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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad
Location: Ground Control
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- #61
- Posted: 07/01/2017 19:41
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| AfterHours wrote: | | sethmadsen wrote: | | AfterHours wrote: | | sethmadsen wrote: | [q uote="AfterHours"][q uote="sethmadsen"]RE : only 4 hours.
Yes - I've listened to like 3 symphonies, Hungarian dances and Requiem. There's likely a tad more - but I'm pretty sure that's enough to assess whether I like an artist or not (at least in the current mind frame - sure music changes as you age).
I mean I think it is enough to assess whether I should spend more time on it. BUT... as you showed me, perhaps I wasn't listening to the right recordings.
IDK - if I were to listen to all of VU's work, that'd likely be no more than 5 hours. 5 hours into something doesn't make you an expert, but does give you a pretty damn good idea what it's like.
But I do agree that listening to something 20 times will likely give you better perspective into something and you might actually gain appreciation for it strictly out of familiarity, even if it is terrible. |
Yes, maybe to decide if one would like to continue with the work any further, I suppose. But I would also say that it is impossible to truly assimilate most of the greatest works of art with such limited familiarity, so is one really deciding about the actual work at all? Or just deciding based on a limited perception of all it has to offer that he doesn't know he's ignorant of up to that point? |
This is a toughy - at first glance I completely and totally agree.
It kind of reminds me of the discussion going on in the Limp Bizkit discussion (concepts, no where near comparing the two artists). See the quote especially about interpretations of art and there's no such thing as bad art.
I think sometimes people like a work out of shear familiarity with it. They've grown to love it. And there's nothing wrong with that - it's just that sometimes the merit of it alone isn't that great. (speaking again in concept/generalities, not directly at Brahms).
For my aesthetic, I like the pop element - even if one of the greatest works of art. To me, a great work of art is required to have that element as to truly touch humanity. BUT - of course there is immense value in things that aren't immediately appealing. I'm not saying that either.
And yes, you could spend 95747 hours assimilating a piece of art and still not fully understand everything about it. And that is amazing. But you could also spend 95747 hours on a piece of art, still not fully understand everything about it, and STILL think it is garbage - and maybe it is better to say, it doesn't speak to your aesthetic/doesn't really impress anything special upon you - likely because it has no personal meaning (catharsis) to you. |
I think it's dubious to say that pop music is "truly touching humanity" (if that's what you're saying).
Almost all music with a strong pop element is forgotten after a year or so, and is rarely the art or music people truly care about with the most depth of feeling/admiration.
Artists such as Beethoven and Brahms (and many others) mastered the most successful, fundamental traits that have proven to generate emotional/conceptual depth (or as close as one can call such a thing "proven" or "objective"). They were geniuses at developing ideas, through a profound, layered extension of parts into an increasingly greater, integrated whole.
With the vast majority of pop music, one is listening to music that limits its own development and generates usually far less depth in the name of gaining familiarity quickly enough to be recognizable to many listeners in the shortest amount of time so it can be sold in volume. On top of that, its expressions are usually derivative, lacking much creativity, and usually lacking personal conviction and/or a substantial degree of experiential expression. All tolled, such a combination of mitigating factors (which is true in probably 99% of cases) almost always leads to mediocre emotional/conceptual depth at best. |
I agree with what you're saying but only to the extent that it has a memorable surface element to it (which you mention), but the full work and all it is doing is very far from "pop". Its astounding compositional integration of motives/parts, its density and extended development of cyclic form (in turn influencing scores of future symphonies) and its ingenius rapid-fire fluctuation with emotional duality -- is very unlikely to be digested/assimilated by the general public/average inexperienced music listener and by one listening to it as "pop".
I absolutely agree that art must be relatable. But I would also say "relating" (or "assimilating") is also an ability that is improved by an increase in knowledge/experience in music/art.
Beethoven definitely hit the jackpot between the universal and personal (simultaneously). The main reason people don't know Schoenberg is because they haven't continued their knowledge/experiential development along the course of music history past the Romantic period, in order to be able to adequately assimilate his work. This does not mean if everyone did so they would all love Schoenberg, but it does mean that they would be much more likely to if they did, and he would be much more popular. There is a certain point (approx post-Wagner) where music theories became too difficult for the general public to easily understand without being composers themselves, so to that degree I agree with what you're saying. But also, any intelligent person could learn, assimilate and appreciate Schoenberg. The learning curve is a bit steeper than what they're familiar with, so they don't usually put forth the effort.
You're revised definition I don't necessarily disagree with.
| sethmadsen wrote: | I mean the dude wrote Christian music because that was what was part of his culture and, hate to say it, what "sold". I'm not saying he was a sell out by any means, and was religious himself, so he really was just a part of a web of culture and that was the end result. But if Bach wrote atonal music in his time, something tells me he would have been forgotten. Time and place - the part of the web that you are influencing is likely just as important (and is why I still believe The Beatles are much more than just a pop group due to their massive influence in that web - this time referring to the Genre...  ).
