SPRΞΞ
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Post by SPRΞΞ on Aug 18, 2011 23:00:28 GMT -5
^ So lyrics, production and vocals mean nothing when judging the quality of a song? i don't understand what you're getting at, but... if a song sounds good, whether it be a country song, a Katy Perry song, a jazz standard, or a Rebecca Black comeback single, if it sounds good, it sounds good. Production means nothing to me. It's all about the final product. Lyrics mean nothing because I don't care about the lyrics of any song. Vocals mean nothing because everyone can be autotuned at this point. so yea, i'm more interested in the final product, and whether it sounds good, and is pleasing to the ear. I personally love autotune, so any music with that is good, imo. Love the robotic sound! if it sounds good, it is good. (my opinion, of course)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2011 23:21:42 GMT -5
Sorry I just found that to be a questionable way argue the quality of a song objectivly but if thats just your opinion on how you judge music that fine since its your opinion of course since thats subjective.
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SPRΞΞ
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Post by SPRΞΞ on Aug 19, 2011 0:03:38 GMT -5
i just like a song because i think it sounds good. Believe me, i like a lot of trashy music, haha. But it sounds good sometimes and that's why i like it. Quality (like real instuments, a message, strong voice, etc.) is kinda overrated at times. It just needs to sound good, at the end of the day. Plenty of songs out there that go the natural way, and sound like crap.
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Rodze
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Post by Rodze on Aug 19, 2011 8:33:07 GMT -5
Sorry I just found that to be a questionable way argue the quality of a song objectivly but if thats just your opinion on how you judge music that fine since its your opinion of course since thats subjective. Outside of sound frequencies (like being off pitch), nothing about a song can be objectively qualified.
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Post by Devil Marlena Nylund on Aug 19, 2011 9:04:33 GMT -5
To a degree. I think things like technique and style can and should be considered when looking at the quality of a song. Things like lyrics, how it's written, can matter. It's not even whether it had a message. Songs don't need to be deep to have great lyrics and to be cleverly written.
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Rodze
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Post by Rodze on Aug 19, 2011 9:21:27 GMT -5
Regarding lyrics, I can give you rhyme. I forgot about it. I think it can be objectively measured too.
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dbhmr
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Post by dbhmr on Aug 19, 2011 9:38:25 GMT -5
^ So lyrics, production and vocals mean nothing when judging the quality of a song? i don't understand what you're getting at, but... if a song sounds good, whether it be a country song, a Katy Perry song, a jazz standard, or a Rebecca Black comeback single, if it sounds good, it sounds good. Production means nothing to me. It's all about the final product. Lyrics mean nothing because I don't care about the lyrics of any song. Vocals mean nothing because everyone can be autotuned at this point. so yea, i'm more interested in the final product, and whether it sounds good, and is pleasing to the ear. I personally love autotune, so any music with that is good, imo. Love the robotic sound! if it sounds good, it is good. (my opinion, of course) ...but you can't expect everyone--especially critics--to judge music by the same limited scale. I get that you're more into the sound, but to suggest that quality is somehow "overrated" is baffling to me. I also think critics do matter. You should always give something a listen and decide for yourself, but these are people who are generally more educated and experienced than your average person pulled from the street, and it's their job to listen to an album or song and respond objectively. Of course, it's still their own personal response, but trust me that they are very aware that people's opinion on their opinion depends almost entirely on whether that person agrees with their review or not. I have a feeling you'd be quicker to use critical reception as a plus for Katy's era had the response been positive. And while I have and do like songs simply because they sound good, I also know that they don't hold a candle to songs that have stronger lyrics, production, and vocals. Also, you say "Production doesn't matter to me. I just care about the final product"--what do you think makes the song's "sound" that you're so interested in, exactly?
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neally
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Post by neally on Aug 19, 2011 9:53:08 GMT -5
...but you can't expect everyone--especially critics--to judge music by the same limited scale. I get that you're more into the sound, but to suggest that quality is somehow "overrated" is baffling to me. I also think critics do matter. You should always give something a listen and decide for yourself, but these are people who are generally more educated and experienced than your average person pulled from the street, and it's their job to listen to an album or song and respond objectively. Of course, it's still their own personal response, but trust me that they are very aware that people's opinion on their opinion depends almost entirely on whether that person agrees with their review or not. I have a feeling you'd be quicker to use critical reception as a plus for Katy's era had the response been positive. And while I have and do like songs simply because they sound good, I also know that they don't hold a candle to songs that have stronger lyrics, production, and vocals. Also, you say "Production doesn't matter to me. I just care about the final product"--what do you think makes the song's "sound" that you're so interested in, exactly? Well-stated. I don't understand the previous poster's comment that neither vocals, production, or lyrics have value in determining a song's "quality", which is certainly highly subjective. I also am of the belief that a song with poor vocals can still be a quality song because of a great melody, but certainly good vocals on a good melody is much betterto most folks, no ? To state that "vocals, production, lyrics.....mean nothing to me" implies to me that the poster is simply defensively molding to justify what makes Katy Perry's music "good"....
