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Zenofex
Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
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posted October 04, 2019 07:34 PM |
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@artu:
Let's get something from the technical side straight first - all forms of art require sensory input and processing. The former implies the cells, tissues and organs necessary to capture the information (art is information), the latter - the ones required to shape it for your use. Sensitivity as such measures how the input information is processed - more or less, is it twisted in any ways by some "internal" (to your body) flaws or is processed in its more or less "pure" form, what results it produces for yourself as feelings and so on. There could be - and are - enormous amount of variables and as you won't find two absolutely identical humans (even twins have differences - if not from birth, then acquired later on) who can process information like perfect copies of each other, you also won't get identical understanding of "art" from everybody.
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To be able to read music and to know music are two very different things, one is about musical literacy, the other is about familiarity. Musical literacy is, of course, a great advantage when it comes to understanding music but it’s not a requirement.
It's not a requirement to be able to evaluate music as "art" in the sense that two people can have decent hearing and get the urge to dance on some song, but knowledge does impact one's view of how good or bad something is and from there his/her ultimate opinion. Take some of Jimi Hendrix' solos for example - a regular listener may find them great and catchy but a guitar player who also likes them will marvel at the skill needed to put them up, or, if he happens to be really good, could be critical, which will make his ultimate judgement, or score if you like, different from that of the "layman" even if their musical taste is more or less the same.
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There are many things in life that are not strictly measurable yet quite intelligable. We can not measure love (in the scientific sense) but we know when someone is loving us more than another, we can not measure sense of humour but we can immediately detect when someone does not have it, we can not measure integrity or hypocrisy, yet we claim to identify them all the time. So when it comes to the artistic value of a music piece, what is intelligible and not completely subjective?
Well, actually you're showing the difference between countable and non-countable in grammar, not between measurable and non-measurable, strictly or not.  Of course you can measure love, how else you can tell that somebody loves you more or less? If you want to quantify it, make some arbitrary scale and put the numbers as you like. Formally measuring how much somebody loves you serves no practical purpose outside of individual level - society doesn't care if your mother scores 9/10 and your wife 7/10, that's your business with them - but it's otherwise doable.
Going through your points (which are, frankly, different context, each one of them).
Originality does not imply any sort of "fitness" between what you produce and how the listener perceives it. You can come up with some completely original combination of notes which somebody will call you a genius for inventing it and dance dervish dances on it until reaching nirvana while another will think that it's noise. If you introduce something partially original - in an existing genre for example - then the listener first has to understand that you did it and if it's not too subtle - to actually like it. Respect comes after that. Metallica's "St. Anger" is an original album for the band, however it made a lot of fans actually lose respect for the band because they didn't like it. Respect is impossible without some degree of liking, so saying that you respect someone you don't like is the same as saying you actually like some of the qualities related to that person. Same with "art".
For innovation I think I explained my stance above. Innovation as such is totally pointless in social context if nobody is liking it or using it for whatever purpose (even to point out how things should not be done). You might say that something which few people or nobody cared about in age X is highly appreciated a century after that or whatever but that would again be applying a specific context to your evaluation.
Passion/sincerity as everything else already mentioned requires two people to synchronize on some level to be understood. Try playing some moving rock ballad about love, where every single band member invests all of his personal feelings into recreating the drama of the song in a masterful manner to someone who's idea of love is banging as many women as possible and ask him what he got of that "sincerity".
On technique I pretty much agree, but I think what you said hardly contributes to the "objectivity-ness" of art. Already talked about that.
And of course I can pass judgment about music on all of you plebes, my brain processes music better than yours. 
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 04, 2019 08:37 PM |
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Zenofex said:
It's not a requirement to be able to evaluate music as "art" in the sense that two people can have decent hearing and get the urge to dance on some song, but knowledge does impact one's view of how good or bad something is and from there his/her ultimate opinion. Take some of Jimi Hendrix' solos for example - a regular listener may find them great and catchy but a guitar player who also likes them will marvel at the skill needed to put them up, or, if he happens to be really good, could be critical, which will make his ultimate judgement, or score if you like, different from that of the "layman" even if their musical taste is more or less the same.
A musician can realize it is harder to play something (or not) but this isnt directly linked with the artistic quality of a work. An artistic expression is not a circus trick, its value is based on esthetics not on how hard it is to perform. If we stick to your example, many of my guitar player friends think Hendrix is not that hard to play for instance but they all respect his artistry and his pioneering. To be able to comprehend why Hendrix is important in rock history or why his music is quality rock, you don't need to read music (many rock musicians can't read notes themselves) or play the guitar. However, you have to be cultured about rock music. If rock music, to you, is as distant as Indonesian folk music, you'll be clueless. So I stand by my point here. Familiarity is the key.
Zenofex said:
Well, actually you're showing the difference between countable and non-countable in grammar, not between measurable and non-measurable, strictly or not. Of course you can measure love, how else you can tell that somebody loves you more or less? If you want to quantify it, make some arbitrary scale and put the numbers as you like. Formally measuring how much somebody loves you serves no practical purpose outside of individual level - society doesn't care if your mother scores 9/10 and your wife 7/10, that's your business with them - but it's otherwise doable.
Well, I see what you mean here but I think you disregard that my idea is NOT that art can be evaluated completely objectively but that everything isn't absolutely subjective. So by not strictly measurable, yet still intelligible, what I mean is that if you have ten cups of water with different heat and you ask a group of people to put them in order from hottest to coldest, with a thermometer, they will all come to the exact same conclusion. Where as, we can have different opinions about which comedian has better sense of humor when comparing two of them, yet, once again, almost everybody will agree that both have better jokes than someone who is completely dull. So "not measurable" doesn't mean absolutely subjective because absolutely subjective is not even intelligible. It is basically saying that your only criteria is if you like it or not and plus whether you like it or not depends on something completely inexplainable. So, we come to:
Zenofex said:
Originality does not imply any sort of "fitness" between what you produce and how the listener perceives it. You can come up with some completely original combination of notes which somebody will call you a genius for inventing it and dance dervish dances on it until reaching nirvana while another will think that it's noise. If you introduce something partially original - in an existing genre for example - then the listener first has to understand that you did it and if it's not too subtle - to actually like it. Respect comes after that. Metallica's "St. Anger" is an original album for the band, however it made a lot of fans actually lose respect for the band because they didn't like it. Respect is impossible without some degree of liking, so saying that you respect someone you don't like is the same as saying you actually like some of the qualities related to that person. Same with "art".
