An Idiot Listens to Western Music: Coll (2021) - Music Diaries

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Quote:

Technically, not mathematical

Ok that was what I was trying to clarify. Thanks for clarifying.

I believe in what's called reader response theory, I think you've heard me talk about it before. Basically/oversimplified, it's a concept that states the work itself and all other aspects of the work don't matter until they are interpreted/experienced. My interpretation/experience with U2's Joshua Tree is indeed in a similar place as the experience I had listening to Beethoven's 9th on the 4th of July at the Hollywood Bowl as performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

It's not a mere pop/average record for me. It is cathartic, and musically, philosophically, emotionally, mentally some of the best music. Best is a subjective term of course. When taken in earnest, the album has given me literal chills musically as well as emotionally and philosophically. It's made me cry, especially with Where The Streets Have No Name, Running to Stand Still, and the closing track of the Mother's of the Disappeared. Not much music captures American corruption and politics like Bullet the Blue Sky with an emotional and conceptual aptitude like U2 did. I suppose I'll put it in the words of The Edge (paraphrasing): Some guitarists know how to show off and some guitarists know how to play their part in the song. The great ones do the latter. The album is not the GREATEST example of emotional explosion. Nor is it the greatest musical feat of all time... the first record to have a 17th chord or something ridiculous, but if you see it merely as an ok album, then I have to suggest to listen to it more earnestly and with more understanding -then again, you might be the type where you are looking for the explosions and anything below that is a 7.

Looking at your ratings more intently, where you differentiate between a 7.5 and higher... I actually don't go that far. I don't see value in comparing superlatives. Great, Amazing, THE BEST... are just too subjective to see much more value and so they more or less equate for me. And they don't for you, and that's ok.

You are technically/logically correct at a binary level. But my experience in academics and what I'll call the natural world, says that there's not just one dogmatic way to see it. There's value to me to have The Joshua Tree rated actually above that of The Doors debut. I get the same emotional/intellectual response from Bono in Bullet the Blue Sky or Mothers of the Disappeared as I do from The End. And actually much of The Joshua Tree is superior in the regards I've mentioned than that of the debut of The Doors. The End is the only song that has an extremely strong emotional meaning to me. The performances on The Doors debut are fantastically emotional, but the content itself isn't emotionally on par with The Joshua Tree, which I find much more mature emotionally as content/lyrics go.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Here's a VERY early listening list that I am just starting/adding to BEA cause it's missing.
Western Classical: The Early Music Peri...sethmadsen

Also slightly find it funny I have British recordings for French artists and French artists for the German.

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Gender: Female
Age: 38

you might wanna add this one

The Unknown Lover by Gothic Voices

covers Ars Subtilior material from Solage and Ars Nova from Guillaume de Machaut

AfterHours

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

sethmadsen wrote:

Quote:

Technically, not mathematical

Ok that was what I was trying to clarify. Thanks for clarifying.

I believe in what's called reader response theory, I think you've heard me talk about it before. Basically/oversimplified, it's a concept that states the work itself and all other aspects of the work don't matter until they are interpreted/experienced. My interpretation/experience with U2's Joshua Tree is indeed in a similar place as the experience I had listening to Beethoven's 9th on the 4th of July at the Hollywood Bowl as performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

It's not a mere pop/average record for me. It is cathartic, and musically, philosophically, emotionally, mentally some of the best music. Best is a subjective term of course. When taken in earnest, the album has given me literal chills musically as well as emotionally and philosophically. It's made me cry, especially with Where The Streets Have No Name, Running to Stand Still, and the closing track of the Mother's of the Disappeared. Not much music captures American corruption and politics like Bullet the Blue Sky with an emotional and conceptual aptitude like U2 did. I suppose I'll put it in the words of The Edge (paraphrasing): Some guitarists know how to show off and some guitarists know how to play their part in the song. The great ones do the latter. The album is not the GREATEST example of emotional explosion. Nor is it the greatest musical feat of all time... the first record to have a 17th chord or something ridiculous, but if you see it merely as an ok album, then I have to suggest to listen to it more earnestly and with more understanding -then again, you might be the type where you are looking for the explosions and anything below that is a 7.

Looking at your ratings more intently, where you differentiate between a 7.5 and higher... I actually don't go that far. I don't see value in comparing superlatives. Great, Amazing, THE BEST... are just too subjective to see much more value and so they more or less equate for me. And they don't for you, and that's ok.