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SPRΞΞ
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Post by SPRΞΞ on Aug 19, 2011 10:35:05 GMT -5
it's not just Katy Perry, it's all music. I don't listen to music because I love the lyrics. Maybe once i memorize them i'll think, "yea the lyrics are cute, or clever, etc" but i don't buy music because "oh i heard she's a great song writer, so i just know i'm going to love it."
vocals are highly subjective. I love highly autotuned, robotic sounding music. And i think Adele is overrated. She's got a good voice, but give me Ke$ha anyday. But that's just personal opinion.
production...yea, good production is always good. Drunk post alert on my part. #oop
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2011 10:57:36 GMT -5
Sorry I just found that to be a questionable way argue the quality of a song objectivly but if thats just your opinion on how you judge music that fine since its your opinion of course since thats subjective. Outside of sound frequencies (like being off pitch), nothing about a song can be objectively qualified. I disagree. There have been plenty of times were I have heard a song and while not liked it could appreciate the quality of it. For example I don't like Ray Lamontagne's "beg, steal, borrow" but I can appreciate it as a high quality song. Now certainly there have been songs that I thought were amazing and other people thought were sh!t, but I do think that to a certain point you can be objective while judging the quality of music.
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Post by Adonis the DemiGod! on Aug 19, 2011 11:29:14 GMT -5
i don't understand what you're getting at, but... if a song sounds good, whether it be a country song, a Katy Perry song, a jazz standard, or a Rebecca Black comeback single, if it sounds good, it sounds good. Production means nothing to me. It's all about the final product. Lyrics mean nothing because I don't care about the lyrics of any song. Vocals mean nothing because everyone can be autotuned at this point. so yea, i'm more interested in the final product, and whether it sounds good, and is pleasing to the ear. I personally love autotune, so any music with that is good, imo. Love the robotic sound! if it sounds good, it is good. (my opinion, of course) ...but you can't expect everyone--especially critics--to judge music by the same limited scale. I get that you're more into the sound, but to suggest that quality is somehow "overrated" is baffling to me. I also think critics do matter. You should always give something a listen and decide for yourself, but these are people who are generally more educated and experienced than your average person pulled from the street, and it's their job to listen to an album or song and respond objectively. Of course, it's still their own personal response, but trust me that they are very aware that people's opinion on their opinion depends almost entirely on whether that person agrees with their review or not. I have a feeling you'd be quicker to use critical reception as a plus for Katy's era had the response been positive. And while I have and do like songs simply because they sound good, I also know that they don't hold a candle to songs that have stronger lyrics, production, and vocals. Also, you say "Production doesn't matter to me. I just care about the final product"--what do you think makes the song's "sound" that you're so interested in, exactly? That's not necessarily true. Critics like anyone else have their biases. Additionally in many (if not most) cases they are simply journalists who were assigned to listen to something and write about it. You give "critics" way too much credit. I'm just saying from first hand experience.... The charts are really the only way for the general public to challenge the critics opinion of what is good music. People love critics when the critics have the same opinion they do and when they don't....ohhh watch out.... I used to think critics had some kind of expertise in the subject they were criticizing but in many (most) cases they don't. They are simply good writers and nothing more.
