Entertainment For Lively Minds
Is anything good?
No, not a 'modern life is rubbish' rant, but I was wondering if there are any albums everyone agrees are great. Given that music is so personal, there'll always be someone who doesn't like, for instance, Revolver, or Hunky Dory, or Dark Side Of The Moon, or Thriller, or Nevermind.
If it just comes down to taste, then you can't argue the true merits of anything, because someone can simply say: 'Well, I don't like it.'
Maybe sales is the only subjective way of judging quality. Top of the lot is Thriller, which in my opinion is an undeniably great album - brilliantly written, performed, produced and recorded. Next biggest, according to Wikipedia, is Back In Black - so far so good. But the next is Bat Out Of Hell, and while it's an entertaining romp, surely it's all a bit silly to be great? It gets worse, because a few places down we've got Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom Of The Opera -ugh! - and the Backstreet Boys' Millennium. I don't think even the Backstreet Boys would claim to have made a better album than The Beatles.
So, how can you objectively judge the quality of an album, and say with Hepworth-like certainty: 'This is great.'
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Off The Wall
is better than Thriller. I hated Thriller when it came out with each of it's five bloody singles propping it up every time it flagged in the album charts coupled with the constant media exposure the annoying little twerp got. Bring back the real Michael Jackson of Off The Wall fame I used to say as I made my way to school to endure another lonely day of toilet duckings and chinese burns. Luckily Tristan Hayden then got into Japan so I was left alone for a while.
Oddessy and Oracle by The Zombies is the answer by the way.
If sales are anything to go by
Then Shania Twain makes better records than Christine Collister.
(She doesn't.)
It's got to be subjective.
But why?
I agree about Christine Collister, of course, but how would you convince a Shania Twain fan? There must be some criteria for saying this is good, that's rubbish.
Does it speak to me?
Does it say something to me about my life?
Shania (and I don't mind her, to be honest) says something to those who buy her records - fair enough.
Christine says something to those of us who buy hers.
It has to be a personality / experience of the world / mood / taste interface...
For me it might have something to do with soul / authenticity - but even that is a bit bogus, isn't it?
Is it identification? I relate to that music / artist because...
You are right - it is a thorny one to unpick.
Hear hear
Watching last week's Later made me gnash my teeth yet again. Every other week there'll be an unknown female singer-songwriter on the show, who is usually allowed just the one song. Some of the ones this series have been awful. I've done a quick search and can't find programme lists, but there was one in particular, a woman with wild afro-ish hair, who was painful to hear; there was an androgynous woman about three weeks ago who was terribly dull; there was Diana Jones last week, who was both dull and flat as a pancake (and her sodding guitar was out of tune as well!).
And yet Christine Collister, regarded by many as one of the best singers in the country, has never appeared on the show (not in her own right, at any rate - possibly as part of Richard Thompson's band), despite the fact that Jools Holland apparently is a fan of hers (I heard this from someone very close to her). Why is this? It can't be because she's not well known enough. I know she'd go down a storm. It makes no sense to me.
TIme for a Christine
appreciation thread?
And a petition to the Big British Castle?
Good idea Adman...
I know there's a lot more choice of clips of her on youtube these days than there used to be. I'll root out a really good one.
BTW, that ear-bothering singer was Karima Francis.
You are wrong.
By the sound of it I'm afraid you have far too little evidence upon which to base your judgement. Not right on the note last week, I'll give you that, but cut a little slack for nerves. Trust me, Diana Jones is not dull.
What on earth do you mean?
I'm wrong? You concede yourself that she wasn't hitting the notes; you might also have heard that at least one of her guitar strings wasn't properly in tune. And I thought she was dull. Yes, it's only one song, and fair enough, I might enjoy her other stuff. But I thought this one was dull, and, sorry if I'm being arsey about this, but I object to a bald statement like "you are wrong."
Karima Francis
was, I believe, the name of the "awful woman with wild afro-ish hair". I remember being unable to comprehend what she was singing.
There's no objective way
- that's part of the point of it being "great" in your own eyes - it has a personal element that you don't necessarily share with onther people (and vice versa).
The art of the matter
There are some areas of creativity where you can be objective. Picasso's Guernica or James Joyce's Ulysses, for instance, are undeniably great - I can't say I particularly enjoyed reading Ulysses, but that doesn't mean I can't see what a towering achievement it is.
Why can't I feel the same certainty about modern popular music? Is it just too crude an art form to contain real greatness?
Sorry, I know I'm taking this all to seriously, but it's been bugging me all weekend.
I have to disagree...
A book isn't great if you can't finish the bugger! I personally would deny the greatness of Ulysses and argue for the greatness of The Dead. A work of art is only great if it connects with you properly. Art which fails to reach you, has failed - it's a form of communication. Which takes me back to subjectivity.
I personally think that the Mona Lisa is a bloody awful painting - it's too small, too dark & the subject matter is tedious - now received (objective?) wisdom tells me that it is a masterpiece painted by a genius. Am I a philistine? Perhaps. But I find the painting of Monet, for example, utterly transfixing - it speaks to me- and I suspect that is because I grew up at a particular time, in particular place, with a particular style of education, etc.
And what about cultural perception? A Western European's view of 'great art' is going to be radically different to that of a person from Africa or Asia - our view / our taste / our response to things is informed by our environment.
And the days of pop's towering achievements are, sadly, behind us.
I admire you for taking it so seriously. I just wish I could be more helpful, and not so contrary!
perhaps only time will tell
I studied philosphy at Uni and the for the aesthetics option had to do a lot of reading about this topic. Nobody can agree. Both Picasso and Joyce were rubbished by conservative critics when they started out (as was just about anyone you can name.) Probably the only real test is whether something lasts. Look at a list of best selling authors from 50 years ago and you won't have heard of many of them. So we may as well just shrug our shoulders and enjoy what we enjoy.
You may have a point
So it IS popularity that counts, not in terms of sales, but longevity in the public consciousness.
this is very true
the velvet underground "banana" album is a case in point... due to internal wrangling with verve, and a bust-up with frank zappa... the album languished at the bottom of the charts for about five minutes, after it first came out... only to find itself THE album to namedrop in the latter part of the 80's and early 90's... and now it's seen as a cultural milestone.
there's also a kind of political subtext
When an artist or work becomes accepted into a "canon" their "greatness" becomes self-perpetuating. This is obviously easier to see with literature and the "serious" arts than with pop culture. Certain writers often go into obscurity after their deaths, are rediscovered and canonised. Then they are taught in schools and universities and the question of whether anyone really enjoys them any more becomes increasingly sidelined.