For innovation I think I explained my stance above. Innovation as such is totally pointless in social context if nobody is liking it or using it for whatever purpose (even to point out how things should not be done). You might say that something which few people or nobody cared about in age X is highly appreciated a century after that or whatever but that would again be applying a specific context to your evaluation.
What you're talking about here is being eccentric, rather than original or innovative. In my context, I was talking about musicians that stand out in a genre you are already familiar with and you like. So the context is that they are already liked because of the originality. The Metallica example is not exactly accurate because some metal listeners have this juvenile notion that metal music is less commercial than other forms of popular music (ironically, exactly because that is the image which is sold to them) and like some football fan or whatever, they accuse bands of "selling out" if they "go soft." Also, I already stated that a deviation from the norm may not always result well.
Zenofex said:
Passion/sincerity as everything else already mentioned requires two people to synchronize on some level to be understood. Try playing some moving rock ballad about love, where every single band member invests all of his personal feelings into recreating the drama of the song in a masterful manner to someone who's idea of love is banging as many women as possible and ask him what he got of that "sincerity".
I don't see how shallowness of one of the listeners contradicts with what I said about this. Maybe elaborate a little?
Zenofex said:
On technique I pretty much agree, but I think what you said hardly contributes to the "objectivity-ness" of art. Already talked about that
Once again, not objectivism but rather intersubjective categorizations.
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And of course I can pass judgment about music on all of you plebes, my brain processes music better than yours.
Yeah, right. Maybe in your dreams where we're all thirteen you metalhead.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 04, 2019 09:04 PM |
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artu said:
So when it comes to the artistic value of a music piece, what is intelligible and not completely subjective? As already been said by me and others, technique is not that important in the realm of popular music, it helps if you play good of course, but it is not a deal breaker like in Classical and Jazz, if you are not that good a player. So I’ll save it for last.
"Artistic value" is something you use, but actually "artistic value" is something we didn't even agree about as a term. What you want to do is prove that there is something like an artistic value that is not utterly subjective.
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1- ORIGINALITY: Some artists are unique and they are less replaceable than others. No matter the genre, if you listen to a form of music for long enough, you come to the point where you go “yeah, yeah, I heard ones like that a million times.” This is especially the case with pentatonic music genres, most folk music from anywhere around the world including the blues, classical rock, pop songs, they are mostly your typical pentatonic cycle. Yet, every once in a while someone comes along, and whether it is the sound or lyrics or melodic wit, they are significantly different. And if you are familiar enough with theirt type of music, it is not a subjective matter of taste to recognize their uniqueness. In fact, you may even dislike a musician, yet still respect them for their originality.
2- INNOVATION: This may sound very close to originality but where as someone can be naturally original, innovation is about an avant-garde attitude and the courage to set foot where no one did before. Zappa comes to mind as an example. An artist or any art doesn’t have to be innovative to be good of course, an there can be many failed attempts at good innovation. Yet, when someone doesn’t follow the same old formula and try their own thing, it is a perk. Naturally, each genre have its own ways of innovation, if you tell a classical composer that “Oasis is ripping off The Beatles” he may easily go “well, what is there to rip off?” but that is not much different than expecting photographic realism from an anime or historical accuracy in a comedy.
I happen to think that these are more or less the same. George Martin is both original and innovative, but in the end he was just damn creative, and originality and innovation were by-products of the ideas his artists were confronting him with. WITHOUT his artists, though...
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3- PASSION/SINCERITY: Okay, to be frank, we can never really know if this is an act or genuine. But where as some artists just give the impression of “just doing their craft” others make us feel like they are “living the story” they express musically. If it is a love song, we feel they are truly heartbroken, if it is a sad blues, we feel their desperation. If they are faking it, they are faking it so well, it’s still an artistic achievement. Yet, there are artists that almost everyone intersubjectively (not subjectively) agree on being more genuine than others.
You may not like it, but in my opinion "insincere" or "faked" stuff isn't even art. It may be "entertaining"
for some, but it's not art. "Art" is basically the craft to express a perspective of existence through the mind of the artist. If that expression is "insincere", it's as artistic as a prostitute's work is loving.
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4- TECHNIQUE: If music was an army, having better technique would be like having more tanks and planes, you have more power and ammunition to do what you want to do. In popular music, the battlefield is a small one and the technology is not so advanced, having better technique is like having a better revolver, not a jet. So even if you have technical inadequacies, you can compensate with guerrilla tactics such as originality, innovation, passion, sincerity and of course, most of the time, a combination of all of them. Yet, there are still times that technique becomes a significant part of a band’s importance. Led Zeppelin is historical partly because of John Bonham’s drum playing, for instance. Btw, technique is not only about performing, it also determines what you are capable of composing. It is like the relationship Wittgenstein puts between language and cognition.
You need as much technique as is necessary to express your artistic idea. Technique is fine, but it also runs the danger to cover a creative hole with soulless virtuosity.
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In fact, only a few days ago, JJ said Rolling Stone’s list of best singers is ridiculous, he didn’t say it doesn’t fit his taste or something, he meant the list was wrong. But there would be no right or wrong if all was subjective, right? Neither would be an overwhelming consensus about historical significance of some musicians, and insignificance of others.