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dbhmr
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Post by dbhmr on Aug 19, 2011 11:33:51 GMT -5
...but you can't expect everyone--especially critics--to judge music by the same limited scale. I get that you're more into the sound, but to suggest that quality is somehow "overrated" is baffling to me. I also think critics do matter. You should always give something a listen and decide for yourself, but these are people who are generally more educated and experienced than your average person pulled from the street, and it's their job to listen to an album or song and respond objectively. Of course, it's still their own personal response, but trust me that they are very aware that people's opinion on their opinion depends almost entirely on whether that person agrees with their review or not. I have a feeling you'd be quicker to use critical reception as a plus for Katy's era had the response been positive. And while I have and do like songs simply because they sound good, I also know that they don't hold a candle to songs that have stronger lyrics, production, and vocals. Also, you say "Production doesn't matter to me. I just care about the final product"--what do you think makes the song's "sound" that you're so interested in, exactly? That's not necessarily true. Critics like anyone else have their biases. Additionally in many cases they are simply journalists who were assigned to listen to something and write about it. You give "critics" way too much credit. I'm just saying from first hand experience.... The charts are really the only way for the general public to challenge the critics opinion of what is good music. I bolded the parts of my post that were originally written that make your response pretty unnecessary. I'm aware of everything you said. And, even if they are "simply journalists," journalists are taught to write objectively. They may not always, but they probably do more often than not. There's no way to prove it either way. And your last comment seems to be saying that commercial success somehow denotes something as good, which has been proven wrong time and time again.
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Post by Devil Marlena Nylund on Aug 19, 2011 14:59:56 GMT -5
I think a lot of this discussion contains things that go hand in hand and while I agree with a lot of it, I feel like some people are leaving out or discounting aspects that do matter.
I think that everyone cares about most aspects of music, melody, vocals, production and lyrics, but don't really take much notice to it. Consider a song that was recorded using home production with no proper mixing or mastering, or a lo-fi recording of a song. It could have a great melody but because of its extremely stripped sound and basic recording texture, a lot of people would dismiss the song because of its lack of professional sound. That's a part of the production of a song. Of course, the production can influence the sound from other areas like background vocals, how full a song sounds, type of instrumentation, etc. I think the production can make or break a song.
Something like lyrics and melody I think vary in importance depending on the genre of music and target audience. Some genres of music focus more on lyrics and less on melody and vice versa. Pop, for example, would focus more on melody because most of the audience is going to listen to the song for something catchy as a passtime/background filler rather than something to take seriously or with a message. That's not to say that pop songs can't have great lyrics. I think the presentation of words can be important too. Words themselves also have to flow and be catchy in a good pop song.
I think if you consider yourself a fan of music at all, you'll value the entire package. You'll have an emphasis on specific areas that you personally value more but take a song with stupid lyrics, whether in literal value or presentation and it could break the song.
As for critics vs. charts, I think critics play an important role in getting music out there. I do put some value in the opinions of critics but at the same time, a lot of music critics tend to be music snobs and anyone that knows me, knows how much I detest music snobs. I wouldn't say critics are closed minded but I do feel that a lot of the time, they tend to look at a lot of types of music with the same eyes rather than looking at it from a larger picture. I think an album like Katy Perry, for what it is, what its purpose was in the beginning and what one would expect from it, is a pretty good record. I don't think it's fair to compare her album to 21, for example, because both have such vast differences in their conception and focus. Katy's album would have a greater emphasis on the fun melodies where Adele on vocals, lyrics and the presentation of emotion. I think Katy's album is pure fun. There's a few songs I don't care for but overall, it's perfect for present day pop and it's catchy. Nothing serious. It's spot on. Adele's album, on the other hand, is also spot on because of how she portrays her emotion and effortlessly vocalizes it in each and every song. I don't think the lyrics themselves are exceptionally great but she carries herself with her vocals and the simplicity of the songs.
I also disagree with the charts being an indication of what good music is. It is to a degree but unfortunately, the charts are based on the level of familiarity the public has with the music they're buying. And familiarity is put into the songs, records and artists themselves based on what backup support they have through their label. As far as catchy pop music goes, there are likely tons of amazingly fun, catchy, upbeat songs that could outdo anything Katy Perry has ever done and tons of songs that outdo any effort Adele has ever recorded but without the proper label support, they can't get noticed. They're out there, already available, waiting to be discovered. So, in that sense, people are given a choice of what's available and they choose from that limited selection. Essentially, they're being told what to buy because most people don't want to have to look for these hidden gems until they've been discovered already.
