PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

Yep & if ones & zeros are anything to go by, if the music is 'BAD' , (from say, a certain point of view) the more dumb sheep will like it.
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There is no accounting for bad taste.
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We must realise that it's subjective & while we at Z are in the minority, we can also console ourselves in the fact that our minority is a creative one with hopefully a lot less sheep than the mass market of fecking 'Pop Idol' & 'Big Brother' watchers
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so if people like it, it's bad by definition.
mozart, bach and beethoven are some of the worst, then.

Not at all, it just seems to me that most of the music i personally consider to be 'bad', happens to command a rediculously huge following. ( Ie : the Mass market ) The examples i gave were 'Pop Idol' & 'Big Brother' and weren't the most specific, but i wasn't having a pop at legendary composers, more like the manufactured Pop Music & TV Industry

what's considered good or bad in music (and generally in art) is defined by the opinion of an alpha-animal (or a small group of such). period

cheers, Tom

No offence but that's pretentious, nonsense under a cloak of philosophy Tom.

no philosophy - it's called biology
and it's far from nonsense:
importance (...and hence monetary value) of a piece of art depends on nothing but which collector or galery considers the stuff worth storing.

go to store selling paintings: if it's not signed, it's worth nothing - if it's signed, at least a minimal 'value' is assumed.
Signed by someone mentioned in literature increases value tremendously.
Even more if it's the work from an artist shown in a famous museum - every sh*t of that person then yields horrendous prices.

Apple Computer's Cubes were considered overpriced nonsense and failed on the market almost completely.

Until the New York Museum of Modern Art added one to it's collection.
From then on the machine sold 2nd hand (as it was out of production) for at least half of the latest retail price - constantly for more than 4 years

Noone wanted a TB303 - until it was used by certain dudes.

I could call Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream the most ingenious or the least talented musicians - it only depends on my personal scale or how the 'components' are weighed.
If a lot of famous electronic musicians name the above mentioned as their source of inspiration, well - what would you call me if I say they s*ck

it's all about leadership and followers - just have a close look

cheers, Tom

of course, many of the classical "greats" were pop stars of their day.....

Attempmting to define right & wrong is about as clever as trying to define good or bad. These are down to the individual to express through their conscieous opinion & resulting actions. There's no law on artistic opinion. Far from it. Any rules that exist, such as the rules of Science as Tom suggests, are there to be broken by anyone. As for the classical greats. For talkings sake, you may happen to be 'moved' by one Mozart composition, while another you personally think is self-endulgent rubbish. That would be your opinion & you'd be more than entitled to voice it on PlanetZ if you've got a flame-thrower

On 2005-07-21 01:51, notbobmoog wrote:
...Any rules that exist, such as the rules of Science as Tom suggests, are there to be broken by anyone. As for the classical greats. ...

absolutely right, but this applies for the 'makers' who are (in most cases) beyond concern of 'quality' as they are doing their thing.

public resonance to their work (interpretion, judgement etc) IS determined by the groupp mechanism as mentioned above.

On the other hand it doesn't matter much anyway.
As you write a 'good' or 'bad' attribute doesn't contribute much to the essence of the work in question (being moved), yet it may have a significant commercial influence and as such can even prevent further activities of an artist

cheers, tom

I'm FREEEEE!!!!!!!

What, you're giving yourself away ?
That's very generous of you ! Any takers

Read recently in a book on songwriting.......Randy Newman ......now mainly a writer of music for film ..(as was his Father? and cousin ..... I think) ....considers the writers in the pop field to be very high quality.

On 2005-07-20 19:11, garyb wrote:
of course, many of the classical "greats" were pop stars of their day.....

That was before music became dominated by giant corporations.

On 2005-07-21 18:11, emzee wrote:
Read recently in a book on songwriting.......Randy Newman ......now mainly a writer of music for film ..(as was his Father? and cousin ..... I think) ....considers the writers in the pop field to be very high quality.

Of course Randy Newman would say that because he was a pop writer/singer/performer. For him to say that pop music sucks would be for him to say that he sucks, which I contend he does. The fact that he scores films doesn't impress me. Elton John scores films for god's sake. It's a great place for really famous white men who can no longer sell pop songs. It tells you more about the people who finance movies (and their age) than it does about the so called talent of the song writers.

"That was before music became dominated by giant corporations."

Giant corporations didn't decide taste back then ... kings and dukes did ...


I actually really like a lot of the "industrial" pop music of today, and I really considder some of the songs sung by i.e. Britney Spears to be very well done productions ... sometimes with some really nice and creative ideas - some of which (for me anyway, but I may be considdered uninformed) even seem "rule breaking" ... and thus experimental/risky (in case that has any value in itself. To me it does when it works (for me)).

On 2005-07-21 10:34, notbobmoog wrote:
What, you're giving yourself away ?
That's very generous of you ! Any takers

ummm,
i'm a freeman!!!!
(but expensive....)

On 2005-07-21 19:41, Immanuel wrote:
"That was before music became dominated by giant corporations."

Giant corporations didn't decide taste back then ... kings and dukes did ...

just a moment, that reminds me...
all those Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Hayden etc were just average talentented (if at all) dudes - we'll never know the true music of those centuries...

the handful so called genius composers simply were the only ones who found a sponsor and production tools.
... and we admire the commercial scum in musical art ...

now proove me wrong, Tom

no can do, Tom.

as we say around here though, "it's all good"....

'It's all good' is a great thing to say to keep everyone with differing tastes happy, but it's not true, because it's not all good. There's plenty of trashy, total crap trying to pass as music in this world, like the shit i make
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Hey, got to say, no offence to Mr Vandros, his familly or fans, the man had a voice.
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No offence to Marvin Gay either
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or Hank Marvin
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or Starvin

Interestingly enough this article is talking about this topic. The first sentence:

THERE are two versions of the convention on discussing the recently departed. The older of them is de mortuis nil nisi bonum; speak nothing but good of the dead. Gore Vidal has made the case for a sterner maxim: nil nisi verum, or nothing but the truth.

Link:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/co ... 83,00.html

personally, except for the change in value of his catalog based on public perception, something that it's doubtful that the man himself even cares about any more, i suspect that it really doesn't matter much what we say about him at this point.