Yes, the list is ridiculous, but not because the list is wrong, because it does so many people so much injustice, largely because there is no real "pattern" of judgement. To put Bob Dylan on #7, for example, does basically EVERYONE injustice, everyone behind him AND Boby Dylan, because Bob Dylan is as much a singer as Jimi Hendrix was one (who isn't on the list, if I'm not wrong). It's absolutely ridiculous to put Bob Dylan on the list, because Bob Dylan is MORE than a singer.
Fun fact: Bob Dylan said, that Michelle and Yesterday were crap songs. 
Now. Johnny Cash is on #21 of that list, Neil Young on #37 and less than a quarter on that list are women. And Frank Sinatra - the voice -, doesn't even feature. Lot of rock singers feature - no Joan Jett, though. Grace Slick? Adele? Skin?
UTTERLY subjective and to claim it would be a list of the best singers of all time is as such risdiculous.
EDIT: okay, that got lost somehow with technique. Garage. The Ramones (and others). TECHNIQUE? Not so much.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 05, 2019 06:18 AM |
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Edited by artu at 06:22, 05 Oct 2019.
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JJ said:
”Artistic value" is something you use, but actually "artistic value" is something we didn't even agree about as a term. What you want to do is prove that there is something like an artistic value that is not utterly subjective.
Well, yes. I can not make you magically agree with me but keep in mind that what I wrote is not my personal manifesto of what art should be about. It is a list of qualities that I observe, people respond to in music, and qualities that are intelligible, that is, most people will agree that Tom Waits has originality or that Bilie Holiday sings with deep emotions or Dylan is innovative or John Bonham has exceptional drum technique, IF they are familiar with these artists’ genres, of course. Not all musicians have or must have all of these qualities at once, stuff like Punk or Garage music is excessively about passion/sincerity for instance, not about technique at all. (At least, that’s what it claims to be about.)
JJ said:
You may not like it, but in my opinion "insincere" or "faked" stuff isn't even art. It may be "entertaining"
for some, but it's not art. "Art" is basically the craft to express a perspective of existence through the mind of the artist. If that expression is "insincere", it's as artistic as a prostitute's work is loving.
Assuming you can always detect faking is quite bold. Reminded me of the scene from When Harry Met Sally, where Harry insists he can always tell if a woman is faking it and then Sally does a fake orgasm right there in the diner, leaving him speechless. Here’s a scenario for you, a band writes a song that deeply touches you, it becomes a big hit, and for many years they sing it from this concert to that and they are bored the hell out of it. But since it is always requested, they keep on performing it anyway. Now 20 years later, they visit Germany on tour and you are about to hear them singing it. Would you prefer them to sing the bored version or fake it? I guess, there is something similar to a prostitute’s work in it, but if you do it long enough, what doesn’t? You are a writer yourself, you must already know it is not always about pouring your heart out, sometimes, it is about taking a distance to yourself and not becoming oversentimental. And of course, a simpler question would be, is acting itself not an art anyway?
JJ said:
Yes, the list is ridiculous, but not because the list is wrong, because it does so many people so much injustice, largely because there is no real "pattern" of judgement.
Patato potato. In a realm of utter subjectivity, you can not talk about injustice either. You refer us to a consensus in which the list doesn’t make sense where as it should have. If I’m in court and I object to the judge’s decision of “imprisonment for life” because I stole a chewing gum, calling out his injustice, it is because I assume my objection has some intelligible reasoning behind it and people would get it. Now, there is no “objective justice,” there are no laws about stealing or even a concept such as property in the physical universe. Laws keep changing, what people consider as "justified" keeps on evolving, a verdict can be debatable or questionable. Yet, my objection is not an utterly subjective one, it is nowhere near as subjective as “my favorite color” or “the animal that disgusts me the most” for instance. Because the notion of fairness and what constitutes it is not utterly subjective, although not objective at all either. Similarly, what constitutes the qualities I listed in my earlier post isn’t as subjective as your favorite color either.
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Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 05, 2019 08:45 AM |
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artu said:
JJ said:
You may not like it, but in my opinion "insincere" or "faked" stuff isn't even art. It may be "entertaining"
for some, but it's not art. "Art" is basically the craft to express a perspective of existence through the mind of the artist. If that expression is "insincere", it's as artistic as a prostitute's work is loving.
Assuming you can always detect faking is quite bold. Reminded me of the scene from When Harry Met Sally, where Harry insists he can always tell if a woman is faking it and then Sally does a fake orgasm right there in the diner, leaving him speechless. Here’s a scenario for you, a band writes a song that deeply touches you, it becomes a big hit, and for many years they sing it from this concert to that and they are bored the hell out of it. But since it is always requested, they keep on performing it anyway. Now 20 years later, they visit Germany on tour and you are about to hear them singing it. Would you prefer them to sing the bored version or fake it? I guess, there is something similar to a prostitute’s work in it, but if you do it long enough, what doesn’t? You are a writer yourself, you must already know it is not always about pouring your heart out, sometimes, it is about taking a distance to yourself and not becoming oversentimental. And of course, a simpler question would be, is acting itself not an art anyway?
Yes, of course acting is an art. But an actor - a real one - ian't just faking something, but turns into the person they are incorporating. That's what makes it good (or not so good) and an art. "Believable".
What you are talking about, isn't actually what I meant. What I meant, were computer-produced melodies with non-texts, made by some producer for some artificial "band" put together for commercial purposes. That is fake, empty of meaning. It might still be entertaining enough for many, and some might even call it art, simply because it works (when it works), but for me it's more like a Zombie versus a living person. Something is missing. What you describe, though - I doubt, Paul McCartney will have ever felt like this. However, it's true that artists develop, and sometimes they don't want to play songs from a time they want to leave behind or cannot identify with anymore. If they still play them, it's not faking, provided the song WAS true at some time. Nothing is eternal. Everything must pass, like George Harrison said.
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JJ said:
Yes, the list is ridiculous, but not because the list is wrong, because it does so many people so much injustice, largely because there is no real "pattern" of judgement.
