Point of Discussion: Album Staying Power - Music

meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

First of all. Great post, Satie. Still trying to process it entirely.

I think there's also a relationship between artist's intention and audience's perception that should be looked at. Art is an often abstract form of communication. Sometimes the dialogue is entirely meant to be internal. Sometimes, the artist is trying to communicate an idea to an audience. If there's an enormous disparity between the audience's perception and artist's intent, then what we more than likely have is a language barrier. This can be willful or not. Occasionally, we're able to pick up on something about the artist that they didn't intend to let out. Metaphorically, this would be similar to when a person tells you something that conflicts with their body language.

As humans, we seek meaning in pretty much everything, whether or not it's actually there. We often attempt to read between the lines, even when it's nothing but empty space. And when we care about something, this is often magnetized. When devoting time to writing about something critically, we're even more prone to instill meaning, because it's honestly often more interesting to write, and more interesting to read than a detailed breakdown of characteristics.
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meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Applerill wrote:

I guess the weird thing about this conversation is that it implies that someone making one interpretation keeps others from brining up there's.

While I agree to an extent. When we make our perceptions known to others, it tends to have a certain influence over others. This is especially true regarding major editorial voices. Artists actually have far less control over the narrative than editors/writers. This has been a common concern among artists since the dawn of criticism.
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Applerill
Autistic Princess <3

Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago

meccalecca wrote:

Applerill wrote:

I guess the weird thing about this conversation is that it implies that someone making one interpretation keeps others from brining up there's.

While I agree to an extent. When we make our perceptions known to others, it tends to have a certain influence over others. This is especially true regarding major editorial voices. Artists actually have far less control over the narrative than editors/writers. This has been a common concern among artists since the dawn of criticism.

Of course. But when you're talking about Kenny G or Brokencyde, how is my interpretation hurting their perception?

meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Applerill wrote:

meccalecca wrote:

Applerill wrote:

I guess the weird thing about this conversation is that it implies that someone making one interpretation keeps others from brining up there's.

While I agree to an extent. When we make our perceptions known to others, it tends to have a certain influence over others. This is especially true regarding major editorial voices. Artists actually have far less control over the narrative than editors/writers. This has been a common concern among artists since the dawn of criticism.

Of course. But when you're talking about Kenny G or Brokencyde, how is my interpretation hurting their perception?

Well, I wasn't speaking about you and Kenny G or Brokencycde. I was speaking far more generally. Your influence is minimal. But say Pitchfork shares your interpretation of Brokencyde to their audience, it would be incredibly influential. But maybe this is my own cynical perspective of how easily influenced a great many are. But i've also been thinking about the control of the interpretive narrative for well over a decade, and I think there's some merit in it.

Think about it this way. A major political figure gives a speech. A biased reporter decides to spin it, stating that the politician didn't mention the veterans, and therefore doesn't care about them. While, this claim has no supporting evidence, it becomes a major influential narrative. This happens all the time.

This isn't to say that misleading narratives in music criticism are concerning in the way it is in politics, but it does happen, both intentionally, and unintentionally.

It doesn't always necessarily hurt the audience or the artist. But as an artist, you generally don't want your audience mislead regarding meaning of your work, even if the misleading ultimately isn't negative.
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Applerill
Autistic Princess <3

Gender: Female
Age: 30
Location: Chicago

meccalecca wrote:

Applerill wrote:

meccalecca wrote:

Applerill wrote:

I guess the weird thing about this conversation is that it implies that someone making one interpretation keeps others from brining up there's.

While I agree to an extent. When we make our perceptions known to others, it tends to have a certain influence over others. This is especially true regarding major editorial voices. Artists actually have far less control over the narrative than editors/writers. This has been a common concern among artists since the dawn of criticism.

Of course. But when you're talking about Kenny G or Brokencyde, how is my interpretation hurting their perception?

