Aesthetics as it Pertains to Contemporary Music

innerspaceboy · 02-09-2016, 07:24 PM

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!