Patato potato. In a realm of utter subjectivity, you can not talk about injustice either. You refer us to a consensus in which the list doesn’t make sense where as it should have. If I’m in court and I object to the judge’s decision of “imprisonment for life” because I stole a chewing gum, calling out his injustice, it is because I assume my objection has some intelligible reasoning behind it and people would get it. Now, there is no “objective justice,” there are no laws about stealing or even a concept such as property in the physical universe. Laws keep changing, what people consider as "justified" keeps on evolving, a verdict can be debatable or questionable. Yet, my objection is not an utterly subjective one, it is nowhere near as subjective as “my favorite color” or “the animal that disgusts me the most” for instance. Because the notion of fairness and what constitutes it is not utterly subjective, although not objective at all either. Similarly, what constitutes the qualities I listed in my earlier post isn’t as subjective as your favorite color either.
Forget this reasoning for the sake of proving something and just look at the list. How did they do it? They asked a jury of 179 musicians and producers, quite probably letting them name 5 or 10 names, with or without internal ranking and then counting the points and letting known artists write a text.
And called the result the list of the 100 best singers of all times? I would call it a survey based on a very small sample, not more. It's a quantified subjective list with a quite presumptuous title. That's what it is.
However, it's completely legal to look at the list and point to some inconsistencies. Like, everyone's native language is English, except Björk, who sings in English, though.
Aretha Franklin is supposed to be the best singer of all times - and Shirley Bassey doesn't even make the top 100? Bob Dylan is supposed to be #7? Singer? Where is Snoop Dogg then? If what Bob Dylan does is considered "singing", that is. Gilbert Becaud? Charles Aznavour?
All that proves just one thing - the list is nonsense, or better, the TITLE is nonsense. It's not a list of the 100 best singers of all times, but a ranking of the most named singers by a jury of 179 people picked by Rolling Stone magazine.
And all those lists prove my point (you can also look at lists from others which are different) - don't do this.
What I instead would do are stuff like 1001 albums you should listen to before you die (in this case, 1001 singers you should listen to before you die).
Makes a lot more sense.
However. I do think, on my list of 1001 singers would be Trent Reznor (and as with RS who named key songs for every singer, I'd name Downward Spiral as an album to listen to). I'm quite sure, while some will find a lot in that album and his singing, a lot would also find it awful, too extreme or painful or depressing or whatever negative came to mind. Or Sonic Youth. Play it a 1000 random people and guess how many will say awesome and how many awful.
Now - and this is the real question - who is going to decide what is "right", awful or awesome? Are we supposed to believe "critics" telling us this is art and that is trash and then think, ok, for me this isn't art but trash, I'm not able to realize something is art even when it kicks me in the face?
When Black Sabbath started doing what they did, the critics hated them - now they are the godfathers of metal. Q Magazine made a double page review of their second album, giving it an average rating with a lot of disappointment and later apologized to them, realizing what the public did immediately, that it was a hell of a fine album.
It's all subjective and hindsight, and in 50 years, Rihanna may be the best of all times. Or Shakira. Or some chap who isn't even born.
It's just business and a way to create interest and make money. There is no such thing as the best singer of all times, and that should be fairly obvious and not up to debate.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 05, 2019 09:58 AM |
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I havent said the list is awesome or based any of my arguments on it. I just used it as an ordinary example of how significant Dylan is, in the very beginning. To be fair, I think their frame is post-1950’s American/English music. That is what the magazine is exclusive about in general anyway. So yes, Maria Callas isnt there either, because she is probably considered out of category, like if your movie isnt in English, the only Oscar you can get is best foreign film, etc.
And yes, of course, there is no THE best singer of all time. But to me, it is just as obvious that there are good singers, there are unique ones, there are ordinary ones and the difference is not absolutely subjective.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 05, 2019 10:34 AM |
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Singing is a PERFORMANCE art. Performance art can be rated for a lot of things.
When Bob Dylan is rated high as a singer, he's rated for something that hasn't much, probably nothing, to do with actual singing. Not with, say, vocal range, timbre, holding a tone and so on.
Basically the same thing than, say, putting Keith Richards high up in the list of best guitar players. He wouldn't be there because of his technique or because he can play most difficult stuff.
And THAT is where we leave the not absolutely subjective and enter the realm of totally and utterly subjective, and this is what you don't want to accept. You want to take this undescribable utterly subjective impression of something being really good, really witty, really intelligent, creative, original - TRUE - and objectify it. And I don't think that is possible. Because to do that, you have to "dig" this kind of stuff (or THINK you do), and, what is more important, digging it must be somewhat better than not digging it. See, if there is something objectively good in how Bob Dylan sings, than everyone not digging that misses something. Is even uncultivated. Doesn't know what good is. Has no idea.
And that is crap. So - there isn't. There are those who find a lot of meaning in what Bobby sings and how he does and in his lyrics, and there are those who don't, or less so. There are those who have been impressed into trying to follow him in their artistic career and there are those who didn't. I don't think, the guys eventually forming Black Sabbath, from the slums of Birmingham, were impressed by him, and in the bigger course of things not only did it not matter, it was probably just as well. (And if you "dig" Black Sabbath you may want to make a case for the effect that cheap B-horrormovies had on culture.)
Of course - the flower-power-avantgarde "diggers" end of the 60s wouldn't have touched Black Sabbath with a 10-feet-pole. You know, trash, cheap, something for the prolls. Unintelligent.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 05, 2019 01:31 PM |
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No, it's not the realm of utterly subjective just because you have to be familiar with a style (or codes as Galaad puts it). That can be said for everything, art or not; if you are alien to its conventions, you can not grasp what's being expressed. You speak as if our preferences and taste is something that's floating in deep space, when in fact, it is mostly about nurture and learning.