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Rodze
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Post by Rodze on Aug 19, 2011 15:45:16 GMT -5
Outside of sound frequencies (like being off pitch), nothing about a song can be objectively qualified. I disagree. There have been plenty of times were I have heard a song and while not liked it could appreciate the quality of it. For example I don't like Ray Lamontagne's "beg, steal, borrow" but I can appreciate it as a high quality song. Now certainly there have been songs that I thought were amazing and other people thought were sh!t, but I do think that to a certain point you can be objective while judging the quality of music. You may be able to throw away your personal opinion on a song, yes, but what I'm saying is there aren't objective measures which anyone in the world can use on any song ever conceived and will always reach the same result -- good or bad. Human expression is subjective. Dancing, music, painting etc. The opinions about those (the judgement of whether those are "good" or "bad") vary with time and culture. When you say what you said about that song, you're simply saying you appreciated the "high quality" of it based on subjective standards defined by a set of people. There will always be a bias in judging music. It is not like Math, where 2+2=4 to anyone in the world. That's all I'm saying.
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Post by Adonis the DemiGod! on Aug 19, 2011 15:48:03 GMT -5
That's not necessarily true. Critics like anyone else have their biases. Additionally in many cases they are simply journalists who were assigned to listen to something and write about it. You give "critics" way too much credit. I'm just saying from first hand experience.... The charts are really the only way for the general public to challenge the critics opinion of what is good music. I bolded the parts of my post that were originally written that make your response pretty unnecessary. I'm aware of everything you said. And, even if they are "simply journalists," journalists are taught to write objectively. They may not always, but they probably do more often than not. There's no way to prove it either way. And your last comment seems to be saying that commercial success somehow denotes something as good, which has been proven wrong time and time again. I was making the point that many if not most critics are simply journalists and nothing more. They have no more experience with music than the average joe smuck. I learned that within the last year. I used to endorse the same argument that critics have a more valid opinion than the public. Now I just consider it one of many opinions and that people should vote with their dollars and their ears.
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Post by Adonis the DemiGod! on Aug 19, 2011 16:01:49 GMT -5
I think a lot of this discussion contains things that go hand in hand and while I agree with a lot of it, I feel like some people are leaving out or discounting aspects that do matter. I think that everyone cares about most aspects of music, melody, vocals, production and lyrics, but don't really take much notice to it. Consider a song that was recorded using home production with no proper mixing or mastering, or a lo-fi recording of a song. It could have a great melody but because of its extremely stripped sound and basic recording texture, a lot of people would dismiss the song because of its lack of professional sound. That's a part of the production of a song. Of course, the production can influence the sound from other areas like background vocals, how full a song sounds, type of instrumentation, etc. I think the production can make or break a song. Something like lyrics and melody I think vary in importance depending on the genre of music and target audience. Some genres of music focus more on lyrics and less on melody and vice versa. Pop, for example, would focus more on melody because most of the audience is going to listen to the song for something catchy as a passtime/background filler rather than something to take seriously or with a message. That's not to say that pop songs can't have great lyrics. I think the presentation of words can be important too. Words themselves also have to flow and be catchy in a good pop song. I think if you consider yourself a fan of music at all, you'll value the entire package. You'll have an emphasis on specific areas that you personally value more but take a song with stupid lyrics, whether in literal value or presentation and it could break the song. As for critics vs. charts, I think critics play an important role in getting music out there. I do put some value in the opinions of critics but at the same time, a lot of music critics tend to be music snobs and anyone that knows me, knows how much I detest music snobs. I wouldn't say critics are closed minded but I do feel that a lot of the time, they tend to look at a lot of types of music with the same eyes rather than looking at it from a larger picture. I think an album like Katy Perry, for what it is, what its purpose was in the beginning and what one would expect from it, is a pretty good record. I don't think it's fair to compare her album to 21, for example, because both have such vast differences in their conception and focus. Katy's album would have a greater emphasis on the fun melodies where Adele on vocals, lyrics and the presentation of emotion. I think Katy's album is pure fun. There's a few songs I don't care for but overall, it's perfect for present day pop and it's catchy. Nothing serious. It's spot on. Adele's album, on the other hand, is also spot on because of how she portrays her emotion and effortlessly vocalizes it in each and every song. I don't think the lyrics themselves are exceptionally great but she carries herself with her vocals and the simplicity of the songs. I also disagree with the charts being an indication of what good music is. It is to a degree but unfortunately, the charts are based on the level of familiarity the public has with the music they're buying. And familiarity is put into the songs, records and artists themselves based on what backup support they have through their label. As far as catchy pop music goes, there are likely tons of amazingly fun, catchy, upbeat songs that could outdo anything Katy Perry has ever done and tons of songs that outdo any effort Adele has ever recorded but without the proper label support, they can't get noticed. They're out there, already available, waiting to be discovered. So, in that sense, people are given a choice of what's available and they choose from that limited selection. Essentially, they're being told what to buy because most people don't want to have to look for these hidden gems until they've been discovered already. I agree with most of this post accept for the last paragraph. We do know that familiarity plays some role but it's impossible to quantify because we don't know if the familiarity is a bad thing or a good thing in terms of the listeners' perspective. I think the assumption that people buy and listen to music they like is the closest we will get to knowing how the public feels about a piece of music. So we know what the public likes (ie what the public thinks is good during any given week). We don't know explicitly if a public knows a song but simply dislikes the record or the artists involved. So we can't say with remotely any kind of certainty that familiarity is the determining factor of whether or not a song gets popular because we don't know if the familiarity is a bad or good thing from a listeners perspective. Maybe the critic's choice didn't get popular because people heard the song and simply didn't like the song.
