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Article: Easily My Album Of The Year


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1 hour ago, JoshM said:

Chris,

 

This is so funny! I just came across this in Qobuz's new releases yesterday and was intrigued by the title. I played it on a whim and loved it as much as it seems you do. To say that I second this recommendation is an understatement!

 

Josh

I love it Josh!

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2 minutes ago, PeterG said:

Can we agree that The Beatles and Dylan wrote better songs than just about anybody else?  That Miles and Louis were among the very best horn players?  That Springsteen is transcendent live?  Just about anyone who understands and appreciates modern music would acknowledge these, regardless of their personal taste. 

I’m being 100% serious when I say that I disagree. Not being argumentative or anything, just that it’s all subjective. Ask the new leaders of Afghanistan what they think about the aforementioned artists. 
 

The Beatles and Dylan wrote songs that many people like. That’s it. They can’t be better because not everyone was playing the same part / role. 

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1 minute ago, PeterG said:

 

You're killin' me...

 

Taking the easy one first--I did include a caveat on understanding and appreciating modern music.  So the Taliban (and Nickelback fans, haha) don't count.

 

One way to think about The Beatles, Dylan, Miles, Picasso, Hemingway...is that they created things that touched millions of people in a profound way over many decades; and can also be understood in intellectual, analytical, and historical ways that are deep.  This is very different than selling a lot of records or concert tickets

Oh no, not trying to kill ya :~)

 

I love the intellectual conversation. 
 

For every artist like the ones you mention, there are probably several who could’ve touched people equally or even more. Those ones just happened to gain popularity. If the Beatles were 500 lbs. obese men from Minnesota, do you think they would’ve touched as many people?

 

I agree those artists impacted many people, but that’s what they did. Their art wasn’t better or worse than other art. 

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4 minutes ago, PeterG said:

 

I enjoy it too.

 

Mavis Staples is an obese woman from Chicago--she so good she makes me cry.

 

The role of art is to touch people and bring them deeper understanding and/or joy.  It is the ability to impact a thoughtful person that makes it great art.  Don't people vary in their ability to do this?


Mavis is a dang legend that I can’t live without. Love her. 
 

There is no single role for art. I know the huge role it plays in my life and the roles it has played the world over throughout the ages, but it can’t be distilled down to a single or several roles. 

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7 minutes ago, Iving said:

 

Will you admit that you posted that example exactly because you knew that many/most of us would find it preposterous? [not or questionable Art / not worth $87m]

 

... in which case we are leaning towards (but haven't arrived at) objectivity?

No, I posted it as illustrative of my point that art is 100% subjective. Some person(s) believe that piece if art is worth that much money. It could be an investment based on historical increases in the price of art, it could the person thinks Rothko is a great painter, it could be endless …

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1 hour ago, bbosler said:

if nobody is any better or worse then all art is equal, all music is equal, everything is equal

 

you may not be able to quantify it, but saying everything equal is just a cop out

I'll say it, all art is equal in an of itself. Some people like some art more than other art. 

 

If we can truly judge art and art is objective, then someone should have a handy list of data points / specifications / etc... that need to be met by all artists partaking in whatever art is being judged. 

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6 minutes ago, PeterG said:

 

OK, I agree.  But they did so much so well, and it may be too complex for me to articulate.  How about I start with an easier, because it's much narrower, example--Bob Dylan's lyrics.

 

They have spoken to millions about deep important themes, central to us in a wide variety of ways.  They did this in a way that nobody else did before, or has been able to reproduce since.  They resonate both emotionally and intellectually.  It's especially cool that so many are ambiguous and open to interpretation.  Among the people they have inspired are a seemingly endless stream of artists and other experts. 