And once again, not absolutely subjective does NOT equal objective. There is a concept called intersubjective, the court example was to point out how it works. What I don't understand is, I'm telling you that if you label a list as wrong/ridiculous/doing injustice etc, you are willingly leaving the realm of absolute subjectivity on your own. Yet, you keep on telling me why the list doesn't make sense as if my objective was defending it.
Btw, singer isnt exactly the same as vocalist, there is a nuance. For instance, the genre singer-songwriter does not consist of vocalists with high vocal range but consists of guys like Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, James Taylor etc. The reason I mentioned that list in the first place was, although Dylan doesnt sound pretty by any traditional standard, he was able to set up a new standard and standards are certainly not utterly subjective, they are norms: "Almost no one sings like Elvis Presley anymore. Hundreds try to sing like Dylan. When Sam Cooke played Dylan for the young Bobby Womack, Womack said he didn't understand it. Cooke explained that from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth. To understand Bob Dylan's impact as a singer, you have to imagine a world without Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Lucinda Williams or any other vocalist with a cracked voice, dirt-bowl yelp or bluesy street howl."
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted October 05, 2019 03:00 PM |
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artu said:
No, it's not the realm of utterly subjective just because you have to be familiar with a style (or codes as Galaad puts it). That can be said for everything, art or not; if you are alien to its conventions, you can not grasp what's being expressed. You speak as if our preferences and taste is something that's floating in deep space, when in fact, it is mostly about nurture and learning.
You go from wrong to completely wrong, because if you were right, there would never be anything new. Art is destroying conventions all the time, and once there ARE conventions things become commercial. There was no convention for the Youth of the Western World to grasp the Beatles, but they were still grasped, which is why it's art. Think architecture. That's something oozing into the minds of everyone - so how would a style ever change?
Creative, original, innovative, remember? This works on a much deeper level than "learning" (with the mind).
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And once again, not absolutely subjective does NOT equal objective. There is a concept called intersubjective, the court example was to point out how it works. What I don't understand is, I'm telling you that if you label a list as wrong/ridiculous/doing injustice etc, you are willingly leaving the realm of absolute subjectivity on your own. Yet, you keep on telling me why the list doesn't make sense as if my objective was defending it.
I explained what is wrong with that list. It doesn't help when you repeat something to which I answered at length.
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Btw, singer isnt exactly the same as vocalist, there is a nuance. For instance, the genre singer-songwriter does not consist of vocalists with high vocal range but consists of guys like Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, James Taylor etc. The reason I mentioned that list in the first place was, although Dylan doesnt sound pretty by any traditional standard, he was able to set up a new standard and standards are certainly not utterly subjective, they are norms: "Almost no one sings like Elvis Presley anymore. Hundreds try to sing like Dylan. When Sam Cooke played Dylan for the young Bobby Womack, Womack said he didn't understand it. Cooke explained that from now on, it's not going to be about how pretty the voice is. It's going to be about believing that the voice is telling the truth. To understand Bob Dylan's impact as a singer, you have to imagine a world without Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Lucinda Williams or any other vocalist with a cracked voice, dirt-bowl yelp or bluesy street howl."
No, that's bull again. There are no "norms" in art, there is just style and commercial pressure. No blues singer has ever had a Freddie Mercury voice. Janis Joplin neither. Not even the soul singers. It's ALWAYS been about believability (that's why I wrote something about fake above). That's why it helps as a politician if you have a great voice. David Duchovny (the actor) has a great voice, for example. French chansonniers were there before Bob Dylan as well. That's why the girls went crazy with the Beatles. It just depends on WHAT YOU ARE SINGING AND WHAT KIND OF MUSIC YOU PLAY! Try to imagine Freddie Mercury singing Death Metal. That's an essential part of why things work (or not).
Case in point: the Bee Gees. Had a couple of hits, obviously, fairly conventional, 3 singers. Then they write the music for Saturday Night Fever - and Barry Gibb changes his vocal style completely, suddenly singing high falsetto.
Or take the Doors and Jim Morrison. Utterly believable, and he was reciting self-written poems in concerts (speaking, not singing).
But the underlying reason is that LYRICS changed. If it's about love, a kiss and romance, a nice-sounding voice helps, say, Sinatra. When it's complex themes and critical, a nice-sounding voice doesn't.
Springsteen has a voice that sounds like a wake-up call sometimes. Mark Knopfler's voice, kind of in harmony with his guitar play and the stories he tells. And so on. Believability has always been the key word and is still. Look at the rappers - Eminem as a white one. Without that voice? Hmm.
EDIT: Another example: STeve Winwood, when still with the Spencer Davis Group. He was SEVENTEEN, when he sang Gimme Some Lovin, I'M a Man and Somebody Help Me - but he didn't sound it. So everyone was pretty perplexed first hearing him singing - believably - I'm a Man, then seeing that youth who hs that voice...
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 05, 2019 08:21 PM |
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You go from wrong to completely wrong, because if you were right, there would never be anything new. Art is destroying conventions all the time, and once there ARE conventions things become commercial. There was no convention for the Youth of the Western World to grasp the Beatles, but they were still grasped, which is why it's art. Think architecture. That's something oozing into the minds of everyone - so how would a style ever change?
Creative, original, innovative, remember? This works on a much deeper level than "learning" (with the mind).
That must be like the most fantastic logical jump ever. "New" doesn't fall from the sky, it is the transformed version of the old. The Beatles come from rock n roll, that comes from R & B, that comes from blues, blues comes from work songs on the cottonfields, etc. Styles don't evolve from some tabula rasa mind. There is no such thing.
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I explained what is wrong with that list. It doesn't help when you repeat something to which I answered at length.
Tell me about it! Since I explained at length in return, that it's not about what's wrong with that list but about "you being able to categorize any list as wrong" which contradicts with the claim of utter subjectivity.