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Post by Peaches. [Ch, r. is] on Aug 19, 2011 16:08:11 GMT -5
I disagree. There have been plenty of times were I have heard a song and while not liked it could appreciate the quality of it. For example I don't like Ray Lamontagne's "beg, steal, borrow" but I can appreciate it as a high quality song. Now certainly there have been songs that I thought were amazing and other people thought were sh!t, but I do think that to a certain point you can be objective while judging the quality of music. You may be able to throw away your personal opinion on a song, yes, but what I'm saying is there aren't objective measures which anyone in the world can use on any song ever conceived and will always reach the same result -- good or bad. Human expression is subjective. Dancing, music, painting etc. The opinions about those (the judgement of whether those are "good" or "bad") vary with time and culture. When you say what you said about that song, you're simply saying you appreciated the "high quality" of it based on subjective standards defined by a set of people. There will always be a bias in judging music. It is not like Math, where 2+2=4 to anyone in the world. That's all I'm saying. Very well said. And yes, we know critical acclaim is important in the music industry. Our point is that it shouldn't be.
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Post by Devil Marlena Nylund on Aug 19, 2011 16:40:07 GMT -5
We do know that familiarity plays some role but it's impossible to quantify because we don't know if the familiarity is a bad thing or a good thing in terms of the listeners' perspective. I think the assumption that people buy and listen to music they like is the closest we will get to knowing how the public feels about a piece of music. So we know what the public likes (ie what the public thinks is good during any given week). We don't know explicitly if a public knows a song but simply dislikes the record or the artists involved. So we can't say with remotely any kind of certainty that familiarity is the determining factor of whether or not a song gets popular because we don't know if the familiarity is a bad or good thing from a listeners perspective. Maybe the critic's choice didn't get popular because people heard the song and simply didn't like the song. Not that I disagree with that but I meant familiarity in the sense of Robyn vs. Lady GaGa for example. While we can suggest that maybe people just didn't like Robyn's material when presented to them and that's why she's not bigger but I doubt that's the case. Robyn's material isn't presented on as grand a scale as Lady GaGa's. So musically they might be somewhat comparable but they're not equal on familiarity terms. GaGa has a much stronger team behind her giving her incredible promotion while Robyn is mostly independent with a focus on more specific areas rather than mainstream pop audiences. I think that charts like iTunes and YouTube are the *best* signifiers of what's popular and well-liked right but in the grand scheme of things, they're not all that reliable. There's too many factors really to even be able to come up with anything more reliable than what we have right now, for the time being. Going back to the critics portion of the discussion, I do think that they are knowledgable in what they talk about, albeit often closed-minded in some areas. Those people are paid to write music reviews so to some degree, they must be able to back up their opinions and perspectives to show why they think how they do about a specific record. I think the reliability of a critic is dependent on the people that read their reviews. If you have a critic that reviews an album and gives it a terrible review and a vast majority of readers and other critics disagree with it, their credibility is going to be in trouble. I think to some degree, a critic is going to write what people will want to hear and unfortunately for pop music, most people that value critical opinions don't care much for pop music just like most fans of pop music don't care for critics' reviews.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2011 16:43:35 GMT -5
vocals are highly subjective. I love highly autotuned, robotic sounding music. And i think Adele is overrated. She's got a good voice, but give me Ke$ha anyday. But that's just personal opinion. Agreed. A very good example would be Christina Aguilera vs Cassie. Some might hail Christina as the amazing legendary voice of the generation, to others it's borderline nails on a chalkboard. Some would prefer and find Cassie's voice more pleasant to listen to and thus, think she has a better voice.
