Aesthetics as it Pertains to Contemporary Music

Mr. Charlie · 02-11-2016, 07:55 AM

All music bashing is elitism really, innit. It's the ego telling itself it's cultured or discerning or intelligent or such like. It's a phantom lying to itself. Haha.

And we all fall for it. Sometimes I hear The Spice Girls on the radio and I think "what awful music" when really it's just music I dislike. Stupid thoughts!

grindy · 02-11-2016, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Charlie

All music bashing is elitism really, innit. It's the ego telling itself it's cultured or discerning or intelligent or such like. It's a phantom lying to itself. Haha.

And we all fall for it. Sometimes I hear The Spice Girls on the radio and I think "what awful music" when really it's just music I dislike. Stupid thoughts!

Spice Girls were kinda fun back in the day.

Mr. Charlie · 02-11-2016, 08:21 AM

I've never been able to appreciate The Spice Girls.
But I do find myself tapping my foot to the following Backstreet Boys track when it comes on the in-car radio playing GTA V:

I can see the furrowed brows now...

**Goofle** · 02-11-2016, 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grindy

Where do you work?

Gillette factory.

grindy · 02-11-2016, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Charlie

I've never been able to appreciate The Spice Girls.
But I do find myself tapping my foot to the following Backstreet Boys track when it comes on the in-car radio playing GTA V:

I can see the furrowed brows now...

It might have helped that I was 9 when "Wannabe" was released.
I enjoyed it and was probably adorable while doing so.
And I still don't see anything wrong in enjoying some good bubblegum pop, even though I'm a lover of artsy stuff and probably wouldn't seek it out by myself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goofle

Gillette factory.

Didn't know there was music playing at jobs like this.

Terrapin_Station · 02-11-2016, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

Well you see doc, my real beef was my six years of servitude at a mega-corp's retail hell in a ghetto just outside of NYC. I was assaulted for 8 hours a day by a bombardment of "Now That's What I Call Music!" over a tinny MUZAK PA . . .

That's going to be much harder to overcome in that case. It's basically an example of conditioning. You hated your job, your boss, your situation with your girlfriend--basically your life at that point, and you associate that music with those feelings because of so much time spent with that music as a soundtrack to those feelings.

It doesn't even need to take that much time. When I was a kid, there was a time when I was really, really sick for a few weeks. We happened to get a big Columbia Record Club delivery--maybe 10 albums--right at the start of that period, and loving music I figured it would help me feel a bit better and help enjoyably pass the time. Bad idea. For years after that, whenever I'd hear those albums it would make me feel sick again. I knew it wasn't the music--it was simply the association of the music with being sick that time, but it took me literally a couple decades to be able to listen to those particular albums without it bringing back strong memories of how crappy I felt.

**Goofle** · 02-11-2016, 10:48 AM

I actually work in a health and beauty store Grindy.

grindy · 02-11-2016, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goofle

I actually work in a health and beauty store Grindy.

Oh, okay.
Makes sense then.

Plankton · 02-11-2016, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

For the curious, here's the piece. (Appropriately, Warner Music has censored it for view outside of YouTube, so you'll have to view it at YouTube.com.)

Your use of Nickelback as the outro is interesting. It solidifies it's own significance in it's impact.

Xurtio · 06-11-2016, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

Admittedly, I've a general tendency to scoff at pop music and "low" culture, and at times I've said pretentious and disparaging things about pop performers.

In 2014 I drafted an article which asked how we might quantify musical value, but I confess that I wrote it as a layman with regard to philosophical constructs like the nature of beauty and artistic value. Perhaps that's why I so quickly write off spheres of music like rock and pop as unsophisticated and droll.

I've since grown discontent with this circumstance and with the effect my words have on my fellow music lovers. So this week I've begun a research project to develop a cohesive understanding of aesthetics as it relates to music and the arts. I hope that through wiser eyes (and ears) I might learn to appreciate non-academic music for the value it holds to its respective audience and to learn to be more respectful of my friends and loved ones' tastes.

Critically, I'd like to be a little less Lester Bangs and a little more John Peel.

A quick Google search uncovers numerous resources for a foundation in aesthetics.

Wikipedia has a summary of music aesthetics.

For a background in general aesthetics, I'll explore Stanford.edu.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a wealth of information on the aesthetics of popular music as well as texts on the fundamentals of general aesthetics.

Britannica offers similar resources for both aesthetics and for the philosophy of art.

I should also explore What is Beauty? Stanford.edu also offer some foundational texts examining objectivity and subjectivity of beauty.

I see that Roger Scruton published a critically-acclaimed book titled The Aesthetics of Music in 1997. But there is a far more intriguing book I'm after.

Simon Frith authored a university text titled, Taking Popular Music Seriously: Selected Essays (Ashgate Contemporary Thinkers on Critical Musicology) which includes Towards an Aesthetic on Popular Music. Sample pages are on Google Books but sadly the book itself commands between $192 - $430. I'll have to put a beacon out for an affordable print copy.

He also printed a non-university title - Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music which also sounds promising.

Outside of the titles mentioned above, the vast majority of these seem to concern themselves with Ancient, Classical, Baroque, and Renaissance musics. While these texts would provide a contextual perspective on musical aesthetics, I've a far greater interest in studying aesthetics as it applies to the later half of the 20th century and the present – paying particular attention to the influence and impact of late capitalism and the music industry's manufacturing of music as a product to be purchased and consumed.

One promising title is Listening to Popular Music, Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Led Zeppelin by Theodore Gracyk. The book examines:

- Separating Aesthetics from Art
- Taste and Musical Identity
- Aesthetic Principles and Aesthetic Properties
- Appreciating Valuing and Evaluating Music

The only strike against the book is that I can't stand Led Zeppelin.

I sincerely welcome any additional resource suggestions which you think might be of value.

Thank you!

I have an addiional consideration that isn't given a lot of time in mainstream academic music: timbre theory. The way different people hit notes with their instruments - the components of the attack, sustain, decay. Thing that we seldom have symbols for in music theory. This reddit thread from the music theory subreddit has some resources:

https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory...ory_of_timbre/

In pop music, timbre is chiefly vocal and sample-based (given the direction of electronica). But samples, too, can be insightful if used right. I always thought John Cage was on the fringe, but I still like to take parts of his philosophy:

02-11-2016, 08:21 AM	#33 (permalink)
Mr. Charlie Shoo Thoughts Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: These Mountains Posts: 2,308	I've never been able to appreciate The Spice Girls. But I do find myself tapping my foot to the following Backstreet Boys track when it comes on the in-car radio playing GTA V: I can see the furrowed brows now... Last edited by Mr. Charlie; 02-11-2016 at 08:24 AM. Reason: wrong tune!

02-11-2016, 07:55 AM	#31 (permalink)
Mr. Charlie Shoo Thoughts Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: These Mountains Posts: 2,308	All music bashing is elitism really, innit. It's the ego telling itself it's cultured or discerning or intelligent or such like. It's a phantom lying to itself. Haha. And we all fall for it. Sometimes I hear The Spice Girls on the radio and I think "what awful music" when really it's just music I dislike. Stupid thoughts!