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There are no "norms" in art, there is just style and commercial pressure. No blues singer has ever had a Freddie Mercury voice. Janis Joplin neither. Not even the soul singers. It's ALWAYS been about believability
Styles ARE the norms of art. Social norms are regarded as collective representations of acceptable group conduct as well as individual perceptions of particular group conduct. They can be viewed as cultural products (including values, customs, and traditions) which represent individuals' basic knowledge of what others do and think that they should do.From a sociological perspective, social norms are informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society. That's why Picasso was so sarcastic about styles:“It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” Dylan, of course, did not start the importance of believability by himself, he magnified and centralized it combining poetry, bluesy singing, politics, folk and rock n roll, in a unique way that's never done before. Howlin' Wolf (much earlier than Dylan) also sings with a cracked voice, but he is trying to sing beautifully, where as if Dylan is doing a drunk in a song, he may go off key on purpose. Giving Doors as another example is way too anachronic. Jim Morrison is a typical successor (not imitator) of Dylan. By the time the Doors had their first album (1967), Dylan had like 6 or 7 and he had already gone electric. There are bits of what he did before him as wall, of course, but he is the one that came up with the synthesis that had the most impact on mid-20th century popular music. And that is certainly not a subjective statement regarding my taste.
(Btw, if by Freddie Mercury voice you mean, long range and clean color, lots a blues singers had it, especially Jump Blues singers of Big Band Era never have cracked voices.)
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JollyJoker
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posted October 05, 2019 09:26 PM |
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I'm sure you'll some time explain me how the 13-year-olds in 1964 were familiar with the "conventions" - what conventions are you actually talking about? Mick Jagger singing he can't get no satisfaction, no girlie action? 1965?
I think, art is BEYOND conventions - everyone can feel it.
And styles are not the norms of art. Styles are the norms of commerce and critics, of theoreticists who like to put labels on things. And they are also trying to be the norms. The artists don't actually care. THAT's why Picasso was so sarcastic.
And of course everyone comes from somewhere - even Bob Dylan, as I said myself.
You don't seem to be able or willing to actually debate the points I made about your "list of the 100 best singers".
Actually, you don't debate ANY point I made.
And where did I say Jim Morrison would imitate Bob Dylan? It looks like you didn't read anything I wrote - all art IS ABOUT believability, and has been before Dylan, but voices must fit style and lyrics. Try Dylan singing Strangers in the Night and see how that works. And most Blues singers of old I know have rough voices, voices that can transmit the singer has had a hard time along his life.
My impression is now, that you are just arguing here to somehow prove that BOB DYLAN is objectively better than everyone else ever was and will be. I have no clue, though, because I don't like Bob Dylan that much. Sure, I have two or three albums, but I like Neil Young a lot more. Of course I wouldn't say he's better or worse, I just like him more, because his angriness is speaking much more to me. Rocking in the Free World, for example is just awesome in its blunt force - but that's just me.
In any case I'm done discussing Bob Dylan.
And I think I'm done discussing at all, because I don't think you are actually discussing with me.
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 05, 2019 10:14 PM |
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Edited by artu at 22:16, 05 Oct 2019.
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I'm sure you'll some time explain me how the 13-year-olds in 1964 were familiar with the "conventions" - what conventions are you actually talking about? Mick Jagger singing he can't get no satisfaction, no girlie action? 1965?
I think, art is BEYOND conventions - everyone can feel it.
The Stones grew up on old blues records, it's on any book or documentary you can find about them. They were obsessed with finding and listening to such old records. Keith Richards says listening to Robert Johnson as a kid changed his life. They obviously come from Rhythm & Blues including the song Satisfaction.Most of their early work is direct cover songs anyway. That's how they knew about the conventions, they directly repeated them.
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And styles are not the norms of art. Styles are the norms of commerce and critics, of theoreticists who like to put labels on things. And they are also trying to be the norms. The artists don't actually care. THAT's why Picasso was so sarcastic.
They are exactly the norms of art and they pre-date commerce and critics. Some artists care (to excel in a tradition) and some artists don't but whether they care or not is irrelevant, you are born into styles. It's not much different than being born into a language with its synonyms, expressions, intonation, phrases, proverbs. You can transform or merge styles, but they are not just labels, they are real results of memetic evolution. That's why Picasso did his homework and learned to paint like Raphael for 4 years before being sarcastic about it.
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You don't seem to be able or willing to actually debate the points I made about your "list of the 100 best singers".
Actually, you don't debate ANY point I made.
It must not be surprising that I don't debate about the list itself because I dont care about the list, I picked a paragraph from the list, to exemplify how things are not utterly subjective. The list is only relevant in terms of the contradiction it puts you in. I am not the one who mistifies everything and says "all is absolutely subjective," you are, so it is your position that disables to make any comments about the list anyway.
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And where did I say Jim Morrison would imitate Bob Dylan? It looks like you didn't read anything I wrote - all art IS ABOUT believability, and has been before Dylan, but voices must fit style and lyrics. Try Dylan singing Strangers in the Night and see how that works. And most Blues singers of old I know have rough voices, voices that can transmit the singer has had a hard time along his life.
Giving Morrison as an example was pointless, because the point of the paragraph is that Dylan changed behavioral patterns in singing and gave birth to a new style. Morrison comes AFTER him anyway, so saying he does this or that TOO, doesnt make any sense.
And Dylan actually did Sinatra standards like Strangers in the Night in his last 2 albums. Even though not that particular song, if I remember correctly. It surprisingly works well.
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My impression is now, that you are just arguing here to somehow prove that BOB DYLAN is objectively better than everyone else ever was and will be. I have no clue, though, because I don't like Bob Dylan that much. Sure, I have two or three albums, but I like Neil Young a lot more. Of course I wouldn't say he's better or worse, I just like him more, because his angriness is speaking much more to me. Rocking in the Free World, for example is just awesome in its blunt force - but that's just me.
