways, I guess, and maybe a performance artist like Lou Reed or David Bowie would need their interviews taken into account as part of the art, but I generally say that the recorded sound is the text as far as music goes. Context, for me, is historical epoch it was released in, anything regarding the artist (while making the album or in general), etc. The point here being that it's possible to recover a cassette tape with no markings or indications of who made it and still analyze it as text. The more context you can have, the better your interpretation, but for all but the upper sliver of pop acts who even get to the point of having published interviews (granted, a lower threshold in the days of the Internet), this context is usually impossible.
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cestuneblague
Edgy to the Choir



Location: MA/FL

  • #115
  • Posted: 02/13/2016 02:24
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I donno, the simplest way I can put it is a seed is planted to grow a tomato. The consumer can eat and enjoy the tomato, he doesn't need to find out everything about the seed in order to do so- although it can be useful in understanding exactly what helped grow the tomato you're enjoying right now, it also doesn't define exactly what you enjoyed personally (not just nutritionally) about this tomato. However, you still are in a way "consuming the seed" and what it grew, just as you are (indirectly) having a relationship with an artist when you're consuming their work. So yes there is a relationship with the artist, but it's not necessary to end up enjoying their work- just as what you get out personally from their art may be different from what they themselves intended. It's also wrong to eat a tomato and say you're eating a vegetable. Or a banana.


Now applerill is probably going to be the one that is always going to give many forum members fits, but in how he came up with his assemement of, in this case, Brokencyde's Im Not a Fan, if he absorbed everything he heard on the album, processing it all and coming to his conclusion about what he thinks this album is ultimately trying to say, than that's more than fine the result he came up with. If he's intentionally looking for that particular message beforehand and disregards everything in the work that may contradict that, then there's something a bit questionable in his methods. Given I have had talks with Applerill before about certain works where he gave an incredibly detailed anaylsis only to later admit he's never actually seen the work or heard the album, so I do unfortunately question Applerill's sincerity at times- but for the most part I believe he is being truthful in what he thinks Im Not a Fan is ultimately about, what it's trying to say. And yes though some more detailed explanations and conclusions would always help make it feel a bit more geniune and truthful in the end. Same goes for any sort of thoughtful artistic critique.
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