"The Case Against Pop & Rock"

[dr. zooeuss]

...Lately I've been doing some reading up on music, and honestly it's caused me to somewhat re-evaluate how I see "pop" music (which I would say includes most rock music, and a good portion of U2's music.)

I'm not a musician or an expert on music, but sometimes I do wonder what effect the last 50 or so years have had on music in general. ie: is pop music dumbing down music for everyone? For all the greatness of U2, are they contributing to this sort of dumbing down in some way? Edge is a great musician, Bono a great lyricist, though how do they stack up against past centuries of music?

I haven't had time to read this whole article yet, but it seems like a good (and challenging) starting point.

http://nomuzak.co.uk/against_pop.html

Just looked a bit deeper, to see whether U2 are mentioned at all, and a few of Bono's (in my opinion, at the worse end of the scale) lyrics are quoted on this page, in less-than-complementary way:

http://nomuzak.co.uk/against_pop1.html

Just like pop music fans can be stereotypically portrayed as shallow and talentless... classical music fans can be seen as snobby and completey out-of-touch... and somewhere there is space for common ground for those who can find it...

IMO, U2 are some of the few artists around who can bridge this gap- I know Pavarotti and Sinatra would agree, I guess I'm just wondering whether I personally, as a U2 fan, could explain and defend this viewpoint to a classically trained musician, or to put it more bluntly "music snob"...

anyone else out there thinking about sorts of things?

thanks.

*edited to add* -

The authors of the website seem to think this is the best page to begin reading-

http://nomuzak.co.uk/thinning.html

This site appears mainly founded to combat "muzak" and then goes on to complain against pop music in general. I tend to disagree with that association, quite vehemently.

Let me also say, some of the content on this site makes it tempting to attack the authors of the page as snotty and elitist. While I won't disagree with that view necessarily, my reason for starting this thread is to generate a productive discussion on how rock and pop music share the qualities the authors of this site value, and how "our music" (U2, rock, pop) can be defended to people who view music through this particular lens.

 

[Zoomerang96]

there's always been pop music. i don't understand the hate for it... there's a place for it, and it belongs.

however, noone should believe that pop music is the be-all and end-all of music as a whole. generally speaking, it's redundant, formulaic and rarely passes the test of time.

but that's not what pop music is about. pop music is supposed to be understood quickly and digested almost as fast as it's taken in. again, this is an all-too-easy metaphor for the society we find ourselves in.

it would be nice of course, if people would expand their horizons a bit, but at the end of the day... who cares? what difference does it really make to you if other people "get it"?

very interesting thread you've started here.

 

[onebloodonelife]

I also find this to be a very intriguing topic, mainly because I'm taking a class right now that deals exclusively with analyzing rock and pop music. My professor is a brilliant musicologist who has spent a good chunk of his career studying pop music, but he also studies European classical music as well. In fact, each class period, he usually relates some happening in a pop song back to a classical term. So, it's not like pop music is completely thrown out as garbage by all serious musicians or people who study music for a living.

I also don't see why it's such a big deal for pop music to exist; it's already a part of our culture, and I'd say because of our short attention spans, pop music has flourished. Would classical music and traditions be more productive to listen to and better for society? Possibly. But, anyone who has taken a mass media class, or even just read about mass media, knows that there has always been a battle between populists and elitists about what should be seen and heard. And, the populists usually win.

 

[Zoots]

Wait. What benefit do we have if we listen to classical music instead of popular music??? It's not like it's better for our health or something! The whole case against popular music is ridiculous. Different music moves different people. That's why it's all subjective. And that means a person listening to Mozart is no righter or wronger than a person listening to Britney Spears. Classical music doesn't increase your IQ level or make you more intelligent, does it?! To me, it looks like an article written by total snobs!

 

[corianderstem]

Oneblood, I wanna take that class! Sounds like my dream course.

As far as popular music, it's been around forever. Madrigals, folk songs, whathaveyou ... there's always been a fluffier alternative to classical music. I would assume even back in 1600 there were music snobs and critics, pooh-poohing some love song made popular by dudes with lutes.

Classical music is less prevalent now, I would think, or at the very least less heard because people don't go to the opera or the ballet or whatever version of theater - they watch TV or play sports, or whathaveyou.

I'm not that aware of classical music these days - is there a high output of it? Are there less composers these days? Of course they aren't in the public lexicon like they might have been back in the good ol' days of classical music, when that was what people heard (in church, at the opera, whathaveyou).

I wish I could be around in 200 years to see if today's classical composers will have any significant lasting impression ... or if 200 years from now, people are still listening to the same classical music people listen to now as the "classics."

 

[corianderstem]

Wait. What benefit do we have if we listen to classical music instead of popular music??? It's not like it's better for our health or something!

I take it you're not familiar with the studies that say that playing classical music for babies makes them smarter.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Oneblood, I wanna take that class! Sounds like my dream course.

Oh, it's fabulous! By far my favorite class, and it's currently the only thing getting me through this semester without wanting to jab pencils in my eyes. I'm planning on taking the history of rock class with the same professor next semester as well. He's seriously one of the smartest people I've ever met; he can listen to a song and just walk over to the piano to play it, and he has many times, anything from Green Day to The Beatles, and he's hilarious too. One day, we were talking about censorship in the music business, and he just started rapping an Eminem song. Keep in mind, this guy is a straight laced, proper, I mean he speaks like he's British, but isn't, type of person, and all of a sudden, he starts talking about how he can't sell coke no more, and he has to go out and choke a whore. Just imagine the looks on all of our faces... But, he definitely got his point across.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

That sounds awesome, oneblood! I would love to take courses of that nature...I'll have to see if any of the colleges here offer stuff like that. I think it'd be absolutely fascinating, and fun.

