Originally posted by Sadface
Just because many listeners prefer shallower music doesn't make their appreciation of a track less valid.
Yes it does.
R!CH
quote:
Originally posted by Sadface
Theres no such thing as a truly valid argument for the comparitive quality of music because it ultimately comes down to the listener's personal tastes. Just because many listeners prefer shallower music doesn't make their appreciation of a track less valid. If someone likes a song, then it's "good" to them. That's all it comes down to.
It's pointless to try to rank the "best" musicians because of the subjective nature of music, but if you were forced to do it impartially how would you do it other than ask everyone for their favorite and see who came out on top?
as a matter of fact there is a very valid argument for the comparative quality of something original over its commercialized vestige. i think it's so self evident that it doesn't even need to be explained. but let me ask you this: which version of the mona lisa has the greater comparative quality? the original painting or a stylized photograph of it? both are technically forms of art, but one was created before the idea of it was known to the world and the other is merely piggybacking off its established appeal.
casual listeners who only ever scrape the commercial surface of music do indeed have less valid appreciation than those who dig deeper because those who dig deeper are able to contextualize that appreciation to a far greater degree. appreciation for more nuanced music is a skill one develops only if they are driven by a passion for the music. people who flip through radio stations for music lack a certain quality that those who flip through record store bins do.
Sadface
quote:
Originally posted by R!CH
as a matter of fact there is a very valid argument for the comparative quality of something original over its commercialized vestige. i think it's so self evident that it doesn't even need to be explained. but let me ask you this: which version of the mona lisa has the greater comparative quality? the original painting or a stylized photograph of it? both are technically forms of art, but one was created before the idea of it was known to the world and the other is merely piggybacking off its established appeal.
casual listeners who only ever scrape the commercial surface of music do indeed have less valid appreciation than those who dig deeper because those who dig deeper are able to contextualize that appreciation to a far greater degree. appreciation for more nuanced music is a skill one develops only if they are driven by a passion for the music. people who flip through radio stations for music lack a certain quality that those who flip through record store bins do.
I've already said my piece regarding the level of creativity in dance music. Ultimately it doesn't matter. The need to appreciate novelty is something you have which others might not. The fact that you apparently have to put in effort to be able to enjoy your music doesn't make it inherently better. It's still just music, and I doubt that you feel much different when dancing your ass off to Guy Gerber than my friends do dancing to Deadmau5.
Is a car with a manual transmission inherently better than an automatic? Your average car enthusiast will probably go with the manual, but i'm not a car enthusiast and I'd rather be lazy and not have to shift. Does that mean the appreciation I have for my car can just be discounted because I'm not able to properly "contextualize" my driving experience?
Kismet7
Rich have you watched any movies lately?
Those movies in which 100 commercials are drilled through everyones head at every corner they turn. For example, Avatar, there are very few people who dont know about it or might see it, or if not Avatar some other recent hollywood film many have seen. Do you have the same views about commercial movies as you do about commercial music. Would you avoid watching a popular movie the same way you would avoid listening to a popular piece of music?
If you dig deep for music, do you apply this anti commercial view to other parts of culture? If not, why dont you?
Dont take this as an assumption, but I find it ironic how people are so staunchly "underground" when it comes to music, yet they watch the most commercial films with the biggest multi faceted marketing out there. No one really talks about the irony of watching a commercial movie in which 100 commercials are blasted at you, but when it comes to music, its some sort of sin to listen to something commercial, but its no sin to watch the latest "must see" movie. The ideals some follow is quite a paradox.
My theory is that people are conditioned by their surroundings and culture they follow. We end up supressing our own senses and those within distance to feel safer about our own ideals. Maybe we are helping eachother find a better way, but at the same time, maybe we are just helping eachother find the same mirage we found. I'm still learning/realising these things but I guess the point is to keep it real with yourself if you want to enjoy more of this life. Like what you want, dont worry if someone is not into what you are into, unless its doing harm to them, let people freely enjoy what they enjoy.
R!CH
let me just clarify this one thing...again... popularity doesn't make something bad any more than it makes it good. i never said anything that is popular is bad. in fact i have still yet to make a characterization using the word bad. i'm saying popularity doesn't make something good--or better than something that isn't. that is the argument i hear from a lot of dense people who try to talk about the merits of commercial music. it's good because dj mag, it's good because he sells out arenas, it's good because it makes money. nothing that is good and popular is good because it is popular. get it? film is different from music because there are very high barriers to entry in the film industry. in most cases you have to have a commercial interest backing your work in order to realize your grand vision, especially if you're trying to tell a story on a large scale. the same barriers to entry do not exist for making or playing quality music.
Sadface
We get that, and I disagree with you. The fact that guetta makes music that lots of people like means that he makes good music, at least for the masses who are all approaching EDM from a particular context. Just because you've been around EDM longer doesn't inherently make your music superior to theirs, it's just better for people who have heard enough of that cheesy nonsense and actually want to hear something else, which will most likely be considered cheesy and boring in a few years anyway.
bas
quote:
Originally posted by Sadface
Does that mean the appreciation I have for my car can just be discounted because I'm not able to properly "contextualize" my driving experience?
