pure_mercury
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- Joined
- Feb 28, 2008
- Messages
- 6,946
- MBTI Type
- ESFJ
I don't know what to say. It doesn't make an impact on me.
How loud do you play your music?
I don't know what to say. It doesn't make an impact on me.
How loud do you play your music?
If it's too loud, you're too old!
I just listened to The Bends again.
I didn't even notice when "Just" was on.
But taste in music has no objectivity. Was is considered good is entirely in the mind, and in every mind it is different. And no one, you included, actually has a rational explanation for why you like any music at all. Response to music is inately irrational.
But I think you're right, there isn't a way to argue that the Beatles are better than the Backstreet Boys, and it does become a bunch of people shrieking about biases. That's why I think it's a waste of time.
If I argued about who demonstrated more skill, then yeah, I could try to make an objective argument. But that's not the same as saying someone made music I like.
I mean, if you don't enjoy that album/Radiohead in general, then fair enough. I can't tell you what to like or dislike.
And though I'm 99.9% sure you don't care to hear it, I can give you lots of theoretical reasons that "Just" (along with almost every track on that album) are really interesting innovations in the fields of songwriting and production.
In other words, you may not like it, which is fair enough, but based on a number of factors chances are it's probably good.
In reality, you can't judge the objective quality of any music without listening to a lot of other music from the same period/understanding the cultural context in which it was conceived--otherwise you simply have nothing to go on.
When you say "demonstrated more skill", you have to be careful because "skill" means a lot of different things and most non-musicians are inclined to interpret it as "skill=technical chops", which is ridiculous. If that were the case, Yngwie Malmsteen would be universally considered the greatest guitarist of all time, which is stupid.
In terms of music critique, "skill" doesn't refer to technical playing chops or to emotional impact on particular people, but rather to how the artist compares to other artists in similar genres from the same time period. The context is EVERYTHING.
Many NP types have trouble evaluating music according to the contextual standard in which it was conceived/created. Since Ne refuses to accept conventional wisdom on anything/always insists on inventing something new, it will often combine with Ti/Fi to declare anything that doesn't completely redefine the rules/invent its own entire new genre as automatically bad.
Ti/Fi will often lead Ps to judge art according to arbitrary inner standards of what "good art" is and hold lots of art up to standards it never purported to meet. (i.e., "This rap song SUCKS because it doesn't sound like [my favorite genre here.]"
Well, if you'd stop evaluating rap songs according to the standards of some completely different genre, and paid attention to the music itself in context, you might realize why a lot of it is very good, even if you don't personally enjoy it.
NPs often have trouble accepting whatever they personally define as so-called "low-brow art" because they refuse to accept it for what it is/seem unable to consider anything as a genre piece.
It's especially bad because NPs pride themselves on being outwardly open/creative/flexible, so it often leads us to either consider our arbitrary musical standards as "objectively correct" (this is a function of Ji) or to just say fuck it and pretend that it's all 100% subjective so that there's no reason to even bother. Both of these approaches are inferior.
In reality, you can't judge the objective quality of any musicwithout listening to a lot of other music from the same period/understanding the cultural context in which it was conceived--otherwise you simply have nothing to go on.because there isn't any.
When you're a music reviewer, it's not your job to simply tell the readers what you enjoy/don't enjoy. You should be able to write good reviews of albums you don't like and vice versa; no one wants to hear about John Q. Critic's personal biases.
You don't think good music is good irrespective of context?
I do agree with part of your post.
Radiohead, to me, is an example of our arbitrary tastes and success criteria are in the music business. There are somewhat similar-sounding bands (at least when compared to other successful bands) out there that the average joe might like, that he just never got a chance to hear. Thus Radiohead starts getting worshipped as something otherworldly since "there's clearly nothing like it".
magic porygon said:--long post that i didn't finish reading--
OK, regardless of what you guys think, let's pull back to the main topic:
We didn't get a new EP, but we did get the official release of "These Are My Twisted Words," the song in question which sparked this whole fire of speculation. The song is available for digital download for free from the band's official website or via torrent. Sweeeet.
I really liked the artwork. The song sounded Krautrock-y, a bit like Liars circa Drum's Not Dead. Still a great song, but I definitely need to give it more time to grow on me .The tracing paper translucent artwork was interesting. Song was decent.