As for the main topic at hand...it's kinda funny that some classical music listeners frown upon pop/rock music, because there's been many a musician from those genres over the years who's cited classical music as one of their influences, or who incorporate it into their work. They have a healthy respect for classical works, so why some classical music lovers can't return the favor, I'm not sure.

That said, if pop music or rock music isn't one's bag, that's fine-everybody has their genres they latch onto over others, I don't care. But why be so bothered by what others listen to? Maybe to one person a rock song isn't very meaningful, but to the fans of said song/artist/genre, it obviously is, and at the end of the day, isn't that all that really matters? I don't understand why people feel this need to tell others what they should and shouldn't be listening to. Let them decide that for themselves.

I'm not overly familiar with the classical genre, but I do like what I've heard from it-there's some gorgeous creations there, no question. However, I fail to see how people seem to think the pop or rock genres can't be intelligent. I've personally heard some songs from both genres that have just as much thought put into them as in anything else. Besides, people seem to forget this simple fact: Balance. Is. Good. Yes, I love music that challenges me and makes me think. I also love music that's simply there for no other reason than to allow me to dance around like a maniac for 3 minutes. Why not just embrace both elements? Why does it have to be one or the other?

Angela

 

[Zoots]

The other thing I don't like about that website is that the person quotes a bunch of lyrics which are without a doubt some of the worst lines in the history of popular music! Like Madonna's I Love NY, Van Halen's Why Can't This Be Love, Shakira's breasts/mountains crap or P Diddy whatever. And this is representative of all popular music.. how??? What about Bono's poetic gems from the past? Why pick on Elevation? What about Madonna's Oh Father or This Used To Be My Playground? If you quote the Bangles Manic Monday, of course pop music is not gonna stand a chance against classical music!

 

[dr. zooeuss]

wow, great points made.

so glad to see that i'm not the only one interested in this topic. ;-)

Zoomerang- yes, I took a class in the history of "Western Music" several years ago and I remember the mention of the long-running tension between pop (or 'folk') and classical music.

it's a good point that especially in today's world where we have to multi-task and things move so quickly, pop music seems more suited to the times. a lot of pop music owes alot to classical music, and i think the self-proclaimed "experts" on classical music could offer alot more to the discussion and to the state of music in general if they could overcome seeing it as "us versus them", and contributed their talents more readily to music that is actually being heard and appreciated and enjoyed by large numbers of people in the present.

Oneblood: wow, that class and your professor sound great. I'm sure you could add a lot to this conversation. I'd love to hear any tidbits your professor has passed on as far as relating classical music to pop music.

Ironically or appropriately enough, depending how you view it, what probably started this for me was the fact that several weeks ago i started uploading the 6-CD set from my old music history//appreciation class to my iTunes. I'm kind of a nut for looking at things from several frames simultaneously, so I enjoyed looking at my library by genre, by band, by alpha, and then by year.

The "by year" one was really interesting, as it caused me to start looking at the longview of musical history, and wonder why it should be that so much of my music is clustered into my lifetime, or why there's a lot from the late 70s-today, some in the 60s, some in the 50s, some in the 20s, etc, with big gaps in the 40s, 30s, and barely anything from the previous centuries, etc.

In 2007, pop music has pretty much arrived at a place where all the "fads' and trends are layered on top of one another. You can find people who are into just about any kind of pop music these days, granted it isn't older than the 1950s or 60s or so. Even ten years ago, this didn't seem to be so much the case.

Roughly speaking the 90s drew heavily on the late 60s and early 70s, and the 80s drew heavily on the 50s and early 60s. That sort of cyclical phenomenon has started running so fast that you could probably name popular acts today who draw from the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, all right now. Anyway, I digress a little.

To me, artists like Moby are bringing some of the classical sound into modern pop. U2 also and *ahem*coldplay*ahem*. I even have a CD of U2 covers played by a string quartet. It's really the melody that holds the identity of a tune, it can be dressed up and expressed any number of ways, or arrangements.

Cori, there are contemporary composers like John Cage and Philip Glass who might be considered "classical" but have done some pretty unconventional things within the realm of "classical." I've heard u2 refer to Glass as an influence, especially in the Joshua Tree days.

Then there are people like John Williams whose music could be considered classical in most senses, they earn a living by writing movie scores, and in that way become very widely heard, if not known by name. But it's a good point that there are probably thousands of "household name pop musicians" for every "household name movie score composer".

Zootlesque- yeah, there is a whole series of CDs called "Mozart for babies", the big selling-point being that it boosts their IQ, even in utero..

...there's more to say but I've rambled on enough for the moment.

 

[Zoots]

Babies should listen to Nirvana's In Utero.

 

[corianderstem]

Cori, there are contemporary composers like John Cage and Philip Glass who might be considered "classical" but have done some pretty unconventional things within the realm of "classical."

