Is there a right and wrong music we should listen to?

[RayDunzl]

That said, Civilization Phaze III is clearly a better album than Francesco Zappa!

They are decidedly different compositions, though executed similarly in some respects.

 

[LeftCoastTim]

Is there a right and wrong music we should listen to?

No. Absolutely no.

 

[Fluffy]

@oivavoi
"Staying power" sounds like the justification you have for referring to something as good. As I said, I don't think this property is more valid than any other one in expressing inherent quality in a piece of art. Some things can be preferred by some despite not having "staying power", while others can be un-favored by others despite having it.

I think you didn't understand my point – you see Bach and the Beatles as having "staying power" (thus inherent quality) because of your specific environment. Another person in a completely different environment would not experience the overwhelming abundance of preference towards those things to convince him of their inherent quality.

The easiest way to demonstrate it is by looking how different are traditional music styles in far-away places – Chinese music for example doesn't even sound coherent to a western ear, despite how Chinese people who grew up with it would consider it very tasteful and sophisticated. That's because they live in a different environment and have different perspective. Once you extend this argument to consider every individual person as its own specific environment and perspective, it's easy to see why every type of music could be universally "good" and "bad" at the same time – which means it's in fact neither, and this inherent quality is an illusion that depends on perspective, which arises from environment.

In practicality, I think it is honest to say "I hate hip-hop", but it's self-deluding to say "hip-hop is bad music" or even "it's not music". By addressing music (and art in general) in a subjective way, you can have real debate about its merits, and even change the perspective of other people about it. Stating objective phrases like "you shouldn't listen to this" or "this is bad" is counterproductive to useful discussion and learning, and most of the times just plain egotistical.

edit:

Sweet, the Problem of Axiology has been definitively resolved

And here you've made a truth claim regarding one of humanity's most enduring philosophical problems. Careful with your hences....comes as across as elitist and reckless with deduction.

My opinion and arguments for it are stated, if you have a different opinion and a counter argument to go with it, I will gladly listen. How I "come across" is not a valid argument.

 

[MediumRare]

@john5220, I bet you didn't expect you were raising one of the most difficult philosophical questions in the past 2,500 years. Ever since Plato asked "what is beauty?" and gave a "final" answer, people have been arguing about what art/music/writing etc. is "good", or even, what is "art" at all?

I think @Blumlein 88's answer nailed it, as usual, so you can stop there.

But here's one little thing to consider: Many people listen to early recordings of music and enjoy them intensely, not because the technical sound quality is "audiophile", but because they appreciate the music, the performer, the interpretation, the history, etc. ad infinitum. Try not to let the SQ of any particular recording - or even your system - get in the way of appreciating the performance.

 

[strangeskies]

How I "come across" is not a valid argument.

So, you value an argument with valid construction over a statement of how you "came across"?

Is there inherent value in validity or is this just a preference thing?

 

[Ceburaska]

Absolutely. Don’t listen to stuff you don’t like, no matter how much other people talk about how good/ relevant/ clever/ important it is, or ditto for the artists.

 

[Fluffy]

So, you value an argument with valid construction over a statement of how you "came across"?

Is there inherent value in validity or is this just a preference thing?

I do appreciate nice trolling when I see one. Well done. If you want me to keep feeding you press 1.

 

[strangeskies]

I do appreciate nice trolling when I see one. Well done. If you want me to keep feeding you press 1.

Well, you might indulge me for a moment: is your assertion of nihilism when it comes to "value" limited to art? Why? Can I apply this assertion that "nothing has any more value than anything else" to ethics/morality? Is ethics too an arbitrary construct?

If teasing-out the scope of a claim that "there is no intrinsic value" is trollery, yeah, I'm a troll.

 

[watchnerd]

By that I mean how do we determine if a music was recorded properly in a studio?

I was made a mockery by some users in the USA Audiophile community for mentioning I liked this Local Trinidad song which apparently isn't up to audiophile quality because it isn't recorded in a studio? and the singer doesn't have a proper quality voice.....but if so how come there isn't wind blowing into the mic if this was really recorded by the sea? I was also made fun of picking music this and things like Space EDM as my choice of music I like.

I am not sure how to pick music that is of Audiophile standard.

Because it obviously wasn't really recorded by the sea.

99% of the time music videos are lip-synching exercises.

 

[watchnerd]

The song is clearly recorded in a studio and if the people in the "USA Audiophile" community had half a brain between them they would hear (and see) that.

It's just a music video and they are not playing. Not only that, there's no audience and no equipment- the cables go nowhere. Look at the reflections in the lead singer's glasses- there is one guy on the whole beach and another with the camera.

Well, maybe that video is fake, but everything in this one is 100% real music, performed for real.

622 MILLION views can't be wrong.

 

[Killingbeans]

Did you just... rickroll us? (Nahhh, it was not a link).

 

[watchnerd]

Did you just... rickroll us? (Nahhh, it was not a link).

It's 2019.....is Rick Rolling still a thing?

But, yes.

 

[oivavoi]

@oivavoi
"Staying power" sounds like the justification you have for referring to something as good. As I said, I don't think this property is more valid than any other one in expressing inherent quality in a piece of art. Some things can be preferred by some despite not having "staying power", while others can be un-favored by others despite having it.

I think you didn't understand my point – you see Bach and the Beatles as having "staying power" (thus inherent quality) because of your specific environment. Another person in a completely different environment would not experience the overwhelming abundance of preference towards those things to convince him of their inherent quality.

