Quote:
Originally Posted by jadis
Thank you for enlivening this piece of tired man-on-the-street wisdom with something as funny as the "enhance the experience" bit.
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Eh,
I’m extremely sorry that I dared to express an opinion.
And I’m actually sorry if my english seems funny, posh or whatever; i’m not a native speaker.
Even so, I do feel the venom in this part of your reply.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jadis
The definition of "complexity" on which you operate is "stuff I like"
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Well, no, it’s not, as I haven’t given a definitive definition of complexity, and I haven’t mentioned pretty much anything I listen to, or that I like. You base this comment on two examples I gave.
But to be true, yes, I like (love might be the better word) both the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
But my opinion of their music is not based on the fact that I enjoy listening to them, it’s quite the oposite - I enjoy listening to their music because of the intelectual opinion I have of it (at least that’s the Beach Boys case, I learned that such a band even existed when I was 18 or 19, before that I thought that they’re „that goofy surf rock band that made Surfin’USA”, but then when I learned of Pet Sounds, SMiLE, Surf’s Up (both the song and the album, etc), I was - being already at least quite knowledgeable of music theory, and all — completely mesmerized by Brian Wilson’s ability to wrote these unpredictable/unintuitional progressions, that still sound „nice” and „pop”, and his amazing ability to write harmonies [mostly vocal ones; but also in pair with the instumnetation, and the weirdest drum/percussion patterns I’ve heard — the percussion stuff I mean Pet Sounds the album]), with the Beatles I have a different, and more complex relationship.
Also, my entire point in this conversation was to differenciate taste from quality. With that not being offensive to the taste (at least in some cases).
Quote:
Originally Posted by jadis
Does the work of one Miles Davis belong to "popular music"? Or Don Van Vliet? Or Irmin Schmidt? Or did they all do "complexity for complexity's sake" instead of "enhancing our experience" as they should have?
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If you’d look to my profile you’d see that apart from the Beatles or Beach boys, I have Frank Zappa, Steely Dan and Grateful Dead listed as my favourite artists.
The funny part is that you immediately assume, after seeing two band examples, what my taste is, and what do I „deam worthy of being complex”.
I dislike the position in which you put me with this part of the reply, but let’s get to it:
Captain Beefheart was my second most often listened artist on last.fm last year (the first being Keith Richards).
I love his music very deeply, and no, I do not believe he makes complex compositions for complexity’s sake. He’s more of a troubled genius or whatever, and I have a soft heart for that kind of artist.
I do not know who Irmin Schmidt is...oh, no wait, I just checked. I discovered Can only a month ago or so, and the Tago Mago album really hit me hard, and so far I haven’t checked out more of their albums, beacuse I’m savouring this one. It’s kinda funny you mention this, because it was my father who showed me Can, because it reminded him a lot of the music I play with my band, and he was like „show it to the Boys! They’ll love it!”. And so it was.
As for Miles Davis:
I’m not an ignorant when it comes to jazz. There’s constantly music being played in my house (though no one aparat from me is a musician or aspires to be), and as my father is an absolute jazz freak, so the music I was listening to as a kid was Monk, Mingus, Davis, Coltrane (both of them), Shorter, Cannonball, Freddie Redd, Ed Harris, Getz, Jimmy Smith, Coleman, Don Cherry, Rahsan Kirk, Sanders, Lateef, my father’s favourite — Jackie McClean (mine would be Mingus or Cherry, not sure of my feeling here) and all of the others.
More so, my father was running a Jazz Club, during my coming-of-age years, and I was there pretty much every night, until they had to close it. And I actually met most of poland’s greatest jazzman of the old days, like Michał Urbaniak, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Wojciech Karolak, but also the likes of Steven Craven or Kevin Mahogany, and many many players between the age of 20 to 70.
It’s just that when Talking about music, or popular music, I don’t like to mix jazz with the pop/rock/blues/funk part of music. It just seems to me like it comes from a different place to all these other genres, and because of that comparing them is just plain dumb.
That’s why I dislike the Rolling Stone lists of greatest albums (like, yeah, ok, there’s 500 albums here, but only 4-6 jazz albums, the hell is happening? You either mix it all, or just add „Kind of Blue” to the list for no reason at all).
Am I less worthy of your despise now?
(No agression meant in that question)
Anyway, I’m not sure what your point was in that entire reply other than to insult me. What was your point?
(No offense here either)