Lak

The recent thread asking for a defense of rap music gave me the idea for this thread: the question was essentially, can rap music be justified musically, the main argument being that it was largely devoid of musicality.

Well, I think long and hard about this kind of stuff, because a filthy filthy music geek, and that sort of shit turns me on.

My conclusion so far is this: there's two types of music consumption. The first is music you listen to in order to appreciate it. The second you listen to in order to thrash around and have a good time.

Type I: Musicians and what I call music appreciators (those who have a complex and mature taste in music but don't necessarily make it themselves) do this. Something for those who really know music, and care about music, Type I music can but doesn't usually attract Type II listers. The music is complex and rich, deep, and well, highly musical. For me this is Pink Floyd, Radiohead and so on.

Type II: Music doesn't have to be richly musical to be enjoyed. If one goes out clubbing, any cheap-ass house music will get you going. You can dance to any commercial trash with a keen partner. Even Type I music consumers indulge a little. It's not great music. Sometimes its not even good music. But its there to serve a purpose (to get on down, usually). For me these are acts like Limp Bizkit, Powerman 5000, etc.

Whether its some hollow rock n' roll where the songs are generic, the lyrics are meaningless, but somehow its inexplicably just kinda fun to listen to, or some new-school throwaway hip-hop artist spitting out pseudoenglish to a music-devoid drum loop but still churning up the dancefloor, the attraction of Type II stuff is obvious. Don't you sometimes watch Arnie movies for the explosions? No-one would confuse True Lies with groundbreaking cinema, but the audience in undeniably there.


Occasionally I find the odd act that transcends these spaces, where the music is somehow both meaningful musically and a cheap thrill at the same time. These are usually silly but relatively unique bands like Electric Six or MSI. Mr Bungle probably goes in there as well. Also predictable but meaningful stuff like Jonathan Coulton. I don't know if these are their own category or not, but they usually earn themselves profound listening time on my playlist

Thoughts?

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roachboy

this again.
except in this b-side remix, "what i like" is transposed as "musicality".

so you dont like hip hop.
but you like other things.
that's nice.

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Lak

Way to completely miss the point.
Please focus on the proposal that there are two kinds of listening to music.
Also I present that musicality is not subjective, but something that can be identified by those who have experience constructing or analysing music.

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Baraka_Guru

If you want to abide by the premise that music isn't subjective (which, by the way, is an archaic [i.e. pre-20th century] approach to the arts), then it could be argued that even hip-hop is musical. The "pseudoenglish" to which you refer is the main instrumentation. But first we would require a universal, objective definition of "music," and, perhaps, a related discussion of what makes something "musical." I'll leave this to you, Lak, since it is you who has established this premise.

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jewels

Anti-rappers tend to have heard bits and pieces and make generalizations. Could someone say all jazz music is a bunch of saxes and flutes making Sunday morning brunch sounds? Or all pop music sounds like Britney Spears?

Who are you (or anyone else) to judge what is and isn't "real" music? Look at the origins of music history. The growth and change over the years. How about ancient chanting and poetry, the Blue Man Group?

Those words are meant to put down people that enjoy dancing? Do you like consider the hardcore or grindcore genres music or are their listeners just thrashing, too?

I'd call it a flawed theory of a closed mind.

I know I'm in the minority on this one, but I never understood why so many people don't bother to listen to some good hip hop music. And, it might help if you listened enough to distinguish the two.

I guess I'm just not mature enough to agree that what you like is best. I don't fit into your classifications.

roachboy

you're right, lak.

your "argument" was more--um----tautological than i made it out to be.
you act like you just discovered a distinction between hearing and listening.
from there, your argument is:
if you listen---or, more bluntly: if you agree with me----then you'll agree with me.

jewels bit a demonstration from your post in no. 5, which may or may not be directly above this one.




so i take it that you don't like hip-hop.
that's nice.



past that, there's no there there.

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filtherton

Well, all music really is organized periodic variation in pressure. It doesn't even have to be organized.

So all this high-minded categorization is pointless. That you would prefer certain patterns of pressure variations of others says nothing about whether anything qualifies as "valid" music. Anyone who considers themselves a connoisseur in the sense that they are somehow "better" at discerning musical quality (in any sort of nontechnical sense) than other folks is actually the kind of person better known as a music snob.

There is no objective barometer by which to judge musical taste, and if you feel the need to use your musical preferences to make yourself feel better than other people then you're actually just insecure.

