POLL: Greatest Works of Art of All Time? - Music

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

SquishypuffDave wrote:

@AfterHours I tend to assume list-making threads are also general discussion threads, which is why perhaps my comments have come off as an attack on the thread itself? I thought some of your comments were a bit dismissive, but that's probably because "topical discussion for its own sake" isn't really the thing that appeals to you and you just wanted to get back to the list-making, so I kind of just left it even though I thought it was actually going somewhere pretty interesting.

For example I didn't initially pick up on how much your view of art is rooted in auteur theory, or what might be described as "intentional fallacy" by critics. Since I'm into the more postmodern Zappa-esqe "art is the frame" mode of interpretation, it didn't occur to me that in your eyes Brian Wilson's opinion of the album vs the single outweighs the fact that he agreed to release it as two separate products. Even on this basis it's fairly easy to imagine how a pop artist might view their album as just a container for their 12 attempts at a great single, where the label was the one to push for the album release. Auteur theory also makes things like posthumous publication a sticky point, where the artist has no hand in how the work is presented. It also gets complicated when more than one person is responsible for production, because they might have totally different views on what they're making. For a lot of my entries it was pretty arbitrary whom I credited with the work (performer vs producer vs production company, etc.) as well as determining when the work was "released".

I'm just realizing now how much easier it would be to compile a "greatest artists" list. Actually considering doing one of those.

This really has nothing to do with discussion, or lack thereof, for me. I think you'll understand where I was coming from if you consider that the poll already started quite some time ago with many submissions now (from two websites) and I'm not going to be too interested in repeatedly discussing the same requested change, especially after my reasons have been explained. One can find out about Pet Sounds by looking into the matter on their own, from the artist's perspective. So I just recommend checking it out, as there is no question of their intent and that the album is the complete work of art, not God Only Knows or any other song from the album.
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AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

Tilly wrote:

murmur wrote:

Wim Wenders: Paris, Texas (1984)

spoiler alert:
The kid should have ended up with the Dad on a never-ending road trip. lol.

Great film. Not too many films are as moving as Paris, Texas.
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SquishypuffDave

Gender: Male
Age: 33

AfterHours wrote:

This really has nothing to do with discussion, or lack thereof, for me. I think you'll understand where I was coming from if you consider that the poll already started quite some time ago with many submissions now (from two websites) and I'm not going to be too interested in repeatedly discussing the same requested change, especially after my reasons have been explained. One can find out about Pet Sounds by looking into the matter on their own, from the artist's perspective. So I just recommend checking it out, as there is no question of their intent and that the album is the complete work of art, not God Only Knows or any other song from the album.

Song from the album? I'm wasn't talking about arbitrarily picking a song from an album. Just so we're clear, I was talking about this single:

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/single...nly-knows/

It has its own release date, it's a discrete physical object with its own packaging, the two songs were consciously selected to be released together as one product. The album and the single can both be regarded as complete works. Also, if you think of the 60s as a decade defined by albums rather than singles, then we have a dramatically different appreciation of that era. You may recall Pitchfork declined to put together a top albums chart for that decade:

People always ask: "When is Pitchfork gonna run a list of the top albums of the 1960s?" The answer now? Probably never. Not that we didn't consider it. It's just that when we sat down to map it all out, we found it would be more rewarding to approach the decade through its songs instead. After all, it was by and large a single-oriented era-- the long-player didn't really take over as a creative medium until the 60s had nearly come to an end.

I'm also happy to take your word regarding the artist's intent, and that Brian Wilson only regarded singles as publicity for his album. The thing is, in contemporary analysis the the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the work itself:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

Honestly the way you're talking about this does strike me as arrogant and dismissive, especially since you don't seem to think there are any other valid ways to approach the subject, and describe your particular mode of categorisation as "unquestionable". Come on dude, even with music history and contemporary analysis working against you, you're going to run that line? I've repeatedly told you I'm not trying to make you change your rules. I know you've explained your reasons. It's the philosophy behind your reasons I'm most interested in talking about. You seem to think I'm just ignoring your arguments. Am I still not getting it? Is there some argument I've missed that makes everything I just posted irrelevant or meaningless? If you don't mind the discussion, why do you seem so pessimistic about the possibility of productive discourse with me? I just want to find common ground and learn more about you.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

SquishypuffDave wrote:

Song from the album? I'm wasn't talking about arbitrarily picking a song from an album. Just so we're clear, I was talking about this single:

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/single...nly-knows/

It has its own release date, it's a discrete physical object with its own packaging, the two songs were consciously selected to be released together as one product. The album and the single can both be regarded as complete works. Also, if you think of the 60s as a decade defined by albums rather than singles, then we have a dramatically different appreciation of that era. You may recall Pitchfork declined to put together a top albums chart for that decade:

People always ask: "When is Pitchfork gonna run a list of the top albums of the 1960s?" The answer now? Probably never. Not that we didn't consider it. It's just that when we sat down to map it all out, we found it would be more rewarding to approach the decade through its songs instead. After all, it was by and large a single-oriented era-- the long-player didn't really take over as a creative medium until the 60s had nearly come to an end.

I'm also happy to take your word regarding the artist's intent, and that Brian Wilson only regarded singles as publicity for his album. The thing is, in contemporary analysis the the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the work itself:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent

Honestly the way you're talking about this does strike me as arrogant and dismissive, especially since you don't seem to think there are any other valid ways to approach the subject, and describe your particular mode of categorisation as "unquestionable". Come on dude, even with music history and contemporary analysis working against you, you're going to run that line? I've repeatedly told you I'm not trying to make you change your rules. I know you've explained your reasons. It's the philosophy behind your reasons I'm most interested in talking about. You seem to think I'm just ignoring your arguments. Am I still not getting it? Is there some argument I've missed that makes everything I just posted irrelevant or meaningless? If you don't mind the discussion, why do you seem so pessimistic about the possibility of productive discourse with me? I just want to find common ground and learn more about you.

It is not so much that the songs themselves can't each be considered "works of art", which I've already discussed, just as there are many smaller paintings within The Sistine Chapel, or several individual movements within Bach's Mass in B Minor, or 3 paintings within Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights, or 2634 shots and 127 scenes within Citizen Kane -- all of which could be considered "works of art" -- it is that Pet Sounds is the "COMPLETE work of art" from Wilson/The Beach Boys, just as Citizen Kane, The Sistine Chapel, Mass in B Minor and Garden of Earthly Delights are the COMPLETE works of art from those artists. The topic is uninteresting to me as I've already answered it and have already established that the rules that you are arguing are not going to be changed ... Sorry, I just don't find such discourse interesting/productive...

I've opened a "Greatest Songs" poll where you may choose songs from Pet Sounds, or any others, whether they are part of a proper album or not.

"For Pet Sounds, Wilson desired to make "a complete statement", similar to what he believed the Beatles had done with their newest album Rubber Soul, released in December 1965." --Jones, 2008, page 44
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SquishypuffDave

Gender: Male
Age: 33

All good. I reckon we just think about these things pretty differently, and that's fine.

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

SquishypuffDave wrote:

All good. I reckon we just think about these things pretty differently, and that's fine.

No worries, had we kept going, your Avatar makes it difficult to get that upset/mad at you for very long anyway Laughing

Perhaps mine doesn't welcome the same, umm, squishy-ness or puffy-ness!
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