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Originally Posted by William_the_Bloody
I kind of disagree with that, I think there are simple manufactured musical compositions and then more complex interesting ones...
Though there has been this sort of trend since western civilizations abandonment of high culture for consumer culture...
The democratization of music has brought us punk rock and rap...
I think the key is technology. The more technology makes music easier to make, the more that non talent a$$holes are able to enter into the game. But in the end its all good, that's just the way human evolution roles.
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While I respectfully disagree with several of your examples of superiority vs inferiority and measurement of talent, you touch upon a few critically important points - namely the trade-off of high art for profitable consumer art, and that technology continually democratizes accessibility to both music-making tools and to the musical works, themselves.
We live in an incredible age where more music than we could ever consume in a lifetime is only a screen-tap (or a voice command) away. And practically anyone can produce music with software tools which parallel multi-million dollar studio equipment accessible to only a wealthy few forty years ago.
There are pros and cons to this, as with anything. It means that we end up with an incalculable about of amateur, crap music, but I consider that a fantastically fair trade for the value it adds to a society in which everyone can participate in the creative process.
There is a similar and obvious downside to the commercialization of music, beginning at the dawn of recorded sound, through the monstrous deeds of copyright trolls grappling to keep control of the arts where it is most profitable at the expense of the public good.
And on the airwaves of mass media (which grow less and less relevant by the minute) there has been a significant decline in musical diversity and a downfall of "high art" in favor of homogenized commercial music better-suited to selling athletic shoes than to stirring the soul and inspiring the mind.
But it is important to remember that there are varying forms of skill, artistic merit, and technical proficiency respective to the purpose of each music form. Zeppelin excelled at crafting memorable riffs and melodies and had an incredible vocal presence. They were experts and copying, combining, and transforming elements from blues music and from their contemporaries (like Spirit) to create universally-acclaimed rock hits.
Classical musicians, by comparison, seek to engage and enliven our inner experience. Their music adheres to a traditional structure of distinctive temporal characteristics which add a quality of timelessness to their art.
The skillset varies based upon the conditions of the genre. The Avalanches'
Since I Left You LP does not demonstrate any particular proficiency of traditional instrumentation. There are few infectiously memorable hooks, so it does not excel as a pop record either. But unto itself, it is an outstanding example of technical skill with regard to the art of sampling, or what John Oswald dubbed "plunderphonics". The album contains an estimated 3,500 samples from various genres of music, seamlessly and expertly interwoven into an album-long work.
And the aforementioned
"Wannabe" was a pop sensation for its own reasons. While in no way demonstrative of any characteristic of "high art", it makes no claim to be, and instead excels at being memorable, danceable, and a social meme synonymous with teen "girl power".
The mistake is made when we attempt to compare apples to oranges and hold disparate musics to identical (and entirely fictional) standards.