The easiest way to demonstrate it is by looking how different are traditional music styles in far-away places – Chinese music for example doesn't even sound coherent to a western ear, despite how Chinese people who grew up with it would consider it very tasteful and sophisticated. That's because they live in a different environment and have different perspective. Once you extend this argument to consider every individual person as its own specific environment and perspective, it's easy to see why every type of music could be universally "good" and "bad" at the same time – which means it's in fact neither, and this inherent quality is an illusion that depends on perspective, which arises from environment.

In practicality, I think it is honest to say "I hate hip-hop", but it's self-deluding to say "hip-hop is bad music" or even "it's not music". By addressing music (and art in general) in a subjective way, you can have real debate about its merits, and even change the perspective of other people about it. Stating objective phrases like "you shouldn't listen to this" or "this is bad" is counterproductive to useful discussion and learning, and most of the times just plain egotistical.

It might very well be that I didn't understand your point. But I'm not sure I've been able to get my point(s) fully across either...?

I'm extremely well aware that specific environments influence how I - and everybody else - listens to and responds to music. And I don't think that any piece music is "universally good" for everybody. Concerning Chinese music, I haven't tried that much to listen to it, but I've put in some real effort to understand other musical genres which were previously foreign to me. Classical Arabic music, for example, which I couldn't relate to before, now speaks to me in a deep way. Electronica and EDM, even trance, which I rejected in my more pretentious student years, is now something I couldn't live without.

Appreciating music requires familiarity with the conventions and form systems of the genre it operates within - otherwise it's just random noise. Neurologists who study the response in the brain to music seem to suggest that it's the interplay between familiarity and novelty in music that moves us: We need to understand what happens, and yet be ever so slightly surprised from time to time. So the more I get to know a certain musical genre - the more I'd like to think that I'm able to make at least some rudimentary judgments about artistic value.

But my point remains: Within each musical genre, within all the sub-universes of music that exist in our wonderful and complex world, there are some pieces of music which seem to remain and prove their value over time, while others get forgotten. Why is that? Part of it is about coincidences, part of it is no doubt about snobbery and elitism, and part of is it about other things. But I remain convinced that part of it is about the illusive idea of artistic value.

 

[Jmudrick]

Yes there is. Listen to Shostakovich, Mahler, Glenn Gould, Bob Dylan, and the Clash. Have at least three versions of Kind of Blue on hand at all times. Don't disparage Joni Mitchell's catalogue pre Hissing of Summer Lawns. That about covers it.

 

[MediumRare]

the illusive idea of artistic value.

Ah, there's the rub. Bach was out of fashion and nearly forgotten. Bouguereau was acclaimed, then reviled. And then there's R. Mutt.

One can make one's own choices. For the O.P., that's good advice, IMO.

 

[watchnerd]

This thread was concluded by post #3.

Except for Cecil Taylor.

Branford Marsalis accurately described his music as "self indulgent bullshit".

 

[oivavoi]

Ah, there's the rub. Bach was out of fashion and nearly forgotten. Bouguereau was acclaimed, then reviled. And then there's R. Mutt.

One can make one's own choices. For the O.P., that's good advice, IMO.

Of course everybody can - and should - make own choices! I don't think I've ever argued against that? I do that all the time. If something doesn't speak to me, in one way or the other, I usually don't spend much time on it. That's not the discussion we're having here.

And I'm fully aware that Bach was out of fashion before being rediscovered, for example. The simple question is whether there was something in Bach's music which made people continue to rediscover him - and which have made people listen to him ever since - or whether it was all arbitrary. Could Mendelssohn have picked just any of Bach's contemporary composers, and people would have been just as impressed, because it was the very Mendelssohn who told them that this was worth listening to? I don't think so. Or, it's probably likely that quite a lot of people would have tried to like what they heard when Mendelssohn told them it was good stuff. But would it have caught on to the same degree, for that many listeners? I don't think so, at least.

Again, I do think that music and art is also a domain where contingencies matter and people use taste and culture to improve their social standing, and that people react in all sorts of different ways to different kinds of music. But I fail to see how that disproves that there may be inherent artistic value in music.

 

[strangeskies]

Could Mendelssohn have picked just any of Bach's contemporary composers, and people would have been just as impressed, because it was the very Mendelssohn who told them that this was worth listening to? I don't think so. Or, it's probably likely that quite a lot of people would have tried to like what they heard when Mendelssohn told them it was good stuff. But would it have caught on to the same degree, for that many listeners? I don't think so, at least.
.

Or more preposterously...is there really no intrinsic quality in Bach's Cello suites vs MY noodling on a guitar that might predict preference in the "marketplace of information"?

To assert that preference over time is NOT a function of something intrinsic to the information/content is...utterly ridiculous.

 

[BillG]

I was made a mockery by some users in the USA Audiophile community

Your first mistake was hanging with them, and your second was actually listening to them and allowing them to bully you into questioning yourself.

While it's true that some recordings maybe of better quality than others, it's difficult for the average consumer to know based upon a casual listening. However, that has absolutely nothing to do with the genres one might favor.

I seriously doubt that the vast majority of the music I listen to, which is deep underground electronica, would be considered "audiophile" either. But you know what? I don't care as I don't associate with audiophile label, and I tend to avoid the crowd that does because I find them to be too obsessive. Yeah, yeah... I'm a member of this forum, but if you saw my ignore list you'd see what I'm referring to with the disassociation...

 

[watchnerd]

Your first mistake was hanging with them

Who are they?

I thought I knew most of the various fora (WBF, Audio Asylum, Head Fi, etc.)