Lak

Absolutely not. It is not a less legitimate kind of music. Music is music, and all kinds can be considered musical and legitimate. Of course, if you want to get technical, a recording (or performance) of one man sitting in a room occasionally coughing is music as well.

There are those who when they listen to this music are inspired by the intertwining of the rhythm of the instruments and the riffs and progression of the guitar. These people are likely musicians or experienced ("mature"?) listeners of this genre. I consider these people more... I wouldn't say "qualified", but perhaps "suitable" to decide what is musical and what isn't. Taste is irrelevant here.

Anyone can have a taste in music. However not everyone is equally justified to bag on stuff they don't like. That sounds elitist, I know, (and I don't pretend I'm not an elitist), but consider an analogy:
Is simply anyone (I'm going to use 'qualified' here, bear with) 'qualified' to make judgments as to the soundness of a building? Most people will have a fair idea of what looks stable and what doesn't, but some will be better suited to make that call, based on experience they have with engineering, whether its life experience or hell, they might actually be an engineer for a job.

Hip-hop really wasn't what I wanted to talk about. I clearly made a mistake in referencing the thread that inspired this train of thought. Incidentally, I do listen to some hip-hop and consider some of it strongly musical. Any music that I do listen to I consider "good" (obviously).

Also Jewels don't take offense to my use of the term 'mature' - I don't mean that with the connotations it has in english, please relate it to the 'experience' I mentioned in this post.

Oh and roach I'm TOTALLY missing the basis behind your rephrasing of my argument - can you break it down a bit more? And what made you edit your post? They're like the same.

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Willravel

I get that appreciation is subjective, rb. That hardly means, though, that there's no difference between commercialized music and non-commercialized music.

aberkok

You know, splitting music into 2 categories doesn't seem like a good premise for a fruitful discussion.

More like some kind of joke... "You know, there's two kinds of music in this world!!!...

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filtherton

I think that the ability to judge a work of art in a technical sense, while perhaps useful in some very limited respects, is completely irrelevant in terms of being an authority on that work's value, or meaning.

For instance, note this:


It was taken by the hubble telescope, and it is technically at least as good (arguably many times better) as any landscape photograph that ansel adams ever took. If technical skill was all that was important, then, since all technical skill is is some sort of adherence to some specific set of guidelines for how a certain piece should be made, humans are destined to be overshadowed as artists by computers.

Good music makes you feel something interesting, that's it.

As for musical "experts" judging music based on their keenly attuned criteria, well, kenny g and trent reznor are both accomplished musicians, musical experts if you will. I imagine that their ideas of what constitutes good music would be rather divergent.

meanSpleen

Is this Type 1 music that is "complex and rich, deep, and well, highly musical"

Or is this Type 2 music that I can"thrash around and have a good time"

The consistent categorization either by genre, or mental themes is truly and wholly one of the worst ways to try and explain music to someone. Even songs or pieces by the same artist can invoke different meanings, feelings and thoughts beyond simple generalizations about what section of the music world they appear to fit into..

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Lak

Hmmm, well that does certainly seem to put the bullet to my theory.
Ah well, science is done.
I was kinda attempting to construct a generalised idea for why I enjoy listening to some music which I can identify according to my own criteria as not as musical as other things I listen to.
If no-one else has any additional thoughts, I guess this one was short lived.

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meanSpleen

It was worth a shot. Just realize that yes, it is a personal thing. If it works for you then go for it. The only problem is that others (as evidenced above) may or may not agree with you. The same goes for us as well. If we were to post a thread regarding how we categorize, file, theme, tag, etc. music then it would almost assuredly receive at least some type of criticism; agreement or not.

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ratbastid

Derwood

what about people appreciating the same music in two different ways? some like Tool because it is rooted in complex mathematical whatever, while some like it because it "rawks".

i hate the whole "musicians are more qualified to distinguish between good and bad music" argument. just because you know the difference between keys and chord forms and time signatures doesn't make you any more qualified to say what people should or shouldn't like. Music, like any other art, is 100% subjective. My wife listens to complete shit music (by my standards) but does that mean she shouldn't listen to it?

what's hilarious is whenever i get into this type of argument with music student snobs, i invariably come to find that they like bands like Dream Theater

roachboy

here's an example...

it is not obvious how to listen to 12-tone music, not to mention the variety of approaches that have followed 12-tone music. it involves a break with modes of constructing phrases that a lot of folk are used to, for example, so that even quite sophisticated listeners who have not spent some time with this way of thinking about the relations amongst/between pitches may not hear any structure at all.