Then your impression is utterly wrong.I already gave my intersubjective parameters about why music pieces are comparable beyond a notion of absolute subjectivity, I told you, hadn't this been the case, you wouldn't be able to call the list (any list) flawed anyway. Now, it is you who keeps coming back to the list as if I was defending the list and it is you who says things like "believability didnt start with Dylan." That's not what the quoted paragraph suggests, you caricaturize what it emphasizes. So naturally, I object.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 05, 2019 10:53 PM |
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artu said:
it is you who says things like "believability didnt start with Dylan." That's not what the quoted paragraph suggests, you caricaturize what it emphasizes. So naturally, I object.
Then your idea of art is fundamentally different from mine, because believability is a necessary ingredient for art. If believability started with Bob Dylan, there was no art before him, which we both don't believe. So believability cannot be a necessary ingredient of art for you. Which would mean, everything DYLAN HIMSELF liked wasn't believable. Or what the Stones liked. The old Blues guys. Chuck Berry. Ray Charles. Buddy Holly. Endless list.
Strange.
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 05, 2019 11:32 PM |
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Edited by artu at 23:33, 05 Oct 2019.
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No, I meant the quoted paragraph doesn’t suggest believabilty started with Dylan anyway, hence, your objection to the paragraph is based on a caricaturization of it.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 06, 2019 08:00 AM |
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It does. "From now on" is pretty clear. In case you mean, he said from now on you need to be able to sing, believable is enough, he fails to point to the important part: "believable" is not only a function of the voice, but also of the lyrics and the music. When Bob Dylan went electric, what was the problem with his old audience? Exactly, loss of believability.0
You are also wrong about conventions. Everyone (except those who are explicitely taught right from the start as a young child, for example by their parents) is AUDIENCE first. They listen to stuff, in those times in the radio. And they pick their poison. They could have picked everything, but they picked THEM. Others picked other things. Or maybe the music picked them, who knows. And only THEN they started to delve into it, which is normal. Trying to understand what these guys do and how they do it. If you call that "convention" the next step for an artist is to destroy it. It's not that different from, say, playing HoMM. You learn it - and then you break it, doing all kinds of things that "break the system".
Why do you pick something specific? I'd think, because it talks to you on a deeper level - you seem to have an understandind already.
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Drakon-Deus
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Qapla'
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posted October 06, 2019 09:56 AM |
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JJ, check HCM, please.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 06, 2019 12:35 PM |
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Edited by artu at 12:36, 06 Oct 2019.
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JJ said:
It does. "From now on" is pretty clear. In case you mean, he said from now on you need to be able to sing, believable is enough, he fails to point to the important part: "believable" is not only a function of the voice, but also of the lyrics and the music. When Bob Dylan went electric, what was the problem with his old audience? Exactly, loss of believability.
JJ, Sam Cooke's explanation is an emphasis about the change in priorities and a new approach. It doesn't mean people had zero concern about believability before. Think of it like this, there was a time in cinema when people got shot, they didn't bleed, because blood was a taboo on screen. And then someone came and said, "screw this, that's not what it looks like when people are shot." Does this mean directors had zero concern about the believability of death scenes before that? No. It means there is a new understanding about how things should be done. Or think of naturalism in literature, the whole "a novel should reflect society like a mirror" approach. It doesn't mean writers before had nothing do with social reality, does it? It is an emphasis about where the main focus is directed now.
Some of Dylan's conservative audience reacted to him going electric because back in 1965, hardcore folk fans labeled that rock sound cheap dance music as opposed to serious protest music. Rock was usually considered by many as purely commercial teenage music back then, 1965 and 1968 are very different times in this regard and partly because of what Dylan did. Think of it like some Metallica fans reacting to them when they performed with Lady Gaga.
About the rest, I don't see how it is even an objection to what I told you. They heard the music on the radio, they bought the records and there is a continuity in conventions. I wouldn't say they "broke" the conventions, since Stones are not a deconstructionist type of band, they rather developed their own "Brit Rock" style, adding to what they learned and imitated in the beginning.
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JollyJoker
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posted October 06, 2019 01:20 PM |
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artu said:
JJ, Sam Cooke's explanation is an emphasis about the change in priorities and a new approach. It doesn't mean people had zero concern about believability before. Think of it like this, there was a time in cinema when people got shot, they didn't bleed, because blood was a taboo on screen. And then someone came and said, "screw this, that's not what it looks like when people are shot." Does this mean directors had zero concern about the believability of death scenes before that? No. It means there is a new understanding about how things should be done. Or think of naturalism in literature, the whole "a novel should reflect society like a mirror" approach. It doesn't mean writers before had nothing do with social reality, does it? It is an emphasis about where the main focus is directed now.
I think, that this is a massive overstatement of what Dylan's singing actually meant. It's Sam Cook overstating s point to drive something home with a young guy concerned about his perceived shortcomings. It's by no means unheard of, and, yure Sam Cooke is focussing on the singing, but the actually important thing is WHAT he sings, not that his voice is somewhat not really a SINGING voice.
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Some of Dylan's conservative audience reacted to him going electric because back in 1965, hardcore folk fans labeled that rock sound cheap dance music as opposed to serious protest music. Rock was usually considered by many as purely commercial teenage music back then, 1965 and 1968 are very different times in this regard and partly because of what Dylan did. Think of it like some Metallica fans reacting to them when they performed with Lady Gaga.
What I say, believability.
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About the rest, I don't see how it is even an objection to what I told you. They heard the music on the radio, they bought the records and there is a continuity in conventions. I wouldn't say they "broke" the conventions, since Stones are not a deconstructionist type of band, they rather developed their own "Brit Rock" style, adding to what they learned and imitated in the beginning.
I was talking about the AUDIENCE the whole time, not the artists (but they started as audience as well). The audience has no clue about "heritage" when they start digging something. That only comes with study. But all artists will eventually start to leave the heritage behind and create something "more", most of the time by destructing what I wouldn't call heritage, but conventions (in a different way then you).
EDIT: Believability is an awkward word. I think the right English word is credibility.