To be honest, those guys didn't even cross my mind; I have such a dislike for that modern classical stuff. My mind immediately went to the more traditional classical music and wondered who was still writing that sort of thing (i.e., melodic symphonies, anything not so experimental or "modern"). But yes, that's a good point.

Then there are people like John Williams whose music could be considered classical in most senses, they earn a living by writing movie scores, and in that way become very widely heard, if not known by name. But it's a good point that there are probably thousands of "household name pop musicians" for every "household name movie score composer".

Agreed on the last sentence, another excellent point. I wonder if strictly classical musicians/composers consider John Williams et al pop music and not "classical music" per se?

Which also makes me wonder - I use "classical music" as a catch-all for pretty much anything not pop music: opera, symphonic, choral, that kind of thing. Do "classical music" composers and musicians have different terminology for what they do? Like "symphonic" or ... what? What did John Cage call his genre? Or Philip Glass?

 

[Bono's shades]

As far as popular music, it's been around forever. Madrigals, folk songs, whathaveyou ... there's always been a fluffier alternative to classical music. I would assume even back in 1600 there were music snobs and critics, pooh-poohing some love song made popular by dudes with lutes.

Great post. There was a certain little ditty played by dudes with lutes in the 1500s or 1600s called Greensleeves, the melody of which has survived the test of time and become a Christmas carol (What Child is This) sung to this day. Maybe it wasn't so light and fluffy after all.

 

[ZeroDude]

Simply put, the only reason that musical genres exist, today, and of course, in the relatively distant past, is that they have observably evolved due to certain disparate conventions and societal constructs. Now whether or not these conventions happen to be cultural, geographical, ideological, technical or lyrical, ultimately remains a matter of the grand situational disparities that have existed, and continue to exist, in our human experience(s). And as such, there will never be a golden empirical standard by which we can judge the validity or value of our myriad musical forms.

Needless to say, to suggest otherwise is tantamount to ignorance. As many traditional forms of musical expression are comparatively limited in technical scope due to their socio-economic origins (ala the blues, military tattoos, and the grand majority of indigenous folk music, regardless of national origins).

So, rather flaccidly, the argument presented finds itself toiling upon barren ground. For, as they’d best remember, that while the technical ability of a musician, and indeed, the musical complexity of any given piece, regardless of genre, can be judged objectively (something that has never been in dispute), whether or not said piece is good or bad (which, as luck would have it, are inherently subjective terms), cannot.

As this, as far as I can tell, is ultimately determined by the personal interpretation that one formulates whilst listening to a song or sonata. Additionally, although nuance and complexity are most definitely useful, they do not in themselves; authoritatively dictate the apparent quality of music.

Funnily enough, I would only change my opinion upon this rather contentious issue, if I were to be presented with irrefutable scientific evidence that proved the contrary to be true. Or, in other words, when I become dictator for life, and am treacherously slain by a man whose name sounds suspiciously like the moniker one would callously bestow upon a particularly cheap variety of cologne.

Conversely, maybe I’m just a relativistic philistine.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Hehe, that album would be rather appropriate for that particular group of people, Zootlesque .

Ironically or appropriately enough, depending how you view it, what probably started this for me was the fact that several weeks ago i started uploading the 6-CD set from my old music history//appreciation class to my iTunes. I'm kind of a nut for looking at things from several frames simultaneously, so I enjoyed looking at my library by genre, by band, by alpha, and then by year.

The "by year" one was really interesting, as it caused me to start looking at the longview of musical history, and wonder why it should be that so much of my music is clustered into my lifetime, or why there's a lot from the late 70s-today, some in the 60s, some in the 50s, some in the 20s, etc, with big gaps in the 40s, 30s, and barely anything from the previous centuries, etc.

I've wondered about that sort of thing, too. I'll gladly give a listen to anything from any genre and any time period that's offered to me, but I do notice that quite a bit of the music I enjoy is from artists who I've grown up hearing. I think it's only natural that many people, while they may have very varied musical tastes, are going to be rather partial to the music that's from their generation. And that's why I get irritated with adults who complain about today's music scene and wonder how kids can listen to some of the stuff out today. I just think, well, excuse them for being born when they were. It's not their fault they missed out on earlier music, you know? Sure, they shouldn't automatically dismiss anything that came out before their time, but can you blame them for feeling more of a connection to the music they grew up on?

Now, how that "connection to their generation" thing explains people who listen to Bach and Beethoven and Mozart, yet obviously were not alive during those guys' lifetimes, I'm not sure... Also, thanks for reminding me that I really need to work on uploading stuff onto my little Sansa thingamabober.

In 2007, pop music has pretty much arrived at a place where all the "fads' and trends are layered on top of one another. You can find people who are into just about any kind of pop music these days, granted it isn't older than the 1950s or 60s or so. Even ten years ago, this didn't seem to be so much the case.

Roughly speaking the 90s drew heavily on the late 60s and early 70s, and the 80s drew heavily on the 50s and early 60s. That sort of cyclical phenomenon has started running so fast that you could probably name popular acts today who draw from the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s and the 90s, all right now.

Absolutely right. There's new artists out that I listen to and can totally tell what decade(s) most of their influences come from. And that's one reason why I love hearing bands talk about who inspired them-I always find that sort of discussion fascinating.

