Grim,
In an effort to bash my post, you've missed the point of it.
I didn't. I understood it {I took note of what you said about subjectivity} and I don't think it's a bad post at all. Quite the opposite actually. It throws up lots of ideas for comment and some of those ideas are contained in nuances that may not be readilly obvious.
That I may disagree with some of it doesn't mean I was bashing it.
A good song connects with the listener, a bad song doesn't. Plain and simple. Debate that.
I did. In surprizingly few words, for me. I took what you said about good songs connecting and bad songs not connecting and pointed out that the descriptions could {and I'd go further and say
pretty much always will} refer to the same song and as such, that kind of makes defining good songs vs bad songs a futile excercise.
That stuff about the masses was more about how record sales, an indicator of how many listeners a song might connect to, is not an indicator to how good that song is.
I don't dispute that. Sales of a song or album can tell you all manner of things. But what I've said in these debates is that there can't really be any inherent goodness or badness in a song. A song is a song is a song.
But there's a slight contradiction to your point because actually, high sales
could be used as an indicator of how good a song is ~ if such a thing could actually be gauged.
I just happen, like you, to think not.
I think that you would agree that there are people who have more complex tastes in music. Not better tastes, just more complex, and you're probably one of them.
Well, yes on all counts. I would also hazard a guess that many of those complex heads also like simple, bland, unchallenging stuff too. My own collection contains the insane free jazz rock of Amalgam with their pieces that run to 2 sides of a record and Low flying aircraft, the soul R&B of Angie Stone and Erykah Badu, the pre teen pap pop of Jimmy Osmond and the Partridge family to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Bob Marley & the Wailers !
I don't need to actually know a lot of people to understand what the top selling records are. Just saying that how good a song is, that is subjective.
I never argued against that last point. It can only be subjective. Which therefore means there cannot be any universal criteria or yardstick other than "I like it".
A good song connects with the listener, a bad song doesn't. This is the point. It's the song's purpose. I don't think it's debatable, which is probably why it's the one statement you didn't address.
My whole post addressed it.
Miroslav thinks "Yellow Submarine" is a piece of childish nonsense. I think it's a deep song that shows the kinder, understanding side of the LSD enhanced counterculture.
He feels "Obladi oblada" is a piece of crap that can't be taken seriously. I think it's a groundbreaking piece both musically and lyrically as it gives a tremendous insight into the influx of Black people into Britain after world war 2 and how the culture was changing as a result.
Are they good or bad songs ?
That's why I can't think in terms of good and bad.
Furthermore, if I was to, there are loads of songs that I can't stand, but which I can easily acknowledge as "good".
Earlier, I asked the question, is there anyone out there that considers any songs as bad songs, but still likes them ?
Thus far, no one has answered that.
No need to cherry pick my post to paint me as a small minded elitist music listener. Because I'm not.
I don't paint you as anything. Yet the point still remains. I've seen lots of people over the years making negative comments about what "the masses" like or how shallow "they" are but the makers of such comments are never included among "the masses".
The simple fact is, we do not
really know that many people, relative to how many people there actually are. Even in our towns and cities, much less on a larger scale. But many of us do comment as though we do.
I don't know you, I know absolutely nothing of your tastes so I make no assumptions about you. But I can respond to some interesting points you've made, whether I agree with them or not.