Yes.
72hrpartyanimal
quote:
Originally posted by bas
Yes.
:stongue:
ass
bas
quote:
Originally posted by Kismet7
Rich have you watched any movies lately?
Those movies in which 100 commercials are drilled through everyones head at every corner they turn. For example, Avatar, there are very few people who dont know about it or might see it, or if not Avatar some other recent hollywood film many have seen. Do you have the same views about commercial movies as you do about commercial music. Would you avoid watching a popular movie the same way you would avoid listening to a popular piece of music?
If you dig deep for music, do you apply this anti commercial view to other parts of culture? If not, why dont you?
Dont take this as an assumption, but I find it ironic how people are so staunchly "underground" when it comes to music, yet they watch the most commercial films with the biggest multi faceted marketing out there. No one really talks about the irony of watching a commercial movie in which 100 commercials are blasted at you, but when it comes to music, its some sort of sin to listen to something commercial, but its no sin to watch the latest "must see" movie. The ideals some follow is quite a paradox.
My theory is that people are conditioned by their surroundings and culture they follow. We end up supressing our own senses and those within distance to feel safer about our own ideals. Maybe we are helping eachother find a better way, but at the same time, maybe we are just helping eachother find the same mirage we found. I'm still learning/realising these things but I guess the point is to keep it real with yourself if you want to enjoy more of this life. Like what you want, dont worry if someone is not into what you are into, unless its doing harm to them, let people freely enjoy what they enjoy.
There are people that look deeper for underground [insert artform here], just like there are people that look for underground music. Be it movies, food, wine, beers, tv, books etc. This is a music forum, hence the music discussion :p
You don't think there are movie geeks out there that laugh at people standing in line at midnight the day before a movie is released to watch it? C'mon buddy.
bigperf
i was just going thru channels and on mtv there was some commercial and the track was deadmau5, ghosts n stuff. wonder how much he made?
Kismet7
quote:
Originally posted by bas
There are people that look deeper for underground [insert artform here], just like there are people that look for underground music. Be it movies, food, wine, beers, tv, books etc. This is a music forum, hence the music discussion :p
You don't think there are movie geeks out there that laugh at people standing in line at midnight the day before a movie is released to watch it? C'mon buddy.
Well thats a good argument, and no doubt there are forums for underground films. One my cousins has all these obscure movies, he gets movies that win Cannes awards and , but I dont think he is actively part of any movie forums. I'm just wondering why more people dont follow this way about their passionate art consumption of film, like they do about music...
Both music and film are so deeply fused into american culture that you dont have to be part of a forum to be into great underground films. For example I made a thread about great wine/beer a while back, i'm not part of any wine forum or antyhing to have an interest in good wine. Film should be an even easier jump for people to get into some sort of underground ethic that they follow with other aspects of culture/life.
Many people here came from a trance or a cheesey music start, and they eventually evolved into underground music listeners. So part of my point is, people here are conditioned to be into underground music listeners, and if they werent, they might still be listening to Trance or other more commercialized forms of EDM which are more attractive to the non conditioned listener that packs clubs when the David Guettas and Armins come around. So its pointless to point out "x music is cheese or terrible" when you only see that way because of your long patronage of this forum, and perhaps being more apt to changing to new norms to fit a system.
If these people werent here or somewhat conditioned into their evolving taste, they might be jumping around to the next David Guetta or Steve Aoki show. So I guess what im saying to Rich is you gotta understand you are a product of your surroundings, and people who think Guetta is great is simply a product of theirs. Kinda how people who are so down with the music underground, still watch cheesey commercial films, while others at a different space, level, place laugh at how clueless we are...which brings us to many things we discuss being subjective.
R!CH
quote:
Originally posted by Sadface
The fact that guetta makes music that lots of people like means that he makes good music
i guess we're just going to have to disagree here because where you consider music to be good because it's popular, i don't. money, charts, awards and other such ex post facto externalities do not bear any weight upon my own valuation of the music.
quite frankly i think a lot of that success has to do with the commercialization of the music, how accessible it is and how recognizable the brand. when every goddamn trance dj in the world is playing the new tiesto track at every gig and on every podcast for six months, it's going to chart no matter what it sounds like because it sounds like everything else, and after a while i just becomes so familiar that all the kids sing along and call it a classic. this is why a mcdonalds burger sells better than an in-n-out burger. it's more accessible and the brand is more recognized. you know what you're getting and it's easy to get. everyone on the west coast of america knows in-n-out makes a better burger though. yet by your standard, what is popular is good.
my standard is my experience. when you were at guy gerber and dyed soundorom, you saw a crowd that connected with the music physically. they were twisting and shaking with the music. when you go to guetta, i imagine you see a lot of standing around, pic and video taking, hooting, light shows and sporadic jumping. that's a bunch of people kidding themselves. i mean what the is this...
