Aesthetics as it Pertains to Contemporary Music

The Batlord · 02-10-2016, 08:55 PM

**** all this pseudo-intellectual bull****. It's ****ing pop music. Either you like two-minute songs whose only purpose is to be two-minute pop songs or you don't.\
All this intellectualism on the matter is just silly nonsense. If you don't like Kanye West or Madonna or Britney Spears or what the **** ever, then don't treat it like some intellectual exercise, you just don't like the ****ing ****.

Jesus ****ing Christ.

innerspaceboy · 02-10-2016, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

**** all this pseudo-intellectual bull****. It's ****ing pop music. Either you like two-minute songs whose only purpose is to be two-minute pop songs or you don't.\
All this intellectualism on the matter is just silly nonsense. If you don't like Kanye West or Madonna or Britney Spears or what the **** ever, then don't treat it like some intellectual exercise, you just don't like the ****ing ****.

Jesus ****ing Christ.

You know, you're right Batty. It's daft to rationalize that, if I read enough academic lit, that somehow I might develop a tolerance, or even respect, for idiots with ****ty taste in music.

I don't need to justify it artistically. It's vapid, commercial garbage, supersaturating the airwaves and designed to sell widgets. It is in no way a valid art form.

Thanks, Bat. You saved me some reading.

Neapolitan · 02-10-2016, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

*Stretches out on the therapist's sofa*

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. The same 7-8 songs would loop endlessly for months at a time. Christmas was the worst with what seemed like a direct oscillation between "Simply Having a Wonderful Chistmastime" and Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".

8 hours of 2-minute long saccharine-soaked-country-tinged-radio-fodder drove me to the very limits of my sanity.

When I finally released myself from my own prison and started my career, I channeled all that scared cerebral tissue into a noise piece which served as a representation of my six years of psychological torture. I called it 5' 50" of Pop.

I see that translates as "3 yards and 2 inches of Pop," for those who use metric that converts to "2.7940000000000005 meters of Pop." Is there any significant to that length that meant something to you? Like the distance between you and the the speaker that pumped out Muzak or Pop music you didn't like?

Quote:

Originally Posted by innerspaceboy

I superimposed 100 music videos by the worst offenders from the MUZAK station, (Daughtry, Nickelback, Rob Thomas, Backstreet Boys, Bieber, Colbie Caillat, Amy Grant, Taylor Swift...) and made one colossal explosion of Pop noise.

It premiered in Buffalo NY in 2013.

As great of an exercise as it was, the shell shock of those six years will take some serious time to heal. Hyperintellectualizing my approach to pop is my way of handling it with surgical gloves.

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.)

I really don't care about any of those Pop artist you struggle with so much, in fact I didn't recognize any of those songs. I can't say I absolutely hate Pop (as in Top 40). I don't want any boundaries to swear off a genre. Although there are genre I don't get into because there is so much to hear and so little time to hear it all. I think of not listening to what I dislike as more as having boundaries or parameters. Not bothering with stuff I don't like leaves me more time to concentrate on music I like.

I might not like Pop because it's cliché, but there is other stuff I don't like because how the fans act. I somewhat sympathize with you. But it's not Pop music, I just can ignore that. I don't care for Tom Waits. It goes back to some Tom Waits fanboy I met — in real life and before I joined this forum. He was so pretentious, and dismissive of other people's taste in music. I thought well I don't want to be like that. I don't know if an artist can be over-rated by one person's opinion but I didn't find Tom Waits as good as he made it out to be.

For me not caring even a farthing about Tom Waits is like liberating myself from all those trite things music fans, or album collectors say and do. In fact I don't like to talk about my opinion of Tom Waits. I figure statically there should be some TW fans here, and I don't want offend them. In fact I don't like to say who I dislike, because fans identify so much with who they like they take it as a slight against them.

DwnWthVwls · 02-10-2016, 09:30 PM

I think you're around my age (30), why didn't you use technology to avoid your 2-minute track nightmare? I remember back in 2000-2004, I was using Napster and other program to find all kinds of underground hiphop. I know your tech savvy so why did you allow yourself to be trapped listening to that crap?

The Batlord · 02-10-2016, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

I see that translates as "3 yards and 2 inches of Pop," for those who use metric that converts to "2.7940000000000005 meters of Pop." Is there any significant to that length that meant something to you? Like the distance between you and the the speaker that pumped out Muzak or Pop music you didn't like?

