Re: Musical tastes and tasteless arguments

[brownfld@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Kenneth R Brownfield)]

stevev@greylady.uoregon.EDU (Steve VanDevender) writes:
>Vickie wrote:
>> She's NOT just another good singer. She's got the
>> same sort of magic and spirit that Kate has (though Kate *IS* God and always
>> will be!) and since Katefans do generally have open ears, minds and hearts,
>> many will feel that magic. It's only right that she be recommended to other
>> Kate Bush fans and it's only right that we be the ones to discover and
>> appreciate her before everyone else catches on.
>Richard Caldwell wrote directly underneath:
>>That's a very clever way to put it.  You assert that the magic _is_ there 
>>and that if we don't feel it it's our own fault.  I'd say that's a matter
>>of opinion and from what I've seen not everyone agrees.
>>Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe Happy Rhodes isn't a Kate-wanna-be, maybe she's
>>a Kate-you-want-her-to-be.  You would probably be doing her a favor not to 
>>saddle her with such high expectations.
>What I can't figure out, Richard, is why you think that Vickie
>doesn't consider it a matter of opinion, that Vickie is not

       Did he say he didn't?  My reader must be broken.

>allowing others room for disagreement, or that any other
>reasonable reader is not going to consider musical taste and
>music recommendations as matters of opinion no matter how the
>author might word their posts.

     If I said, as others have in the past, that "Kate sucks rocks," do you
think I would have more than a tenth of my original body mass?  Do you not
think I would be torched into an all new plane of Hell reserved for just my
bloody remaining body parts?
     Take the above paragraph, replace "Kate" with "Happy" and the entire
clause works fine.  This is warped, and is far too widespread here.  Not that
gaffa isn't wonderful, of course.  Nothing's perfect.  Happy is great.  But
_no one_ is great enough for this mess.

>I think you're being extremely unfair to Vickie and undermining
>your own argument by taking what must be reasonably interpreted
>as statements of subjective opinion and saying that Vickie is
>trying to claim them as facts.

[...].
 
     Isn't it unfair to criticize him, for the exact same reason?
     Subjective opinion.  Do you think Richard is upset (preferrably another
similar word) with Vickie?  It's hard enough to understand what emotions are
behind the numbers of the Net without losing objectivity.  If he read it that
way, and it _can_ indeed be read that way, that's his right.  Are "Magic" and
"Spirit" now universally applicable?  When someone says "No, that band is
better than that," which "She's NOT just another good singer" can translate
to, it means "You are wrong."  PERIOD.  This is the problem with discussing
music.  Vickie probably didn't mean it that way, but how do you tell when that
evaluation fits the running discussion?  Richard may have been a bit quick to
the gun, but it's not unnecessary deadly force.
     In sum:

"I think you're being extremely unfair to [Richard] and undermining
 your own argument by taking what must be reasonably interpreted
 as statements of subjective opinion and saying that [Richard] is
 trying to claim them as facts."  -- quoted by me without permission.

     Flames are better hypocrisy-free, methinks.  I'm afraid I haven't (nor do
I intend to) read the remainder of this article.  However, I think everyone
who has this problem should stop, carefully place the chip on your shoulder in
a safe place (a nuclear sewage treatment plant near you, for instance) and
post normally.
     Seriously, let's put Happy in the group of all the other artists that
fall under gaffa, and treat her like any other.  As I see it, she's no more
special than any other artist that falls under the very rough category of
rec.music.gaffa.  It's what matters to a specific person and _only_ that
specific person that counts:  Happy matters a lot more to Vickie than to me,
but it doesn't matter here except in _purely_ objective terms.  Recommandations
based on similar tastes are fine/wonderful, but preaching (harsh word, but the
only one I can think of off hand (echo preaching | thesaurus)) without regard
to the breadth of the tastes here can be annoying to those who don't share the
same tastes.
     I think Richard has a point:  Happy discussion is very "She is amazing"
based.  "Stunning," "Beautiful."  Saying anything else and you get hit with
The Dunce Stick (Copyright 1991 by K Brownfield.  ;-)  I bet quite a few
people on gaffa who have listened to Happy don't post their less-than-Vickie-
like experience just so they don't cause a flame war.
     Is it ridiculous that this _should_ be the case, or is it just me?
     And it is the case, have no doubt.
     Just for reference, I don't have even the slightest grudge or bad feeling
against anyone here (except envy for Jon's guts regarding his Happy review. :-)

-- 
                                                        Ken.
Kenneth R. Brownfield                            brownfld@uiuc.edu
Computing Services Office                 uunet!uiucuxc!uiuc.edu!brownfld
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.     (finger for more info.)