So, rather flaccidly, the argument presented finds itself toiling upon barren ground. For, as they’d best remember, that while the technical ability of a musician, and indeed, the musical complexity of any given piece, regardless of genre, can be judged objectively (something that has never been in dispute), whether or not said piece is good or bad (which, as luck would have it, are inherently subjective terms), cannot.

Exactly. This is a simple fact that people always seem to forget when it comes to these sorts of debates.

And that's another thing...I'm not all that knowledgable on the technical aspects of anything as it is, and music isn't any different. It's not something I think about all that often when it comes to what I choose to listen to, and there are other people out there who are the same way. I certainly applaud any artists that are technically proficient, and will note their talent when possible, but I dunno, I just think judging whether or not certain music is worthy of your time purely on its technical ability alone can't be all that much fun. Do what you want, but you're missing out on a lot of potentially good stuff that way, I think. I'm just more focused on the emotional side, personally *Shrugs*.

Angela

 

[dr. zooeuss]

He's seriously one of the smartest people I've ever met; he can listen to a song and just walk over to the piano to play it, and he has many times, anything from Green Day to The Beatles, and he's hilarious too. One day, we were talking about censorship in the music business, and he just started rapping an Eminem song. Keep in mind, this guy is a straight laced, proper, I mean he speaks like he's British, but isn't, type of person, and all of a sudden, he starts talking about how he can't sell coke no more, and he has to go out and choke a whore. Just imagine the looks on all of our faces... But, he definitely got his point across.

Wow, great story. No doubt you'll be remembering this guy's points for the rest of your life.

Had the chance yet to ask what he thinks of U2?

 

[dr. zooeuss]

That said, if pop music or rock music isn't one's bag, that's fine-everybody has their genres they latch onto over others, I don't care. But why be so bothered by what others listen to? Maybe to one person a rock song isn't very meaningful, but to the fans of said song/artist/genre, it obviously is, and at the end of the day, isn't that all that really matters? I don't understand why people feel this need to tell others what they should and shouldn't be listening to. Let them decide that for themselves.

Well said. Yep, that's the elitism part. Very sad. And to me the real advantage pop has over most classical is in the lyrical content. Most classical is just music.

Pop (rock, etc) combines music with poetry- that's at least two art forms in one.

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Babies should listen to Nirvana's In Utero.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Wow, great story. No doubt you'll be remembering this guy's points for the rest of your life.

Had the chance yet to ask what he thinks of U2?

Yes, I actually did talk to him about U2 the other day. I went into his office hours, and he started asking what I was thinking about writing about for our second paper. I told him that I'm planning on discussing Christianity and spirituality in U2's music. He then proceeded to tell me that he's never quite "got" U2, even though his 15 year old son has repeatedly tried to explain the appeal to him. He said they're a little too "noisy" for his liking, and he's more of a fan of singer-songwriters, where he can tell or knows that the song was "lovingly crafted." But, that he knows U2 does that, he's just not sure how, and he can't see the process involved. He also compared them to R.E.M., who he claims to have a love/hate relationship with, because of their more "improvised" writing style, which is similar to U2's style, in his eyes.

You also asked if I remembered specific points about him comparing classical music to pop music, and the week that sticks out most in my mind right now is our discussion on progressive rock, specifically Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Basically, we went through both bands' music and how it was similar to classical music, because of operatic tones in both of their catalogs, they both use a type of movement, but on a smaller scale, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer actually adapted and rearranged at least a few classical pieces to their liking, such as Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man, Bartok's Allegro Barbaro, which became ELP's The Barbarian, and Ginastera's First Piano Concerto, which ELP renamed Toccata.

Granted, the conversation we had in class ended up concluding that progressive rock, in these terms, was just pompous and unnecessary, but they still did use classical music and incorporated it into their "pop" music, indicating that the two genres have more in common than we might expect.

 

[dr. zooeuss]

To be honest, those guys didn't even cross my mind; I have such a dislike for that modern classical stuff. My mind immediately went to the more traditional classical music and wondered who was still writing that sort of thing (i.e., melodic symphonies, anything not so experimental or "modern"). But yes, that's a good point.



Agreed on the last sentence, another excellent point. I wonder if strictly classical musicians/composers consider John Williams et al pop music and not "classical music" per se?

Which also makes me wonder - I use "classical music" as a catch-all for pretty much anything not pop music: opera, symphonic, choral, that kind of thing. Do "classical music" composers and musicians have different terminology for what they do? Like "symphonic" or ... what? What did John Cage call his genre? Or Philip Glass?

Hey Cori,

D@mn it, I promise I had just written out a detailed response and hit one wrong key and now it's gone! #@$%^

Let me try to sum up quickly:

1) Cage and Glass- don't know Cage's work very well, but Glass though experimental has some very enjoyable work- "Glassworks" and the album he co-wrote with Ravi Shankar, "Passages" are both very good.

2) Don't know how his peers think of Williams, but if they don't consider him part of the grand tradition of classical music, I can't see any credible reason for it other than jealousy that he's been both artistically and commercially successful with their "sound" in this day and age. To listen to most of his soundtracks, (assuming you'd never seen them accompanying Harrison
Ford or a lightsaber) the quality and the sound are very very similar to what gets called "masterpiece" from previous centuries (to me at least)

3) What to call this stuff. I know that if you talk to a classically trained musician or composer they can get very detailed about terms and subgenres, but that's not always necessary, by any means. (and not for me, not at this point at least). I'd compare it to me telling my grandparents about rock- I'd be lucky to explain the difference between punk, metal and pop. On the flip side, consider talking with a rock critic about all the bands playing the festivals this year, we'd be lucky if three dozen subgenre terms covered it all...

