EPTOn February 10 2014 13:15 sluggaslamoo wrote:
I think you missed this part
Lots of people critique art and literature but only an asshole would say a particular work from a professional is actually bad.
In competitions there are a series of metrics which are defined before the competition so the artists know what they are going for. The judges award scores based on this metric. In pop music, the entire world is your judge, in this case, Justin Bieber is the clear winner here compared to any minority band or pop group.
Addressing this quote for instance,
I don't like lyrics, I think they pollute the music, so when you say his lyrics are weak its not even a concern for me. All of the music I listen to (Cut Chemist, the Herbaliser, anything acid jazz), a lot of the time don't have lyrics at all, its just all highly technical abstract instrumental music.
I value technical beats/rhythms, originality, and very alternative chord progressions, so anything with that is good in my books. I could tell you that all music with lyrics in it is bad but I don't go telling people that. Good lyrics is an arbitrary metric which defines your subjective taste in music.
Bieber's lyrics resonate with his audience, that's whats important. Lyrics that you define are good, resonate with you, because you can't relate to his lyrics, you therefore do not like them, and thus refer to them as "bad".
As a musician, when it comes to scoring on musical talent I could probably tell you that most of the music you enjoy is "bad". Maybe you like prog-rock, etc, pink floyd or phil collins, compared to acid jazz this music sounds like the pop music that many people tell everyone they hate. There were many amazing unknown guitarists that could have replaced Dave Gilmour and who knows they might have done even better (Sacrilege I know, I love these guys just playing the devils advocate here).
It annoys me when I get referred to a bunch of guitarists who can "shred like crazy", and I'd really like to tell them that there are guitarists out there that can play the percussion, bass and melody of Toto's Africa all at once by themselves with just an acoustic guitar.
Again its just arbitrary metrics and pure subjectivity, you're no better judge of music than some preppy teen Belieber girl.
I think you missed this part
Lots of people critique art and literature but only an asshole would say a particular work from a professional is actually bad.
In competitions there are a series of metrics which are defined before the competition so the artists know what they are going for. The judges award scores based on this metric. In pop music, the entire world is your judge, in this case, Justin Bieber is the clear winner here compared to any minority band or pop group.
Addressing this quote for instance,
I don't like lyrics, I think they pollute the music, so when you say his lyrics are weak its not even a concern for me. All of the music I listen to (Cut Chemist, the Herbaliser, anything acid jazz), a lot of the time don't have lyrics at all, its just all highly technical abstract instrumental music.
I value technical beats/rhythms, originality, and very alternative chord progressions, so anything with that is good in my books. I could tell you that all music with lyrics in it is bad but I don't go telling people that. Good lyrics is an arbitrary metric which defines your subjective taste in music.
Bieber's lyrics resonate with his audience, that's whats important. Lyrics that you define are good, resonate with you, because you can't relate to his lyrics, you therefore do not like them, and thus refer to them as "bad".
As a musician, when it comes to scoring on musical talent I could probably tell you that most of the music you enjoy is "bad". Maybe you like prog-rock, etc, pink floyd or phil collins, compared to acid jazz this music sounds like the pop music that many people tell everyone they hate. There were many amazing unknown guitarists that could have replaced Dave Gilmour and who knows they might have done even better (Sacrilege I know, I love these guys just playing the devils advocate here).
It annoys me when I get referred to a bunch of guitarists who can "shred like crazy", and I'd really like to tell them that there are guitarists out there that can play the percussion, bass and melody of Toto's Africa all at once by themselves with just an acoustic guitar.
Again its just arbitrary metrics and pure subjectivity, you're no better judge of music than some preppy teen Belieber girl.
Noone denies that it's hard to rate music, but what he was saying is that you can't measure quality by measuring peak popularity. It's the music that will stand the test of time that is the good music.
All of the top musicians and artists of today and yesterday are at the top to a very large extent because of marketing. This is true for Justin Bieber. It's true for Lady Gaga, and it's true for Metallica, Queen, Nirvana and so on. The difference is that for some it's 99% marketing and 1% quality, while for others it might be 10% marketing and 90% quality.
So, how do you know if a artist or a band is big mostly because of their music or because of marketing? Well, if you're educated about music, you can make a educated guess. You can also walk into the future and examine the past.
Anyway, it's ridiculous to value the opinion of teenage girls, or teenage boys for that matter as equal to adults when it comes to estimating the quality of a musical work, especially compared to an experienced adult. Musical taste is largely a question of experience, and experience tends to come with age. A good measure of quality of taste is the total music consumtion of a person, basically how many different songs and different artists that they listen to over a time period, and also, the wider (genres/styles) your consumption is, the better your taste is generally.
My own musical taste has improved a lot since I was a teenager, and if I had made a video when I was 15 years old, with my 20 favorite songs or 10 favorite artists, I would cringe if I had to watch it today. I had a absolutely terrible music taste until my early 20's.