i remember when i was about 20 i had a music theory tutor who introduced me to anton webern's op. 30 for piano. it blew my mind. a little while later, my father was visiting--he was steeped in late haydn, beethoven, etc.--i played the webern for him and all he heard was chaos.

what is complexity?
is it alot of notes?
is it a function of contrapunctual movement?
is it a function of the organization of rhythm?
is a complex music one that stops and starts alot?
is there one standard for evaluating complexity?

what do you do with the simple fact that complexity operates with reference to ways of ordering sound that you already know, and seems to work only in relation to what you already know--so that if you encounter types of organization you are not familiar with, you do not hear complexity, but only disorder?

this is not the same as saying that appreciation is subjective...more that it is relative. from a certain viewpoint, radiohead songs are kind of complex--from another, they are inventive reworkings of a form that is in itself very limited in terms of organizational options, relations to pitch and timbre and rhythm...but not terribly complex.

from the above, it kinda follows that the problem i really had with lak's op is the decision to rule out forms of sound organization as "music"...

the way i look at it, folk who devote themselves to a craft are to be supported, even if you don't particularly like the results. their committment is not yours, and does not have to be. so when you say "x is not music" what it seems to me that you are doing mostly is dissing the committments of the musicians who work within that form--the form you are obviously free to make of what you like, but to say that the form you dislike isn't music seems absurd.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

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mixedmedia

I love Radiohead and I love Run DMC.

And I never thrash.

But, I can dance to them both.

I don't look for complexity in music, and I do consider myself somewhat of a music snob. What I look for is soul, to borrow a term which describes something not easily described.

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Halx

Gettin' funky on that mic like an old batch of collard greens

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Luke Cage

To each his own, although I for one would never deny myself the sweet sounds of all types of music. From Rakim, Digable Planets, Tribe, De La, Group Home, Jeru, BDP, Gangstarr and a slew of others...

to Jimi, Cream, Zep, The Who, Young to Williams, Cash, Cline to King, Parker, Byrd, Davis, to Minor Threat, Black Flag, Circle Jerks to Social D all the way through to Sublime.

It's just too much fun to listen to it all, and everything inbetween.

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Lak

I had abandoned this one but it seems to have sprouted new leaves, and Derwood seems to have actually pinned down the idea I originally wanted to discuss...
This is actually what I (was) saying. Different people take away different things from the same music. It's not really dividing the music, unless this musicality is actually objective.
(Roach: Which is an idea I presented for discussion, not as my own truth. Thankyou.)
No it doesn't, and it shouldn't. 'Like' is the keyword there, 'like'. There's no accounting for taste, but perhaps music can be "bad" and can be enjoyed anyway. I'm not necessarily sticking to this, it stems from the original proposal.

And it doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to it either... in a type II way.

For example... and this really made me grin, cos I just borrowed the whole Dream Theatre back catalogue from a mate of mine who completely jizzes over them
Heres what I think about Dream Theatre. I will probably cop some flak for this.
I only have an interest in Dream Theatre because I think Rudess has a cool style. Overall I find the lyrics to be weak and generic, although the singer has good technique. There are some songs that have a danceable energy to them, and some which are just boring. Overall I'd say the band isn't that great, although credit for deliberately trying to mix things up with unexpected time signatures. I'd still go to a DT gig for a kick ass Type II experience. But its Type I when I listen academically only to concentrate on the keyboards.
Anyone relate to this?

An aside:
Cage's 4:33 is an infamous piece, but one that I find interesting in an academic (Type I?) way. If anyone's unfamiliar with this, its 4:33 of silence performed on the piano. And yet, its not silence. The idea is that the contents of the piece, and what you should be listening to, is whatever ambient noise is going on around you during that time, whether performed or recorded. The point is that there is (what cage considers) musical noise going on around us all the time.
I find this to be a profound idea, and one that was worth exploring. But I wouldn't listen to this song for fun. Using my own personal criteria, I'd evaluate this song to have absolutely zero type II value. However, while I simply couldn't imagine it having Type II value for anyone at all, someone who has studied higher levels of music, is more familiar with Cage's philosophy and body of work, or even has been into music in general for longer than I have might be 'more qualified' to make that assessment. I can make it for myself. But he might be able to tell me I'm wrong. It doesn't mean I have to dance to 4:33.

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