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted October 06, 2019 04:18 PM |
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Edited by artu at 16:42, 06 Oct 2019.
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The word believability exists, wiktionary gives the meaning as "the state or quality of being believable" which fits perfectly.
Credibility is used under different circumstances, like when you ask for a loan or when you vouch for something. But if a singer sings robotic or a book has characters that are unbelievable, I've never heard of them being referred to as "not having credibility." A book has believable characters, not credible.
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What I say, believability.
But they didnt react because his singing style or what he was singing about changed. They were just conservative and opposed him "going rock." So, I'd say it's irrelevant regarding the subject at hand.
Was Cooke overstating, well, an emphasis always has a tendency to be a little hyperbolic. But if there wasn't any truth in his observation, they wouldn't quote him 50 years later. And while the content of Dylan's lyrics mattered just as well, Dylan's singing doesn't touch you only because of that, he really "acts out" emotions with great nuance and not just tender and delicate ones, that was the norm back then. Just take a look at Baby, Let Me Follow You Down from his 1962 debut album. The songs's lyrics are nothing special or political. It's a simple love song. He is this excited kid begging a girl, he deliberately sounds so clueless, like a complete rookie. Had Sinatra sung about being clueless, he'd never sound clueless, he'd sound dramatic.
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Zenofex
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posted October 06, 2019 05:52 PM |
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Edited by Zenofex at 17:59, 06 Oct 2019.
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You two are perfectly capable of privatizing any discussion and then going to war over the subject. Capitalists down to the core.  Don't have the time to read through all of this, so I'll reply only to artu's post after mine above.
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A musician can realize it is harder to play something (or not) but this isnt directly linked with the artistic quality of a work. An artistic expression is not a circus trick, its value is based on esthetics not on how hard it is to perform. If we stick to your example, many of my guitar player friends think Hendrix is not that hard to play for instance but they all respect his artistry and his pioneering. To be able to comprehend why Hendrix is important in rock history or why his music is quality rock, you don't need to read music (many rock musicians can't read notes themselves) or play the guitar. However, you have to be cultured about rock music. If rock music, to you, is as distant as Indonesian folk music, you'll be clueless. So I stand by my point here. Familiarity is the key.
Not sure why you think that a circus trick can't be artistic expression but bar that. This is not about how hard something is to play but about knowledge applied to an existing piece of music (take any other art form, the principle is the same) - something which you seemingly admit yourself but mask it as "familiarity". A few months ago I watched a video in youtube of some landscape photographer who was explaining how he progressed through the field to the point where he is now and he gave one example which I think illustrates my point pretty well: When he was still relatively "green", he made a photo which he was proud of for some time. Then, as he improved his technique and gained more experience, he began to spot issues with it - lack of central topic, chaotic distribution of the framed objects, attention-scattering details which confuse the viewer and so on - and in a few years he no longer thought of that photo as an amazing piece, despite being excellent in terms of lightning, colour distribution and whatnot. Translating that into the field of music, someone who knows how to play something or at least grasps the concept beyond "you push those buttons and the piano dings" will have a different opinion of some tune than a regular listener simply because he knows what he's listening to and processes the information from more angles. That doesn't mean "more correct" opinion, mind you, just different.
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Well, I see what you mean here but I think you disregard that my idea is NOT that art can be evaluated completely objectively but that everything isn't absolutely subjective. So by not strictly measurable, yet still intelligible, what I mean is that if you have ten cups of water with different heat and you ask a group of people to put them in order from hottest to coldest, with a thermometer, they will all come to the exact same conclusion. Where as, we can have different opinions about which comedian has better sense of humor when comparing two of them, yet, once again, almost everybody will agree that both have better jokes than someone who is completely dull. So "not measurable" doesn't mean absolutely subjective because absolutely subjective is not even intelligible. It is basically saying that your only criteria is if you like it or not and plus whether you like it or not depends on something completely inexplainable.
Yeah, but will all of them find them exactly as good? A joke is as good as the listener understands it. You can make incredibly subtle jokes about engineers which would make a company of engineers literally ROFL, then tell them to a group of farmers and watch them blink suspiciously or confused. Or you can make the same joke to two engineers - one with 30 years of experience and another who's just graduated from the university and it's quite likely to get different response from them. Add more variables and it becomes impossible to apply any sort of objectivity which is not artificially forced.
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What you're talking about here is being eccentric, rather than original or innovative. In my context, I was talking about musicians that stand out in a genre you are already familiar with and you like. So the context is that they are already liked because of the originality. The Metallica example is not exactly accurate because some metal listeners have this juvenile notion that metal music is less commercial than other forms of popular music (ironically, exactly because that is the image which is sold to them) and like some football fan or whatever, they accuse bands of "selling out" if they "go soft." Also, I already stated that a deviation from the norm may not always result well.
Don't know what are you talking about regarding Metallica, "St. Anger" wasn't disliked because it was soft (it certainly isn't) but because it deviated from the usual sound of the band too much in an unacceptable way for a lot of people. For me it just sounds terrible, tradition be damned. Yet, some people actually think that album is good, very good even, and they consider themselves just as big fans of the band. You can see a similar pattern among all bands and performers who introduce something new - in a genre, in their own evolution, doesn't matter - some people can't stand it, others praise it, with a thousands shades of grey mass standing between them. Originality on its own does not imply any sort of acceptance or appreciation.
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I don't see how shallowness of one of the listeners contradicts with what I said about this. Maybe elaborate a little?
Erm... because he doesn't care that you find him shallow? That's quite a subjective definition by the way. In the "technical" part up there I mentioned about the information processing which obviously isn't the same between one "deep" person and a "shallow" one, which actually means that the first one's being resonates with the song for as many reasons as you like - brain structure, genes, biochemicals running through his body, health condition, etc. - while the second's just isn't as responsive to that kind of external stimulus. Doesn't sound very romantic when put that way but really, the other type of "shallowness" and its antagonisms sound like mysticism to me.
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