You are technically/logically correct at a binary level. But my experience in academics and what I'll call the natural world, says that there's not just one dogmatic way to see it. There's value to me to have The Joshua Tree rated actually above that of The Doors debut. I get the same emotional/intellectual response from Bono in Bullet the Blue Sky or Mothers of the Disappeared as I do from The End. And actually much of The Joshua Tree is superior in the regards I've mentioned than that of the debut of The Doors. The End is the only song that has an extremely strong emotional meaning to me. The performances on The Doors debut are fantastically emotional, but the content itself isn't emotionally on par with The Joshua Tree, which I find much more mature emotionally as content/lyrics go.

Thanks for your explanation regarding The Joshua Tree.

You may be under-valuing how highly I think of it though, just because it's so far from my very highest ratings. It is not merely "okay". That would be a 5.0/5.5. There are thousands of albums below it that I would call The Joshua Tree a "masterpiece"/"vastly superior to" in relation to it. A 7/10, as shown on my ratings scale, means I feel it is superb/borderline extraordinary.

7.0 – SUPERB/EXTRAORDINARY … At 6.8+ the experience will be superb and bordering on extraordinary. However, with enough evaluation or scrutiny, these will prove short on depth in relation to a 7.3+ rated work. Still, in relation to lower rated works, it will be an outstanding experience, and will often strike a qualitative balance between the extraordinary and the well-executed, but perhaps overly derivative. These are often the most recommendable and dependable works for those wanting great experiences but are just starting off or are relatively unfamiliar with a genre or type of art.

Above that, a comparable album could be Arcade Fire's Funeral (7.5/10) which I feel is a more successful rendition of similar emotional expressions and fairly similar in style (The Edge's "transcendental" sound making the biggest difference, and The Joshua Tree is leaner, more acsetic, more purely atmospheric...while Arcade Fire is more varied, less polished sounding, etc). Even higher than that would be Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock or Bark Psychosis' Hex (8/10) which are even more spiritual and much more creative, profound and existentially resonant. Higher on such a scale could be works like In den Ghaerten Pharoahs (8.5/10) by Popol Vuh (virtually no relation stylistically, but a much more creative and powerful expression of such emotions, of intense spirituality and existential quandary). Above that, Tim Buckley's masterpieces, and above that Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom (which enters into completely new territory)... So what I'm saying is not that I don't think Joshua Tree is an awesome album -- because I do -- but that I feel there are many better ones, even of similar ilk/musical family tree, that are more emotionally and conceptually significant/resonant/powerful, that were much more creative, etc.

Imo ^^^

Not a big deal, but I wouldn't over-generalize my higher rankings to a single "type" (such as "explosive") ... every where you look one finds a contradiction to such a statement. My 7.8-8.2, 8.3-8.7, 8.8+ and 9.3+ works are extremely varied and cover seemingly the whole gamut of human existence and expression, outward and inward. Everything from the most insane and murderous works (Type O Negative's Slow Deep and Hard), to the most subtle, profound and internal (Beethoven's late String Quartets) to the most interminably depressing (Down Colorful Hill, Winterreise) to the most astounding and powerful flights of fancy (Symphonie Fantastique, Glagolitic Mass) to the most profoundly and eternally spiritual (Mass in B Minor, Messiah, Missa Solemnis) ... etc ... Past 9.3, the higher one goes, one could probably safely say, that the more of human existence and expression the work seems to possess (in the most profound and extraordinary ways), and the most "infinitely layered" the potential interpretation.
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AfterHours

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

In regards to The Doors/Joshua Tree ... They're very different albums. If one is looking for The Joshua Tree's emotions/aims/aesthetic in The Doors debut, one will be left wanting, because it's not there, and it's not trying to be either. And vice versa.

In a more general comparison though, The Doors is a much more incredible work in my opinion -- much more impacting, and perhaps the most perfect rock album of all time. But I do understand that some/many seem to feel it's overrated (perhaps another argument/discussion for another day) and a good number of them might agree with you that The Joshua Tree is on par with it or maybe even better. But I'm not sure many people appreciate just how extraordinarily concise and flawlessly expressive The Doors were in eliciting/acting out the most emotional experiences. I suspect many people aren't listening to the album very closely -- it's lyricism and expressionistic force both so immaculately, flawlessly composed and such a force of nature -- but I don't claim to know this for sure.
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Tap wrote:

you might wanna add this one

The Unknown Lover by Gothic Voices

covers Ars Subtilior material from Solage and Ars Nova from Guillaume de Machaut

Thanks! Adding as soon as I can. Glad something already exists on the site!

