i was thinking: keep in mind that 95% of the listening public has yet to catch up with this mythical 95% of music that you speak of.
i figure we who are working on your remaining 5% got a good head start.
95% of all the great music that will ever be made has been
42Ty Webb wrote:Everyone who has ever even thought of writing, making music, painting, sculpting, or otherwise producing art should read The Anxiety of Influence by Harold Bloom. And then kindly shut the fuck up and keep trying.
wow, i've never read this book and only ever heard about bloom in passing, but just reading wikipedia's page about the book makes it seem very, very interesting.
http://www.soundclick.com/hanabimusic (band)
http://www.myspace.com/iambls (i make beats for that dude)
http://www.myspace.com/iambls (i make beats for that dude)
95% of all the great music that will ever be made has been
43i don't think there's objective "greatness".
i think there's an idea at work in this thread (and others) that to me is misfounded. this idea involves craving the ability to measure what is great and what is not objectively, to be able to refer to a canon and have someone tell them what is right; to want to distill the mass of material out there into some kind of shortlist of inarguably "great" works. while folks here don't seem to measure greatness by mass appeal (i don't notice people here, krakabash trolls etc. excepted, arguing that record sales are a measure of greatness), nor do they seem to measure greatness by critical acclaim, i have noticed some here venture the "what gets remembered" criterion. but i think that "what gets remembered" is pretty accurately predicted by what has a combination of massive popularity and massive critical acclaim. if you just have the acclaim, you end up like captain beefheart or pere ubu -- in critic's lists and the hearts and minds of record geeks, but not exactly mainstream icons. if you have just the popularity, you end up like say, lionel richie. but things that have both, like the beatles, for instance, are going to remembered as iconic.
is 95% of the music that will be considered great, or historic, made? of course not. future generations will be born and love the music of their generation. the real question is, is 95% of the music that YOU will consider great made? probably, because time moves on. you love the music you grew up on, and you're probably no longer receptive to the stuff that the kids love these days, snap and autotune and t-pain and emo, let alone what kids 10, 20 years from now will make. you will become one of those old-timers saying "kids these days" and those kids will eventually become old-timers saying "kids these days".
-------------------------------
on a somewhat different subject,
geiginni's post about how there are so many ways to defy the templates and so much ground ripe for experimentation, and shagboy's response that
i think both of you are right, but i'm with shagboy on this. geiginni is right that there's so much that can be explored, but i'm with shagboy that totally experimental music is somewhat isolated from the things humans usually take to and respond to. there are of course exceptions, but i believe experimental music is called experimental for a reason -- the results of the experiments can be applied to more accessible applications, and they are all the time: crazy musique concrete stuff or whatever surfaces in movie soundtracks or in the interludes between pop songs or as samples on some timbaland track. but it's kinda like spice -- i like some experimental sprinkled on my daily music diet so it doesn't get to bland, but i can't eat it all the time. i think most people are like that and i think that the canonizing combination of acclaim and popularity is perhaps most often awarded to those can sprinkle just a little something new on the tried and true. then again, you and i shouldn't sweat who gets canonized. it's completely beyond our control. it's a hype machine, a right place right time, it's crazy. and people will, undoubtedly, like at least some of what's put in front of them.
they can't help it!
we can't help it!
i think there's an idea at work in this thread (and others) that to me is misfounded. this idea involves craving the ability to measure what is great and what is not objectively, to be able to refer to a canon and have someone tell them what is right; to want to distill the mass of material out there into some kind of shortlist of inarguably "great" works. while folks here don't seem to measure greatness by mass appeal (i don't notice people here, krakabash trolls etc. excepted, arguing that record sales are a measure of greatness), nor do they seem to measure greatness by critical acclaim, i have noticed some here venture the "what gets remembered" criterion. but i think that "what gets remembered" is pretty accurately predicted by what has a combination of massive popularity and massive critical acclaim. if you just have the acclaim, you end up like captain beefheart or pere ubu -- in critic's lists and the hearts and minds of record geeks, but not exactly mainstream icons. if you have just the popularity, you end up like say, lionel richie. but things that have both, like the beatles, for instance, are going to remembered as iconic.
is 95% of the music that will be considered great, or historic, made? of course not. future generations will be born and love the music of their generation. the real question is, is 95% of the music that YOU will consider great made? probably, because time moves on. you love the music you grew up on, and you're probably no longer receptive to the stuff that the kids love these days, snap and autotune and t-pain and emo, let alone what kids 10, 20 years from now will make. you will become one of those old-timers saying "kids these days" and those kids will eventually become old-timers saying "kids these days".
-------------------------------
on a somewhat different subject,
geiginni's post about how there are so many ways to defy the templates and so much ground ripe for experimentation, and shagboy's response that
shagboy wrote:what fascinates is the variation on the known, not the dive into the complete unknown. We've all been steeped in western culture. People make the music they like, and everyone has a rock reference point now.
i think both of you are right, but i'm with shagboy on this. geiginni is right that there's so much that can be explored, but i'm with shagboy that totally experimental music is somewhat isolated from the things humans usually take to and respond to. there are of course exceptions, but i believe experimental music is called experimental for a reason -- the results of the experiments can be applied to more accessible applications, and they are all the time: crazy musique concrete stuff or whatever surfaces in movie soundtracks or in the interludes between pop songs or as samples on some timbaland track. but it's kinda like spice -- i like some experimental sprinkled on my daily music diet so it doesn't get to bland, but i can't eat it all the time. i think most people are like that and i think that the canonizing combination of acclaim and popularity is perhaps most often awarded to those can sprinkle just a little something new on the tried and true. then again, you and i shouldn't sweat who gets canonized. it's completely beyond our control. it's a hype machine, a right place right time, it's crazy. and people will, undoubtedly, like at least some of what's put in front of them.
they can't help it!
we can't help it!
95% of all the great music that will ever be made has been
44i think, essentially, this all has to do with when we expect the apocalypse.
i will be optimistic for once.
95%=bullshit
i will be optimistic for once.
95%=bullshit