PS as usual, wikipedia gives a good overview if you look up "classical music" you get it broken down chronologically-

476-1400 AD - Medieval
1400-1600 AD - Renaissance
1600-1760 AD - Baroque
1730 - 1820 - "Classical"
1815 - 1910 - Romantic
1900 - 2000 - 20th century classical (clever, eh?)
1975 - present (Contemporary)

to throw in one other tidbit- I remember from the class I took that sometimes movements in classical music led or mimicked movements in painting, so that you got terms like "Impressionim" also used for classical music that fell around the time of those painters.

One of my favorite "classical" composers is Claude Debussy, who is often called an "Impressionist" composer; he happened to live in roughly the same time and place as the Impressionist painters, but you can definitely "hear" that impressionist style in the music itself.

...I'd hazard a guess that the terms you mentioned- symphonic, choral, opera etc could be used to describe the arrangement//instrumentation in conjunction with baroque, classical, 20th century, etc to describe the time period- ie: Symphonic Baroque, 20th Century Opera, Romantic Orchestral, etc

(makes sense to me at least)

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Great post. There was a certain little ditty played by dudes with lutes in the 1500s or 1600s called Greensleeves, the melody of which has survived the test of time and become a Christmas carol (What Child is This) sung to this day. Maybe it wasn't so light and fluffy after all.

haha, good one, very good one.

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Simply put, the only reason that musical genres exist, today, and of course, in the relatively distant past, is that they have observably evolved due to certain disparate conventions and societal constructs. Now whether or not these conventions happen to be cultural, geographical, ideological, technical or lyrical, ultimately remains a matter of the grand situational disparities that have existed, and continue to exist, in our human experience(s). And as such, there will never be a golden empirical standard by which we can judge the validity or value of our myriad musical forms.

Needless to say, to suggest otherwise is tantamount to ignorance. As many traditional forms of musical expression are comparatively limited in technical scope due to their socio-economic origins (ala the blues, military tattoos, and the grand majority of indigenous folk music, regardless of national origins).

So, rather flaccidly, the argument presented finds itself toiling upon barren ground. For, as they’d best remember, that while the technical ability of a musician, and indeed, the musical complexity of any given piece, regardless of genre, can be judged objectively (something that has never been in dispute), whether or not said piece is good or bad (which, as luck would have it, are inherently subjective terms), cannot.

As this, as far as I can tell, is ultimately determined by the personal interpretation that one formulates whilst listening to a song or sonata. Additionally, although nuance and complexity are most definitely useful, they do not in themselves; authoritatively dictate the apparent quality of music.

Good Lord man, the writer's contest is down the hall, third door on the left.

Sadly, your erudition is wasted here. (All we can offer you is this golden lemon) :lemon:

So if not inherently 'superior' to less refined musical attributes, what are "nuance and complexity" "most definitely useful" for?

And if you do buy in to the "Mozart is good for a growing baby's IQ" theory, then how can you be so objective in your judgments regarding music?

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Now, how that "connection to their generation" thing explains people who listen to Bach and Beethoven and Mozart, yet obviously were not alive during those guys' lifetimes, I'm not sure... Also, thanks for reminding me that I really need to work on uploading stuff onto my little Sansa thingamabober.

Haha, sure, whatever a Sansa thingy is.. ;-)
For one reason or another, the music of those composers HAS stood the test of time far more successfully than that of most others, before or since. I guess the glaring question of "Why?" is a big part of what I'm trying to get at in this thread, with a big secondary question being "Does U2's music stand a similar chance of still being listened to 300 or 400 years from now? Or even 100? (as Bono, [God love 'im], has claimed)"

Absolutely right. There's new artists out that I listen to and can totally tell what decade(s) most of their influences come from. And that's one reason why I love hearing bands talk about who inspired them-I always find that sort of discussion fascinating.

Exactly. This is a simple fact that people always seem to forget when it comes to these sorts of debates.

And that's another thing...I'm not all that knowledgable on the technical aspects of anything as it is, and music isn't any different. It's not something I think about all that often when it comes to what I choose to listen to, and there are other people out there who are the same way. I certainly applaud any artists that are technically proficient, and will note their talent when possible, but I dunno, I just think judging whether or not certain music is worthy of your time purely on its technical ability alone can't be all that much fun. Do what you want, but you're missing out on a lot of potentially good stuff that way, I think. I'm just more focused on the emotional side, personally *Shrugs*.

That's one of the big wrestling matches I have with Jazz. Sometimes the talent of a jazz musician actually gets in the way of making it listenable. Not always, but imo more so than with other genres. Jazz sometimes seems to me to be "the musicians' genre" in that a true appreciation of it often lies in knowing "how hard it was to do that" than in simply being able to recognize that "that sounds phenomenal."

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

That's a great idea for a paper, oneblood-maybe the teacher, even if he doesn't wind up becoming a big U2 fan, will better understand the band after you present your essay on them. Seriously, that class sounds very intriguing. I'm glad you're getting an opportunity to discuss all those sorts of topics, and I'm glad you've got a teacher who uses such creative methods to talk about music history.