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dbhmr
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Post by dbhmr on Aug 19, 2011 16:46:57 GMT -5
I bolded the parts of my post that were originally written that make your response pretty unnecessary. I'm aware of everything you said. And, even if they are "simply journalists," journalists are taught to write objectively. They may not always, but they probably do more often than not. There's no way to prove it either way. And your last comment seems to be saying that commercial success somehow denotes something as good, which has been proven wrong time and time again. I was making the point that many if not most critics are simply journalists and nothing more. They have no more experience with music than the average joe smuck. I learned that within the last year. I used to endorse the same argument that critics have a more valid opinion than the public. Now I just consider it one of many opinions and that people should vote with their dollars and their ears. How are you coming to this conclusion? Do you have any proof that "many if not most critics" are journalists from another field thrown into the music mix? And even so, you're dismissing the education all journalists have to go through. Journalism isn't exactly a thriving industry right now, and getting premier writing jobs in that field is really competitive. They are educated, and I would imagine someone who wrote in a features section and was transferred to music would know that they had to devote time to learning a bit about their new section or they'd be let go. There's no shortage of writers, but there is of writing jobs. Calling someone "simply a journalist" like they're all uneducated hacks is insulting and ignorant, and missing the point that their voice has a place in music discussion. It's far from the only component that matters, but critics are valuable in getting the word out on music for the general public and providing a largely more objective review than, say, an internet poster.
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Oprah
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Post by Oprah on Aug 19, 2011 16:56:25 GMT -5
Music is a form of art; it is ALWAYS going to be critiqued and those critiques will ALWAYS hold weight. It's not as if 'critics' are some monolithic entity who always give the same judgement across the board and always bash the same kinds of music; critical responses to new CDs usually has variation because it's of course objective.
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PDC1987
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Post by PDC1987 on Aug 19, 2011 19:54:18 GMT -5
^ So lyrics, production and vocals mean nothing when judging the quality of a song? i don't understand what you're getting at, but... if a song sounds good, whether it be a country song, a Katy Perry song, a jazz standard, or a Rebecca Black comeback single, if it sounds good, it sounds good. Production means nothing to me. It's all about the final product. Lyrics mean nothing because I don't care about the lyrics of any song. Vocals mean nothing because everyone can be autotuned at this point.so yea, i'm more interested in the final product, and whether it sounds good, and is pleasing to the ear. I personally love autotune, so any music with that is good, imo. Love the robotic sound! if it sounds good, it is good. (my opinion, of course) This is Katy's success in a nutshell. When people have no standards, anything can sell.
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Wavey✨️
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Post by Wavey✨️ on Aug 19, 2011 20:01:09 GMT -5
vocals are highly subjective. I love highly autotuned, robotic sounding music. And i think Adele is overrated. She's got a good voice, but give me Ke$ha anyday. But that's just personal opinion. Agreed. A very good example would be Christina Aguilera vs Cassie. Some might hail Christina as the amazing legendary voice of the generation, to others it's borderline nails on a chalkboard. Some would prefer and find Cassie's voice more pleasant to listen to and thus, think she has a better voice. My girl Cassie :'(
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Post by Adonis the DemiGod! on Aug 19, 2011 20:05:37 GMT -5
I was making the point that many if not most critics are simply journalists and nothing more. They have no more experience with music than the average joe smuck. I learned that within the last year. I used to endorse the same argument that critics have a more valid opinion than the public. Now I just consider it one of many opinions and that people should vote with their dollars and their ears. How are you coming to this conclusion? Do you have any proof that "many if not most critics" are journalists from another field thrown into the music mix? And even so, you're dismissing the education all journalists have to go through. Journalism isn't exactly a thriving industry right now, and getting premier writing jobs in that field is really competitive. They are educated, and I would imagine someone who wrote in a features section and was transferred to music would know that they had to devote time to learning a bit about their new section or they'd be let go. There's no shortage of writers, but there is of writing jobs. Calling someone "simply a journalist" like they're all uneducated hacks is insulting and ignorant, and missing the point that their voice has a place in music discussion. It's far from the only component that matters, but critics are valuable in getting the word out on music for the general public and providing a largely more objective review than, say, an internet poster. So now calling someone what they are is an ignorant thing to say? The critics opinion is no better than yours on this message board. Sure it exposes people to other forms of music potentially. You don't need a critic for that. It might as well be word of mouth. Critics are there to get you to read and/or purchase the publication they are posted in. They are there to make money for the publisher. Nothing more. Reviewers are journalists and if you're lucky they might be musically gifted and talented and may have some musical training or have had some type of musical career previously. That's just luck.
