Ok so there a couple different things being talked about here. So here's where im at on them. Machine, my first post wasn't really directed at you, more on Trollheart as he was trying to hide behind this barrier of "it's my opinion dude". Opinions can absolutely be s
hitty and his is. In my opinion.
The definition I like for what music is, is one that I think was basically mentioned earlier in this thread (maybe by grindy?). "Music is organized sound in time". It's simple and succinct and while being fairly loose in terms of what it encompasses, it's also not ambiguous. So that wind you heard on the walk home from school is not music, but
Night Passage by
Alan Lamb is. The heart of Trollheart's argument is based off arbitrary criteria that he personally values (and sometimes even those criteria are apparently misinterpreted to only include what he feels it is; "oh I don't hear melody->no melody=no music->this is not music". It's like saying carrots aren't a vegetable because it's orange, and I think vegetables are only green.
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Originally Posted by Soulflower
If the debate is on who is the best singer in pop music, then the objective measures that will be used are vocal range, vocal strength, tone, endurance, etc. to determine who is the best. We use these measures to see how one is set apart from the other in a non subjective way.
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This (an entirely different beast), is also something id contest. Yeah sure vocal range or tone are things you can objectively measure, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. You can measure that someone has a baritone voice and differentiate that from a soprano, but that in itself has nothing to do with quality or who's the "best". Vocals, like all instruments in music, are not to be thought of in a vacuum. Some people have different preferences on what a singer should sound like, and it can(should) differ with respect to the context.
Jandek may not have the best vocal strength or whathaveyou, but his voice works excellent for the music that he makes. So how can you compare him with
Freddie Mercury? Who's the better singer? Using strictly "objective" singing terms to decide that isn't really a good argument, as it eliminates any sort of context that certain music is made for.
If youre talking about music and what's best, it is subjective. You can use measures if you want, but it's by no means an objective way to concretely decide this.