Haha, sure, whatever a Sansa thingy is.. ;-)
For one reason or another, the music of those composers HAS stood the test of time far more successfully than that of most others, before or since. I guess the glaring question of "Why?" is a big part of what I'm trying to get at in this thread, with a big secondary question being "Does U2's music stand a similar chance of still being listened to 300 or 400 years from now? Or even 100? (as Bono, [God love 'im], has claimed)"

It's basically another type of IPod thing. I dunno, it's all new to me, too *Shrugs* .

Those are great questions you've posed there. I wonder if part of it doesn't have to do with the time period a lot of these people lived in-sometimes music is very connected to important times in history, and so when you talk about those time periods, those artists and their work have to come up because it was so integral to everything else. For instance, would people still remember a lot of the musicians of the '60s if that decade were quiet and uneventful?

Could also have to do with the fact that the artists are dead-that whole unwritten rule that people praise artists only after they're gone. I dunno, just a couple theories, I could be totally wrong.

As for U2...I'd love to think they'll still be remembered 300, 400 years from now. But I honestly don't know if they will. I've noticed that a lot more newer artists are mentioning them as an influence before the Beatles or the Stones, because they grew up more with U2 than those other artists, and as time goes on, I imagine the same thing will happen with U2. They'll probably be replaced as an influence by something else that's closer to the current generation's time period (unless, thanks to Bono's activism, that helps with that theory about being part of the times). I hope I'm proven wrong and they still get talked about all that time later, though.

That's one of the big wrestling matches I have with Jazz. Sometimes the talent of a jazz musician actually gets in the way of making it listenable. Not always, but imo more so than with other genres. Jazz sometimes seems to me to be "the musicians' genre" in that a true appreciation of it often lies in knowing "how hard it was to do that" than in simply being able to recognize that "that sounds phenomenal."

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people complain about that. That's not a genre that I'm overly well-versed in, but I do understand the general issue-it's like when I hear, say, a rock artist just spend 10 minutes doing nothing but playing some guitar solo or something. It sounds good, sure, but unless they've got a great ability to hold my interest that entire time, after a while I'm usually like, "Can we get on with the rest of the song, please?" (and I'm generally pretty good at being patient!). It's not as easy for me to connect with music like that.

Glad we're agreed on the issue of elitism as well. Seriously, every time I hear people get all clique-minded about music, I always wind up feeling like I'm back in high school-this group of people hangs out together, that group hangs out together, and god forbid anyone mix!

Yeah. It's really lame.

Angela

 

[dr. zooeuss]

Yes, I actually did talk to him about U2 the other day. I went into his office hours, and he started asking what I was thinking about writing about for our second paper. I told him that I'm planning on discussing Christianity and spirituality in U2's music. He then proceeded to tell me that he's never quite "got" U2, even though his 15 year old son has repeatedly tried to explain the appeal to him. He said they're a little too "noisy" for his liking, and he's more of a fan of singer-songwriters, where he can tell or knows that the song was "lovingly crafted." But, that he knows U2 does that, he's just not sure how, and he can't see the process involved. He also compared them to R.E.M., who he claims to have a love/hate relationship with, because of their more "improvised" writing style, which is similar to U2's style, in his eyes.

You also asked if I remembered specific points about him comparing classical music to pop music, and the week that sticks out most in my mind right now is our discussion on progressive rock, specifically Yes and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Basically, we went through both bands' music and how it was similar to classical music, because of operatic tones in both of their catalogs, they both use a type of movement, but on a smaller scale, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer actually adapted and rearranged at least a few classical pieces to their liking, such as Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man, Bartok's Allegro Barbaro, which became ELP's The Barbarian, and Ginastera's First Piano Concerto, which ELP renamed Toccata.

Granted, the conversation we had in class ended up concluding that progressive rock, in these terms, was just pompous and unnecessary, but they still did use classical music and incorporated it into their "pop" music, indicating that the two genres have more in common than we might expect.

Haha, you realize that now everyone in this thread is going to be hounding you to get this professor to like U2 (joke)






(sort of)















anyway... it's interesting, especially that you mention what he said about REM, and your interest in writing about U2, spirituality and Christianity (more on that in a minute). He's obviously familiar with many approaches to songwriting, so its interesting that U2 sound noisy to him, and that he "can't see the process involved". I wonder what singer-songwriters he likes? I wasn't aware that any of them necessarily had a more lucid songwriting style than U2.

And (maybe because I'm not a musician myself), I can't say I've really tuned into U2's songwriting process a lot over the years, but I never thought of that as being a subject with a conspicuous lack of information available.

As far as I'm aware, Bono does most of the lyrics, Edge does most of the melodies, Adam and Larry flesh out the rhythm section. Not sure what's so mysterious about that. (?)

As far as REM, in the late 80s and early 90s, when both U2 and REM were about of equal popularity, U2's spirituality was always what made them stand out to me over REM. REM always seemed a little more vague, lyrically, directionally and musically to me than U2. I wonder if that was part of what he was saying as well at all? (realizing he probably wasn't comparing the bands directly, but if he knows more about REM than U2, maybe he lumps U2 in with REM for lack of better understanding of them). Then again, if his son has been after him about U2, he may know some, but his 15-year-old son might not be the best candidate for conveying to him U2's brilliance. (Nothing against his son of course) Anyway, I digress...