It's called New Historicism. |
[/quote]
Well said - I agree.
Sometimes I get lazy with my words and just assume people know what I'm saying. Sorry for wasting that time, but at the same time, the discovery was fun and an enjoyable discussion. For me at least.
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AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
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- #62
- Posted: 07/01/2017 20:12
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| sethmadsen wrote: | Well said - I agree.
Sometimes I get lazy with my words and just assume people know what I'm saying. Sorry for wasting that time, but at the same time, the discovery was fun and an enjoyable discussion. For me at least. |
Me too. I always enjoy legit discussion about music/art 
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IVANSTAKE
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- #63
- Posted: 07/01/2017 22:22
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I would say Kendrick Lamar, he had never made a bad album. And TPAB is just a piece of art...
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saltysurprise
Sippin' bitches' brew in the 36th Chamber
Gender: Male
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- #64
- Posted: 07/12/2017 18:15
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No album is perfect, so no artist can have a perfect discography. However, there are artists who keep up a consistent standard of quality without a single poor album and even some great ones such as:
Kanye West
Frank Ocean
Eminem
The Smiths
Arcade Fire
Simon and Garfunkel
The Beatles
The Velvet Underground
and yes, even Radiohead (Pablo Honey is an above average early 90's alt rock album and Radiohead never dipped below the good quality of their first album)
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authorunknown
Gender: Male
Location: Stockholm
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- #65
- Posted: 07/19/2017 14:34
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Interesting topic. Yes, most artist have produced crap on the way, so it difficult to find those who really deliver at least some kind of quality on ALL their albums.
I think there is only one band who has done this over more than 3 albums. This is not a favorite band of mine, but I think they kept a very high standard, and commercial success, over all their 5 albums:
THE POLICE
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AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
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- #66
- Posted: 07/19/2017 23:49
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| sethmadsen wrote: | | AfterHours wrote: | @ seth
In terms of listening to something a million times and "learning" to love it or never loving it ..
It is important to know how to quickly recognize whether a work has great depth to it or not (and so whether it would be worth spending a lot of time with). This is best learned by assimilating many of the greatest examples across many different genres. The more one assimilates, the easier such a work is to recognize even before one has fully assimilated it. The odds decrease exponentially that one will waste his/her time.
If one is not looking for works of great depth, then that is perfectly fine (Or is it? I'm not so sure and wonder if such people who might say this sort of thing aren't kidding themselves). If that is the case, one would then never end up assimilating the likes of Beethoven's 9th (or any of his dozens of masterpieces/near masterpieces), Mozart's masterpieces/near masterpieces, Bach's masterpieces/near masterpieces (etc) -- or, really, any of the most incredible works of art across history -- past maybe a "superficial" experience and recognition of their merits -- which would be a damn shame because they also wouldn't necessarily be aware of the incredible experiences and degree of awe they are likely negating for themselves. |
Completely agree with your point. And whether it is perfectly fine depends on why they listen to music - is it for entertainment purposes only, some kind of almost religious catharsis (re: Killer Mike), cultural/historical understanding/learning experience, intellectual intrigue, etc. There are probably more noble reasons than entertainment only, and I agree that one is cheapening the experience if that's all they are after. But I also don't feel it necessary to look down on that behavior. I think that's a very Western thought process and there's other lenses worth seeing life through.
Not sure if you understood my point though.
If I understand you properly, your charts aren't based on what you like, rather their actual merits. Which is great. I've struggled at times putting a record on my chart strictly based on their historical influence, instead of it being my favorite. I then decided, well it is my chart, so I'm doing what is my favorite, not what mathematically=great (even if I rated mathematically, the rating was emotional and intellectual connection to the music, not emotional and intellectual strength of the music itself like you did. So my charts are based on a lens of Reader Response Theory (how I responded to the "text") vs perhaps yours is more a look at the text itself and rating it according to the merits directly (almost a Formalism approach, but not quite).
Or at least I think I've heard you say you don't put your favorite records on your charts, rather those that actually deserve to be there due to the merits of emotional and intellectual creativity. Which makes way more sense when I look at your chart, and I completely agree with it.
I suppose what I'm referring to is that sometimes people learn to love something either through nostalgia, social norm, social pressure, whatever... and not necessarily based on the music itself... this is what I mean by learning to like something.
I think this learning to like something was touched upon greatly by many other users - for Jazz and Classical, it's something you either grew up with or grew to like. I grew up with it and then learned more about it. Some don't like it all because they feel it is missing some of that mass appeal (but likely are interested at times with "the greatest hits" selections. |
I actually completely missed this reply.
Re: "If I understand you properly, your charts aren't based on what you like, rather their actual merits." ... ... I've already addressed this, but just to be sure, this is very definitely not the case. My lists/charts are based on my criteria, meticulously, uniformly and logically ranked/rated by order of personal preference -- or at least a very carefully worked out, concerted attempt and effort to organize them as such.
I think we've addressed the rest either here or elsewhere, though feel free to ask if there's still anything left to take up.
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