 

(Ok, as I write this, maybe I'll apply the previous paragraph as my answer to The Beatles)

 

A few examples just off the top of my head--you could dive into these and not ponder for hours:

 

Like a Rolling Stone

Highway 61

Desolation Row

A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall

Blowin in the Wind

Blood on the Tracks (all of it)

Visions of Johanna

Hurricane

 

Looking forward to your and others' thoughts

 

Dylan, one of my favorites, and not only because he is from Minnesota :~)

 

I agree he did all of those things and many of us think his lyrics are fantastic. However, we haven't established objective criteria that makes his lyrics better than any other lyrics. Or at least I didn't see that in your post. I am a bit slow sometimes :~)

 

If we take some of your items like 1) they have spoken to millions, did it in a way nobody else did, etc... I see these as facts describing what he did, not objective criteria with which to judge art. 

 

Dang he is good :~)

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15 minutes ago, Mayfair said:

 

FWIW, I'd suggest the perspective of history as a criterion - whether the art work is not only popular when created, but is still valued by future generations.  That criterion is the test of time - a series of generational audiences who hadn't been born when the movie, song, book, painting, performance, etc. was created opining on its merit to them with their attention, their time and their money.  

 

I think for example, artists such as Praxiteles, Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Bach, Chaplin, Beatles, Picasso, Duke Elllington, and Billie Holiday do meet that criterion, and that if there are humans around in 500 years, they will still be familiar with and still appreciating their art.

I certainly hear you but I think judging art based on what other people think is a bit preposterous. 
 

We can say a lot of people subjectively liked it then and subjectively like it now. This has nothing to do with being objective about the art. 

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8 minutes ago, Jud said:


Well of course there *is* nothing objective about art. (Yes, the last chord of the Beatles’ “She Loves You” hadn’t been heard in popular music before, and there are other examples of their innovations. But lots of artists tried innovations over the years that weren’t accepted.)

 

Art is simply what inspires. It can be joy, like rock ‘n’ roll; it can be anger and tears, like Picasso’s “Guernica.” So the only measure of art is people’s subjective reactions. Looking for some objective, unemotional measure is not only fruitless, it’s wrongheaded because objective unemotional measures can’t tell us whether what we’re seeing, hearing or reading is art, let alone good art.

+1000

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14 minutes ago, Iving said:

Well I thought I was done for the night. Let me tell you about my pitiful existence. Snuggling down with my wife, I remembered she has a degree in Art History. I regaled the "spread of the thread", asking her what she had been taught, and what she thought herself if any different.

 

"Well of course you can have objective ways of appreciating art", she said.

 

What I gleaned as overview:

 

- ways of valuing art within an era or genre e.g. Baroque - which she says most people don't like now as it's out of fashion, but you could have, say, a Rubens painting and stand it next to a Baroque painting in a 17th Century church - and the Rubens painting is far superior in terms of form, colour and application of paint. Experts agree that Rubens is the ultimate Baroque painter.

 

- use of light and shade

 

- mathematical patterns within some good art depending on era and genre - related to movement of objects and shapes and also focus within the work and the invitations these give to the eye.

 

- modern art deliberately painted to evoke emotion and the extent to which it does that - she even mentioned that urinal we came across earlier - small world!

 

etc

 

She says she's rusty! 40 years ago.

 

What she is saying chimes with an intuition that I have - which is that objectivity in art appreciation may be found in relational aspects of our experiences. This is more than saying "what we agree about", but I can't put my finger on it tonight before my eyes shut.

 

Goodnight from both of us! xx

Great post. You guys are so great. 
 

Objectively appreciating art is different from saying that painting is objectively better than that song :~)

 

Goodnight 😴 

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14 minutes ago, bbosler said:

 

I disagree that just because you can't quantify something you can't rate it. 

 

If somebody decides to record a chainsaw while somebody else beats on a trash can and farts that is not music, it is not art, it is noise no matter how high you want to get on your intellectual horse. Just because you say over and over that we can't apply objective criteria to it does not mean it is music.

 

 

 

 

You certainly can subjectively rate art, or the best guitarists of all time, etc… But, there’s nothing objective about the ratings or art. 

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