Re: EL&P and Yes. I've never really listened to them much. Is that the kind of rock music your prof likes, i wonder? I can see how some of those guys may have had more classical training on guitar or what-have-you than Edge, and how that would appeal to him as a music scholar.

Personally I've always felt like if I wanted to learn about classical music, i'd rather go and listen to it directly than to some rock band who has recycled it. That may be why I'm usually annoyed by "guitar greats" who play Pachebel's Canon or Beethoven's 5th on electric guitar. It just kind of bores me.

Anyway, i ramble... good luck with your project. It would be cool to hear how your class continues to go.

IE: Any music you've come to like so far through the class?

 

[corianderstem]

3) What to call this stuff. I know that if you talk to a classically trained musician or composer they can get very detailed about terms and subgenres, but that's not always necessary, by any means. (and not for me, not at this point at least). I'd compare it to me telling my grandparents about rock- I'd be lucky to explain the difference between punk, metal and pop. On the flip side, consider talking with a rock critic about all the bands playing the festivals this year, we'd be lucky if three dozen subgenre terms covered it all... :

That's another good point, about subgenres and whatnot. Other than choral conductors and fellow singers in my vocal ensemble/choir, I don't have interaction with classical musicians. I didn't know if I went up to someone who was a composer these days and asked "so what kind of music do you write," if they would answer plainly "classical," or go into a long spiel about "contemporary symphonic modal counterpoint with harmonic convergence" or some such thing.

As a former music major and classically trained pianist, I'm familiar with the eras of classical music ... not sure if I could still tell you the differences off the top of my head. I'm a bad music major - I blame rock and roll!

I don't listen to a lot of classical music. There are a handful of pieces I absolutely love, and a few composers I can name that I can honestly say are "favorites" (Mozart, Debussy, Chopin's piano works, a good chunk of choral masterworks) but I rarely set out to sit down and listen to classical music.

 

[Salome]

all in all I do think pop and rock can be ccused with a dumbening down of music
I would also add country music to that list

from a pure musical point of view it seems a lot less interesting to me than classical music, jazz, soul/funk and blues
though blues music tends to be very basic its use of musical patterns intrigues me a lot more than can be said of pop and rock

pop and rock musically just seem to aim at getting a physical response or to set a mood
it can be interesting to see whether the artist manages to create the mood he/she aims for
but it doesn't really seem to have any goal apart from that

personally I think setting a certain can be as interesting as playing with musical patterns
to me jazz music would be the genre most likely to combine the 2

I don't think pointing out some bad lyrics proves much of a case
of course there are some poor lyrics about
but it actually is a strength of pop and rock that the lyrics can add to the mood
it makes it less meandering than other genres can be

 

[onebloodonelife]

Haha, you realize that now everyone in this thread is going to be hounding you to get this professor to like U2 (joke)






(sort of)

Yes, I realize that now...to be honest, I was surprised when he said that he wasn't a fan of U2 because he'd mentioned in class several times that he liked R.E.M., and many times, fans of one are fans of the other, not always, but a lot of times.

anyway... it's interesting, especially that you mention what he said about REM, and your interest in writing about U2, spirituality and Christianity (more on that in a minute). He's obviously familiar with many approaches to songwriting, so its interesting that U2 sound noisy to him, and that he "can't see the process involved". I wonder what singer-songwriters he likes? I wasn't aware that any of them necessarily had a more lucid songwriting style than U2.

And (maybe because I'm not a musician myself), I can't say I've really tuned into U2's songwriting process a lot over the years, but I never thought of that as being a subject with a conspicuous lack of information available.

As far as I'm aware, Bono does most of the lyrics, Edge does most of the melodies, Adam and Larry flesh out the rhythm section. Not sure what's so mysterious about that. (?)

As far as REM, in the late 80s and early 90s, when both U2 and REM were about of equal popularity, U2's spirituality was always what made them stand out to me over REM. REM always seemed a little more vague, lyrically, directionally and musically to me than U2. I wonder if that was part of what he was saying as well at all? (realizing he probably wasn't comparing the bands directly, but if he knows more about REM than U2, maybe he lumps U2 in with REM for lack of better understanding of them). Then again, if his son has been after him about U2, he may know some, but his 15-year-old son might not be the best candidate for conveying to him U2's brilliance. (Nothing against his son of course) Anyway, I digress...

Well, when I was talking with him, he said that he prefers people like Cole Porter and Carole King, who sit down with a sheet of music and craft each and every note to perfection. I can understand where he's coming from in that respect; U2 obviously doesn't do that, and they prefer to come up with a guitar part or melody, and they build a song off of that. It's just different ways of going about the same process. Honestly though, I don't believe that many, if any at all, artists from oh, 1970 on, write songs in the vein of Cole Porter and Carole King.

Re: EL&P and Yes. I've never really listened to them much. Is that the kind of rock music your prof likes, i wonder? I can see how some of those guys may have had more classical training on guitar or what-have-you than Edge, and how that would appeal to him as a music scholar.

Personally I've always felt like if I wanted to learn about classical music, i'd rather go and listen to it directly than to some rock band who has recycled it. That may be why I'm usually annoyed by "guitar greats" who play Pachebel's Canon or Beethoven's 5th on electric guitar. It just kind of bores me.

Anyway, i ramble... good luck with your project. It would be cool to hear how your class continues to go.