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

RE: AfterHours

Makes sense. I probably used black and white thinking. Explosive is probably too strong a word. All I was trying to say was your differentiation in rating makes a big difference on how we look at things. A "superb/extraordinary" album gets a 7 and there's a huge difference between that and a 9.

RE: The Doors
I think there definitely are things on that album that are above average and I think it makes my top 20 ever. So I do love it. And I suppose good point to say looking for maturity on that album that matches The Joshua Tree does have a different context to it. Long story short, it musically is indeed amazing, but for me, besides the amazing emotional performances, the actual content doesn't have amazing emotional depth. It has pretty good emotional depth, but not amazing in comparison to The Joshua Tree. (imo of course). Having said that the elevated emotional performances on that album are above probably 70% of the Joshua Tree as it has a more subdued and introverted emotional scale. I am a bit surprised by a 9.1 for The Doors you give, to be honest. And I only bring up that work because it's one I've also been listening to for about 20 years.

I think we 85% agree, so that's good.

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Also if anyone has pre 1300 non-religious music that'd be interesting. I don't know if there's pagan/celtic or something music that is common, but also Western?

AfterHours

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

sethmadsen wrote:

RE: AfterHours

Makes sense. I probably used black and white thinking. Explosive is probably too strong a word. All I was trying to say was your differentiation in rating makes a big difference on how we look at things. A "superb/extraordinary" album gets a 7 and there's a huge difference between that and a 9.

RE: The Doors
I think there definitely are things on that album that are above average and I think it makes my top 20 ever. So I do love it. And I suppose good point to say looking for maturity on that album that matches The Joshua Tree does have a different context to it. Long story short, it musically is indeed amazing, but for me, besides the amazing emotional performances, the actual content doesn't have amazing emotional depth. It has pretty good emotional depth, but not amazing in comparison to The Joshua Tree. (imo of course). Having said that the elevated emotional performances on that album are above probably 70% of the Joshua Tree as it has a more subdued and introverted emotional scale. I am a bit surprised by a 9.1 for The Doors you give, to be honest. And I only bring up that work because it's one I've also been listening to for about 20 years.

I think we 85% agree, so that's good.

Re: comparison from 7 to 9 ... No worries. Yes, massive difference, even though a 7 tends to be quite exceptional at whatever it is doing. And I do understand you dont particularly differentiate above that. The main difference between the two is not usually in terms of "force" or "explosiveness" but in the creativity applied/how singular its expressiveness is (far greater in a 9 than a 7), combined with a very extraordinary conviction expressed by the artist(s). These factors tend to give the 9s/9.5s an overwhelming "rippling effect", where one is not just experiencing a one-dimensional relay of "emotion/concept X" done very well, powerfully, consistently, but a relay that does this the most effectively plus tends to effect one in multitudinous ways simultaneously (whether traversing several different emotions/concepts or viewing the same emotion/concept from several variations/angles), causing an overwhelming sensation of amazement/awe that one can't shake/leaves one utterly speechless. This will tend to be prevalent throughout the album/work, with a sense of emotional/conceptual development that continuously builds upon itself more and more, expanding into a multitudinous expressiveness that has replicated, multiplied, extended from its initial spark into viewing such at a level of depth and conviction never surpassed in its particular genre/confluence of genres. By "awe-inspiring" I do not mean that it has to be a "spectacle" or "explosive", as several highly rated works attest. Just that it expresses whatever it is expressing in the most awe-inspiring/miraculous/profound way(s) -- whether it be the most subtle and humble expressions, or the most "Wagnerian", or anything in between.
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

I think I'm off to a good start, covering a lot of different genre's, periods, composers, etc. of the medieval era. As a German lit major I've read Wolfram von Eschenbach, Unter den Linden from Walter von der Vogelweide, and stuff from Hildegard von Bingen, but it'll be interesting to listen to it as well.

Western Classical: The Early Music Peri...sethmadsen

Of course if you see anything amazing/something you love that is missing, recommendations are always welcome.

I think I'll stop before preparing for the Renaissance. I think I like this method (preparing a listening list in both Google Music and this site to help me keep it straight before I start digging in. It took a bit of work, but it'll be nice to keep track of it here and then export it out when I'm done.