People need to listen to real music - Page 6

On May 18 2010 13:05 Lemonwalrus wrote:
You are an asshat.

I wrote out a long response at first, but the above is really the only thing that wasn't beating a dead horse.

cheers.

On May 18 2010 13:16 Lemonwalrus wrote:

You gave an objection that has been addressed several times in the thread and that nobody has offered a response to on your side of the argument. Why do you get to arbitrarily choose the definition of what makes good music just so that it suits your personal taste? And I'm sure you will just quote some critic on mozart or end with the sentence about how academics and philosophers like the music you do more than rap so it is obviously better, which is just avoiding the question yet again. I hurled an insult because at this point you are either trolling or too elitist in your beliefs for anything else to get any response that has any meaning, so the only thing I had left to voice was my opinion of you. I shouldn't have gotten involved in this thread and I regret it.

On May 18 2010 13:19 phosphorylation wrote:
I was hoping more people will start seeing music this way -- as opposed to the common attitude nowadays (music as musical drug, background noise etc)

On May 18 2010 13:59 I_Love_Bacon wrote:
Art has any meaning to any number of people to influence their feelings in one manner or another. To claim that the way to defining "better" art is through a more deeper investigation of the mechanics and techniques is an insult to art's ultimate goal. The deep emotional connection a person feels to a piece of music or art is what makes it art.

There is no such thing as "good" art or "bad" art. Art is 100% subjective. People who attempt to claim an objective standpoint are borderline intellectually dishonest (mind you I said borderline, it's more so they're caught up in an ultimately futile attempt to change 99.9% of the population's mind). If you wish to compare individual aspects of a song to another; that is fine. The minute a judgment is rendered in which any song/book/music is "better" than another is when it will fall upon deaf ears.

On May 18 2010 14:03 phosphorylation wrote:

I firmly believe in everything what I said.. certainly not trying to be the rebel of sort. And frankly, way more than 0.1% of population share my view. The majority of philosophers and musicologists have similar ideas about the arts.

On May 18 2010 14:09 phosphorylation wrote:
Funny how the thread circles back. Someone shared a similar view to yours and I answered them with a long post on start of page 4.
Please do look at it.

On May 17 2010 19:59 SoManyDeadLings wrote:
Just some thoughts into the matter during my night of insomnia.

Ronnie Dio






I lol'ed hard in contempt and pity.

Just because an old musician dies there's no need to put him on a pedestal. Rachmaninoff died too, yet people are free to express their dislike for his music. If 50 Cent were to die in place of Ronnie today, I'm sure people would mourn for him and act with much hostility towards anyone who says anything negative about "Candy Shop", but you and I both know what a pitiful joke this "artist" really is.

I apologize for I am about to burst precious little bubbles, but only arrogant tone-deafs could so firmly believe others to be ignorant simply because they do not appreciate certain styles of "music".

Popular music in general has very little musicality in terms of harmony, dynamics, tonal variations and other musical elements. Heavy Metal is a bit better in this regard, as there are a few semi-decent songs that are bearable because they have been written by classical-turned-metal musicians but nonetheless, the genre overall still fits into the popular music category and what I have said applies 99.99% of the time. This is coming from someone who holds his ARCT performers in Piano so my neutrality is naturally questioned, but I listen to just about every style of music and occasionally enjoy the catchy hit songs, but ultimately popular music offers almost no musicality whatsoever.

Let's start with R.A.P. music, but since everyone already knows about the Retards Attempting Poetry, I rest my case.

Then there's J-K-C pop. Sure they arouse certain emotions and are interesting due to the often catchy melodies, but this only applies to the first 30 seconds of the songs heard. Just try and tell me how the ladies in Brown Eyed Girls are great musicians. Exceptions are always present, and the exception here is selected songs by the Chinese artist Jay Chou (#1 Pop artist in China); again, he is a capable classical pianist / cellist and employs an impressive variety of instruments in his songs.

Heavy metal, in general, puts a heavy emphasis on the speed of the music, mashes in a bunch of the simplest chords (the majority of power cords are merely just one interval, normally just the perfect fifth), employs hideously repetitive melodies and rhythms throughout entire songs and sings about the same and boring musical themes (often death, violence, and aggression).

It frustrates me when a certain upbring instills so much damage on one's ability to appreciate real music that they are blind-sighted into a such distasteful genres.

I'd like to throw in an analogy that a SC player could potentially empathize with. On TL you hear all the BW veterans crying about SC2 being dumbed down, while hordes of SC2 fanboys are there to lash out and defend Blizzard's new game. Why? If it's true that SC2 has been dumbed down so much, then why do people still enjoy it? Why would Blizzard implement the changes in the first place? The answer is simple; Blizzard chose to make SC2 more accessible to new players, sacrificing depth for increased revenue but in the end, people who never played BW would become accustomed to the SC2 mechanics and have a very hard time playing and enjoying BW. They would still enjoy SC2 immensely, however oblivious to all the map control concept, multitasking and sexy micro that defined BW. A similar story holds true for Popular Music vs. Classical Music. Sure Popular Music has been dumbed down immensely, but people who have never had proper musical training still enjoy popular songs despite being unaware of all the truly amazing aspects of Classical Music. The trend has only become worse and worse through time, with increasingly dumbed down songs gaining more and more popularity. To illustrate, the first search result on youtube for "Tik Tok" has a view count of over 20 million, in unfortunate comparison to the first hit for "Beethoven's 5th Symphony" which returns a meager result of under 1 million view count. Hell, there are more Tik Tok parodies on youtube than all the renditions of the 5th Symphony combined. Popular "Music" is no longer music, but rather carefully engineered sound waves designed solely to alter the listener's emotion by means of controversial themes and catchy but terribly repetitive melody/rhythm. Add flashy music videos, ridiculous stage choreography, and auto-tune for recent songs.

I guess my point is that the vast majority of popular music will not stand the test of time. People still listen to classical music hundreds of years old, just as how dedicated BW players still play a 12-year old game simply because both aforementioned things are fucking amazing. Yet, out of my somewhat impressive friend circle, I know NO ONE that still listen to older metal music, but I do know a friend who deleted his entire K-pop collection because he was “tired of this shit”. Think people will still listen to Genie or Holy Diver 200 years from now on? It is a possibility, but one that I’m willing to bet my life against.

“Leave me alone, I know my taste is shitty but it’s what I enjoy, so fuck off”. Quote the posts defending SC2 and half the posts in the K-pop discussion thread. Well, just as it would take time and effort to learn and properly appreciate BW, the same thing applies perfectly for Classical Music.

Pure Awesomeness

Listen to the piece in its entirety and maybe even the other movements, then if your brain jizzes in euphoria due to the overwhelming harmonies, dynamic contrasts, mood variations and heavenly melodies, then there may be hope music’s future after all.

On May 18 2010 14:15 I_Love_Bacon wrote:


I did read it; thanks for reminding me why I don't like "sophisticated" stances upon art. You claim that similar thinkers of both the philosophical and artistic world look for a way to judge; and do so. Art should not be judged or defined from any scale other than your own. It isn't something that has to be done. Then, taking the stance that those who don't agree with your collective analysis are wrong (even if you don't word it so harshly) is a further insult. It's like arguing what sport is more enjoyable to watch. It's an argument that is equivilent to mental masterbation.