I really don't care about any of those Pop artist you struggle with so much, in fact I didn't recognize any of those songs. I can't say I absolutely hate Pop (as in Top 40). I don't want any boundaries to swear off a genre. Although there are genre I don't get into because there is so much to hear and so little time to hear it all. I think of not listening to what I dislike as more as having boundaries or parameters. Not bothering with stuff I don't like leaves me more time to concentrate on music I like.

I might not like Pop because it's cliché, but there is other stuff I don't like because how the fans act. I somewhat sympathize with you. But it's not Pop music, I just can ignore that. I don't care for Tom Waits. It goes back to some Tom Waits fanboy I met — in real life and before I joined this forum. He was so pretentious, and dismissive of other people's taste in music. I thought well I don't want to be like that. I don't know if an artist can be over-rated by one person's opinion but I didn't find Tom Waits as good as he made it out to be.

For me not caring even a farthing about Tom Waits is like liberating myself from all those trite things music fans, or album collectors say and do. In fact I don't like to talk about my opinion of Tom Waits. I figure statically there should be some TW fans here, and I don't want offend them. In fact I don't like to say who I dislike, because fans identify so much with who they like they take it as a slight against them.

More silly bull****. You should like music because you like it, and you should not like it because you don't like it. Not liking something because of some ******* is just reactionary bull****. You may very well be depriving yourself of music you might otherwise like just because you thought some douchebag was an *******. Why should I even have to say this ****? It should just be common sense.

innerspaceboy · 02-10-2016, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls

I think you're around my age (30), why didn't you use technology to avoid your 2-minute track nightmare? I remember back in 2000-2004, I was using Napster and other program to find all kinds of underground hiphop. I know your tech savvy so why did you allow yourself to be trapped listening to that crap?

34 myself at present. My boss at the company was an arrogant misogynistic white supremacist who delighted in watching me suffer. He was well-aware of my turmoil and I asked him if I could wear an IEM and use my Creative Zen X-Fi to play white noise or anything of a similar frequency to the MUZAK to help me tune it out.

Unfortunately, we were required to wear bulky 1980s-era walkie talkie equipment the size of a lineman's handset and my boss claimed that an IEM would interfere with our walkie communications so it was not an option.

This was a guy who not only tortured a stranded bird to death which had accidentally flown into the store, but also, when a 60-year-old elderly employee hurt herself on the job and went to the emergency room, he stealthily removed her from the payroll so that he wouldn't have to cover her care.

This was a great job.

innerspaceboy · 02-10-2016, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

I see that translates as "3 yards and 2 inches of Pop," for those who use metric that converts to "2.7940000000000005 meters of Pop." Is there any significant to that length that meant something to you? Like the distance between you and the the speaker that pumped out Muzak or Pop music you didn't like?

The ' and the " are English notation for hours and minutes. It was a nod to Cage's 4'33" of silence. 5' 50" is the total run time of the 100 videos played simultaneously.

Neapolitan · 02-10-2016, 10:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord

More silly bull****. You should like music because you like it, and you should not like it because you don't like it. Not liking something because of some ******* is just reactionary bull****. You may very well be depriving yourself of music you might otherwise like just because you thought some douchebag was an *******. Why should I even have to say this ****? It should just be common sense.

That's not isn't a fair analysis of what I said, maybe you skim through my post.

There are different things about Tom Waits and his music I don't like. The fan acting pretentious is a turn-off. It probably might factors in, but it's not the sole reason I don't like him. I don't see it as reactionary when I use him as an example on how not to act. (I try my best not to come off as pretentious.) Ultimately I didn't like his music because I didn't like his music. I don't feel like I am depriving myself of music I like by not listening to Tom Waits because I am utilizing that time exploring other artist and listening to music I like.

There are different reasons for not liking a song, band, or genre. I get it if it doesn't click it doesn't click, nothing to get worked up about. I my reasons, and innerspaceboy has his reason why he doesn't like certain types of music. I was trying to understand innerspaceboy; where he's coming from. The TW analogy wasn't suppose to be a identical to innerspaceboy's dilemma.

**Goofle** · 02-11-2016, 06:44 AM

All I know is that the appeal of swallowing a razor blade would greatly increase if, instead of playing Top 40 Pop hits, The Disintegration Loops was played over the stereo at work.

grindy · 02-11-2016, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goofle

All I know is that the appeal of swallowing a razor blade would greatly increase if, instead of playing Top 40 Pop hits, The Disintegration Loops was played over the stereo at work.

Where do you work?