IE: Any music you've come to like so far through the class?

Well, to be honest, my professor likes pretty much everything we're listening to, and he readily admits that. But, he did agree with us that most of the points we made about "classical rock" being pompous and over the top.

I don't think it's about the musicianship for him; for example, this week we listened to The Bangles, a band that he admits aren't that great of instrumentalists, but he loves them anyway. Mainly because he listened to their album, "Different Light," throughout his sophomore year of college exclusively, but nonetheless, he still likes them.

Thanks, I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on the class. Right now, we're coming up with proposals for the content of the last three weeks of class. I've chosen to focus on music as a political venue, and have a few songs picked out: "Take a Bow" by Muse, "Final Straw" by R.E.M., "Meat is Murder" by The Smiths, and either "Please" or "Bullet the Blue Sky".

I have actually discovered some music that I have a much deeper respect for now, like James Taylor, Buddy Holly, '60s girl groups (Martha and the Vandellas especially), Joni Mitchell, and I really got into Bruce Springsteen after listening to "Empty Sky."

 

[yolland]

That 'nomuzak' website is hilarious, but I think worrying about defending pop/rock to people of that 'worldview' (to put it charitably) is probably a lost cause, and more to the point, treating that site as somehow representative of how classically trained musicians, or fans of classical music, in general view pop and rock seems pretty baseless. Mostly, it read like a lot of half-baked crankster yammering about the bastardization of culture by globalization, the vulgar decadence of the "new proletariat," the evil po-mo "philistinism" laying waste to our universities, blah blah yadda yadda, all clumsily spliced together with pithy quotes from various reactionary academics. The anti-muzak campaign and diatribes about the "deracinated" banalities of pop music seem more intended as illustrations of our supposed collective fall from cultural greatness than as point-specific accusations against anything unique to pop/rock.

I don't think there are any easy answers to questions like why certain classical composers remain widely appreciated and performed centuries later, or whether the same might someday be true of certain contemporary popular artists. It's basically the musical version of the "Great Books" debate...will Nobel-prize-winning Toni Morrison still be widely read and appreciated in 400 years, the way Shakespeare still is now? Is the survival of (some) classical music really the best analogy for the shelf life of pop/rock, or might the survival of (some of) the various folk musics native to certain regions of the Western world make for a better comparison? Probably the 'soundtrack-to-an-intensive-cultural-growth-period' theory Moonlit_Angel mentioned has something significant to do with it--I thought that was a really interesting point, and often when works attain that status it becomes self-perpetuating, as succeeding generations of musicians and listeners then rediscover the old through a tipoff from the new. But I do also think there's something to the idea that an exceptional level of refinement, sophistication, complexity, whatever you want to call it can enhance the endurance of an *already widely enjoyed* work. I never took any kind of music appreciation course in college (though I did play viola and piano for 12 years each, so I have some 'classical' background), and I own much more rock music than I do classical, but if I had to take a music appreciation course today, I think I'd probably see one focused on classical as my 'safest' bet. Not because I'm confident I'd 'like' all or even most of the works studied--classical music fans have their druthers just like anyone else--but because I'm confident that the level of sophistication to the music, as well as the historical background on the relevant period(s) I'd get studying it, should at least be enough to maintain my interest. Whereas with a rock-focused course--unless perhaps it had some specific theme, roots of rock or music theory through rock or something--I'd worry that if the teacher didn't share my 'tastes,' then the whole thing would be an unmitigated drag from beginning to end.

I would add that at least in my experience, classical music fans aren't any more likely to be cliqueish or dismissive towards fans of other types of music than rock music fans are, and actual classical musicians in particular definitely aren't. It's nice, I guess, when you get the occasional work that truly has 'crossover' appeal, but I don't really think it's necessary. In many ways I think it's even more impressive when an artist incorporates influences from another genre into his/her work so seamlessly that while a listener highly in the know about both might smile in recognition, another listener unaware of the outside influences simply hears something that sounds familiar yet intriguingly different at the same time and loves it.

 

[MrBrau1]

It's really hard to take the opinion of someone that bothered by Musak seriously.

I especially enjoyed her response to the idea that music is subjective:

"A much simpler version of this argument is simply to assert that the individual in question enjoys popular music - as if I were arguing that enjoyment of pop music is not possible and as if the simple fact of liking something automatically means that it is worthwhile, meaningful, entirely benign, and positive. This position attempts to close down further thought, thus avoiding the issue that liking and taste are not unproblematic. Thus, people who take up this position will say that differences in this area are “just a matter of opinion”. This is an obvious strategy in order to appear to win or claim a draw in an argument that feels lost. It is a weasel argument, the worse and most destructive position that it is possible to take because it seeks to destroy and undermine the capacity for thought and consideration on which civilised life depends. Let’s take some examples and see where this type of argument leads. Proposition: It is right to kill all handicapped children at birth. Answer: Well, that is just a matter of opinion. Proposition: Hitler did some bad things. Answer: That is just a matter of opinion, and it is quite right that people are allowed to have widely differing opinions about this. It’s just a matter of taste. Proposition: The government of the Central Republic of Monsilvania has greatly damaged the economy of the country. Answer: Well you would say that but it is really just a matter of opinion and political preference. All statistics are lies anyway. I don’t think the government has done anything wrong."

She needs to get laid.

Long and hard.

With "Musak" of Barry White.