Re: Reaching Out (was Re: The album's cover + Melody Maker)

[stewarte@ucscc.UCSC.EDU (The Man Who Invented Himself)]

Hairy frogs from Neptune forced CCJS@cc.nu.OZ.AU (James Smith) to type:

>>> What has Kate's style to do with the beauty of her work?
>
>Stewart Evans writes:
>
>> How can the style _not_ affect how good or bad it is?  The style in
>> which a song is written & performed is just as much a part of it as
>> its production, or musicianship, or lyrical profundity, or whatever.
>> Perhaps what you meant to imply is that an entire genre shouldn't
>> be condemned in this way (e.g., "all reggae sucks"), and I agree with
>> that.  But if the genre is particularly cliche-ridden, and the song
>> largely follows those cliches rather than varying them or breaking
>> them, the style can definitely weaken the song.  
>
>But preference for style is really just opinion, not fact.  A C&W fan
>might say HM sucks, and vice versa; it means nothing.  Each style is
>capable of producing great music, and personal preferences don't affect
>how great that music is.  Apples and pears.  And you can't rate one
>style against another, you can only express a preference for one over
>another.

Wait a minute.  So preference for style is opinion, but greatness is fact?
I don't agree with that for a second.  The two major arguments I've
heard in favor of universal greatness:

1) Critical consensus is that <X> is great.  This assumes that "the critics"
as a whole know more than I do, which I think is bullshit.  Further, this
means that greatness shifts as critical consensus does, such that people
who weren't great when they were alive may become so after their deaths.

2) <X> is so popular, <X> must be great.  This is simple tyranny of the 
majority, and I think it's bullshit.  By this logic, Tiffany is greater
than Kate Bush.  

So perhaps you have some other (objective) standard for greatness?  If 
so, I'd love to hear it.  Until such a time, though, I refuse to accept
your statement that "personal preferences don't affect how great that 
music is".  On the contrary, that's _all_ that affects it!

>Mind you, how many people do say such things without
>at least mentally qualifying it with an "in my opinion"?  It's a great
>way of producing very narrow-minded people.

Not only do I qualify these things when I say them, I do so when I read 
them too.  I guess I'm confident enough in my tastes that I don't get 
upset when people praise/condemn music that I hate/love.  Why should I
think that Jon Drukman's opinion is more important than my own?  (Or
even important at all, in his case?)

>>> It is well produced, has a beautiful melody, is arranged beautifully, and
>>> features great performances from those who made it.  
>
>> See, even you do it!  Is calling the song "beautiful" any less an opinion
>> than calling it "horrible".  I think it's ridiculously awkward to expect
>> people to qualify absolutely everything that isn't verifiable fact
>> as opinion, when it should be quite obvious from context.
>
>Arh, but this was a statement of fact, not an opinion!  Perhaps I should
>have said "perfectly" rather then "beautifully," then it would not have 
>been seen as an opinion, but a truism. :-)  (And perhaps I should have
>put a smiley after it.)

I assume you meant to qualify this entire paragraph with a smiley, too?
Of course, "arranged perfectly" would still be a value judgment, and 
there are still three other unqualified opinions in that same sentence...

Is that horse dead yet?  Here, let me give it one more stroke...

-- Stewart
-- 
"Bell peppers are like marketing.  Celery is like, uh, 
 distribution channels or something."
				-- Tim Ruckle
/*  uunet!sco!stewarte  -or-  stewarte@sco.COM  -or-  Stewart Evans  */