Well, I wasn't speaking about you and Kenny G or Brokencycde. I was speaking far more generally. Your influence is minimal. But say Pitchfork shares your interpretation of Brokencyde to their audience, it would be incredibly influential. But maybe this is my own cynical perspective of how easily influenced a great many are. But i've also been thinking about the control of the interpretive narrative for well over a decade, and I think there's some merit in it.

Think about it this way. A major political figure gives a speech. A biased reporter decides to spin it, stating that the politician didn't mention the veterans, and therefore doesn't care about them. While, this claim has no supporting evidence, it becomes a major influential narrative. This happens all the time.

This isn't to say that misleading narratives in music criticism are concerning in the way it is in politics, but it does happen, both intentionally, and unintentionally.

It doesn't always necessarily hurt the audience or the artist. But as an artist, you generally don't want your audience mislead regarding meaning of your work, even if the misleading ultimately isn't negative.

Of course. That makes sense.

(Sorry for making this thread about me; it's just hard to know whether points here are directed at me or a lot of other people)

meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

In an attempt to once and for all settle the ongoing Brokencycde query.

From my perspective, the bulk of criticism towards Applerill's praise for Brokencyde comes from Applerill's indirect relationship with the music. His love for the album comes from a seemingly arbitrary, unintentional interpretation of their music. He's voiced very little about the actual aesthetic traits of the music that please him, or any specific meaning intended by the artist. His love of it is essentially conceptual, and therefore seems like it could be applied to a variety of works, depending on circumstances. It's ultimately less about the listening experience than it is about a result of the listening experience.

But does that make his appreciation of Brokencyde disingenuous? No. Not necessarily. I'd argue it's only disingenuous if he doesn't actually perceive their music as he states, which is impossible to know for sure, but he likely deserves the benefit of the doubt
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meccalecca
Voice of Reason

Gender: Male
Location: The Land of Enchantment

Applerill wrote:

(Sorry for making this thread about me; it's just hard to know whether points here are directed at me or a lot of other people)

Don't you worry. It's not about you. You're just an example that has helped give the discussion a certain reference point and focus.
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Pentagonal

CryingGameDahlin wrote:

Just to point it out, when we post on BEA we obviously make a purposeful presentation of different words & ideas (except maybe when we're totally intoxicated, but that may have it's own funny logic), is that like saying our personal voice should be disregarded when other posters see it? I think it's just as valid to understand where we're coming from just as acknowledging that some posters may have a different take on what we have to say. It's not either/or, the view of the artist and those who see & interpret what they have to see can be a harmonious one- even if they often seem to diverge.

The problem I have with this equivalency is that conversations and statements of fact, while sometimes fuzzy, are a far, far more precise form of communication than art. In fact, I think it's the breakdown of the above equivalency that necessitates the distinction between arts and sciences. When Darwin released the results of his studies to the world, it was important to understand what he was trying to say. Had he instead chosen to express himself in the form long, abstract poem, I think we're forced to approach it in a different way, because there's no way to definitively distinguish between opposing interpretations. The result might have been the same, inducing people to see the origin of species in a different way, but it would have been a poor contribution to science, as he would leave his work to the mercy of the ignorant masses or whoever was most influential in pushing their viewpoint.

Satie

CryingGameDahlin wrote:

Just to point it out, when we post on BEA we obviously make a purposeful presentation of different words & ideas, is that like saying our personal voice should be disregarded when other posters see it?

I would throw my hat in with Pentagonal and say that direct communication serves a very different and often more specific function than artistic expression. Frankly, if artistic expression is as straightforward as day-to-day conversation, I say keep it in your pants. Still, I think this brings up another example of why artistic expression requires audience interpretation to be privileged to an extent. In regular conversation, if I say something that you don't understand because I phrased it poorly (something that happens in basically every conversation of any length at some point), we have a clarifying discussion in most cases to sort it out. My intention behind crafting my initial statement doesn't change the fact that that statement was crafted poorly and needed clarification. With art, this problem is magnified and multiplied exponentially. There are so many different moving parts that unless someone makes their expression very mechanical and specific, it's unlikely that every single part of their intention actually made it into the art unscathed. Sure, you might have the leisure of clarifying with an artist what they meant to say, but when you go back and listen to the album, it seems to me that you're distorting your perception to match an interpretation that you've already gone in with, which returns us to Skinny's idea of just reading a damn synopsis and not bothering with art at all.

