good time with bad music

Just imagine: someone, perhaps a friend, asks you to put some music on. After some thought, wear something you’re sure will please the crowd. Instead, you’ll see a blank stare, or even a look of contempt. Someone, perhaps a now-ex-friend, asked you to turn it off. Did. But who decided what bad music is, anyway?

This has been debated for a long time. In a treatise published in the Proceedings of the Music Society in 1891, teacher and composer Henry Charles He Bannister argues that enjoying music is a matter of taste. That’s the taste. But he writes that judgments differ. Music, like any other art form, must be considered for its criteria, ‘principles or tests’, and ‘principles that govern all true art – coherence, continuity and interrelationships of ideas’. . Of course, you can listen to and enjoy music that doesn’t adhere to these standards, but with Banister, listeners need to understand the rules to hear how they’re being broken. .

Of course, the 19th-century conference of musicologists was neither the best nor the most diverse group for determining the “rules” of music. Researcher Adrian Renzo argues that one of the criticisms of musicology is that, through musicological analysis, “songs are justified and given the brilliance of ‘significance’ only by being subject to academic analysis.” points out that it is. Certain types of music are analyzed so often that people think they are important and even good. But if that’s true, some people argue that some music is just music. bad. And that inherent badness, says Renzo, “is often seen as ridiculous.” It’s just a short jump from ridiculous to bad. The difference he notes is defined as music “made by singers who can’t sing, players who can’t play, producers who can’t produce.” Sounds like an argument Bannister could support.

Researchers Martin Lüthe and Sascha Pöhlmann point out something else: unpopular. Unpopularity can be related to value judgments such as ‘offensive’, ‘controversial’, ‘cool’, ‘ugly’, ‘(un)fashionable’ and ‘bad’. It also includes an element of being part of the war: between high and low, “what unpopular culture does is a question of aesthetic and political value judgments at the heart of the high/pop culture divide.” It’s about paying attention,” he insists. Which way “bad” music leans is entirely up to the listener. Some people who consider jazz to be a pure art may find it boring. And every song that hits the top of the charts has someone sick of popular music.(One interesting thing to note is that jazz is both pop. When Lüthe and Pöhlmann write, “High culture like no other in the world of music.” ), as her librarian Brenda Gale Beasley writes, “Our musical choices help define our personal identity and sense of self.”

Taste is not as simple as Bannister and his buddies thought. As Beasley points out, “You can’t discuss ‘taste’ without first delving into a culture, sometimes its political climate.” may not have. But there are downsides, Lüthe and Pöhlmann explain.Sometimes it’s a place to find yourself, a place to nurture a cult following, a place where you can tell stories and histories no one wants to hear. [and] Sing a song that no one wants to sing. ”

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