meccalecca wrote:

From my perspective, the bulk of criticism towards Applerill's praise for Brokencyde comes from Applerill's indirect relationship with the music. His love for the album comes from a seemingly arbitrary, unintentional interpretation of their music. He's voiced very little about the actual aesthetic traits of the music that please him, or any specific meaning intended by the artist. His love of it is essentially conceptual, and therefore seems like it could be applied to a variety of works, depending on circumstances. It's ultimately less about the listening experience than it is about a result of the listening experience.

But does that make his appreciation of Brokencyde disingenuous? No. Not necessarily. I'd argue it's only disingenuous if he doesn't actually perceive their music as he states, which is impossible to know for sure, but he likely deserves the benefit of the doubt

I think this is where a certain degree of the objectivity of what Brokencyde presents to us needs to be considered and where we return to the idea of a dialogue of people surrounding a text. Sure, there can be multiple interpretations, and maybe Charlie's novel takes shed light, but these takes also require textual evidence, or else they're complete conjurings that could be applied to any piece of art and defended as "just his opinion." This is where I think the idea of an album impacting you a particular way or having a certain quality level remains subjective but interpretation of its contents, place in history, and ultimate "meaning" can be objective insofar as it can be argued that without reference to the album itself, you're not really saying anything about art, but a bunch about yourself. Often, I think Charlie's seemingly outlandish perspectives are somewhere in the art (his most outlandish claims usually revolve around albums and films I've only encountered once if ever and haven't bothered poring over to see if his perspectives on them hold up to scrutiny). I don't doubt Charlie's authentic conviction in his interpretations, but I think that if I were to listen to a Brokencyde album and not hear what he tells me he hears, it would be totally within my rights to challenge him to show me what specific aesthetic features bring up these ideas. This is an interesting question, though, of what exactly an album entails in an era of mass media multi-platform consumption. Can just the notes and lyrics exist as the piece of art, as I contend, or do we need to also factor in, say, album art or public personas of artists as that primary source text?

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Wow... too much happened while I was gone. Too little time to respectfully respond. Ha!

1. Reader Response Theory: this is a literary theory that suggests it doesn't matter what the artist intended or what was even written/created, it's how it is interpreted that is important. (Kinda harks back to the whole Sign, Signifier, Signified thing [Structuralism]). So in a way this means that music doesn't even exist until it is received and interpreted by the person listening to it.

2. Formalism/Literalism: Basically the idea that, as Satie suggests, we can only really quote the lyrics and mechanics of music to critique the music. Everything else is opinion and therefore not important... or at least less valid/helpful/scientific/(insert something descriptive here) as good critique.

I think what CryingGameDahlin was suggesting is that both of these are valid and we can accept both Formalism and Reader Response theory as valid critiques and judgements? Maybe I misunderstood, but I think both are valid forms of critiquing art. When I was a German Lit major I learned it is better to see the world from all sides and not only in binary oppositions. So I happen to agree with that point of view. Having said that I liked the analogy that if any scientist had "proven" their work through art, it wouldn't have been taken as seriously... which is kinda sad really. Truth is truth is truth.

As for other objects of discussion, how do you think classic conditioning plays a role in your "staying power" of an album? Because you have been "conditioned" to have certain responses (Making different fart noises and recording them isn't a social norm, so the average person or even the against the grain person still wouldn't honestly argue that farting noises is truly more beautiful or artistic or (insert descriptive bullshit here) than say Vivaldi's Four Seasons), do you then develop a taste that prejudges what you like and don't like? Does that then build over time and make "staying power" what it is for you. Do you have this almost classic conditioning response of what is pleasurable and what is not? How do you keep your palate clean and approach things as unbiased as possible? Is that even important?