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Post by Adonis the DemiGod! on Aug 19, 2011 20:08:34 GMT -5
We do know that familiarity plays some role but it's impossible to quantify because we don't know if the familiarity is a bad thing or a good thing in terms of the listeners' perspective. I think the assumption that people buy and listen to music they like is the closest we will get to knowing how the public feels about a piece of music. So we know what the public likes (ie what the public thinks is good during any given week). We don't know explicitly if a public knows a song but simply dislikes the record or the artists involved. So we can't say with remotely any kind of certainty that familiarity is the determining factor of whether or not a song gets popular because we don't know if the familiarity is a bad or good thing from a listeners perspective. Maybe the critic's choice didn't get popular because people heard the song and simply didn't like the song. Not that I disagree with that but I meant familiarity in the sense of Robyn vs. Lady GaGa for example. While we can suggest that maybe people just didn't like Robyn's material when presented to them and that's why she's not bigger but I doubt that's the case. Robyn's material isn't presented on as grand a scale as Lady GaGa's. So musically they might be somewhat comparable but they're not equal on familiarity terms. GaGa has a much stronger team behind her giving her incredible promotion while Robyn is mostly independent with a focus on more specific areas rather than mainstream pop audiences. I think that charts like iTunes and YouTube are the *best* signifiers of what's popular and well-liked right but in the grand scheme of things, they're not all that reliable. There's too many factors really to even be able to come up with anything more reliable than what we have right now, for the time being. Going back to the critics portion of the discussion, I do think that they are knowledgable in what they talk about, albeit often closed-minded in some areas. Those people are paid to write music reviews so to some degree, they must be able to back up their opinions and perspectives to show why they think how they do about a specific record. I think the reliability of a critic is dependent on the people that read their reviews. If you have a critic that reviews an album and gives it a terrible review and a vast majority of readers and other critics disagree with it, their credibility is going to be in trouble. I think to some degree, a critic is going to write what people will want to hear and unfortunately for pop music, most people that value critical opinions don't care much for pop music just like most fans of pop music don't care for critics' reviews. You are assuming "critics" should be knowledgeable about music simply because they are reviewing music. Here is the background of several rolling stones mag's most prolific music reviewers.... Rob Sheffield 20 years of writing for music. What was he doing before that qualified him to review music? Jody Rosen Clearly has an interest in old audio technology but given this guy's background he has no business reviewing a hip hop album. What qualified this guy to be reviewing hip hop albums and pop albums when he was previously writing books about jewish folk records. Will Hermes This guy is another one...what qualified him to critique music. He wrote a book about the music scene in NYC. Simon Vozick-Levinson Again what qualifies this guy to critique someone's music. He was never a musician. He's a writer. The focus of his site is his writing. No where in any of these people's bio's does it say they used to play an instrument or sing or produce or that these people have any musical ability at all. Nope the focus is that they are journalists. They are just writers. These people are qualified to review books not someone's record. I work for one of the most prestigious companies in the world. I work with writers and producers all day many of whom don't even really care about the subject they are writing on but they do it anyway because it pays the bills and they love journalism. These reviewers should come out with their reviews 6mos to a year after the music has had a chance to settle in instead of tainting people against the music they don't like...and only then if they have created music and have musical training themselves.
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hitseeker.
Diamond Member
The Energizer Bunny
Joined: April 2007
Posts: 17,126
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Post by hitseeker. on Aug 19, 2011 20:09:03 GMT -5
As Spree, I also notice and like a song if it's catchy and sounds good, However, once I pass that 'phase' and listen to it more and more, I pay atention to its other elements more carefully: lyrics, production and the such. I realize that I do listen to a lot of crappy music lol, but it's why I like and you know what? I have fun listening to it and singing along and to me, that's what music is all about: it's about you connecting to an artist's or band's work and having fun with it.
Of course some songs can be considered better than others, but I like whatI like and it's who I am lol :)
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Post by KeepDeanWeird on Aug 19, 2011 21:32:06 GMT -5
Someone on the USA Today site discussing the 5 #1s articles and whether she could (or should) go for six Commented:
"uh ow--uh ow---uh ow---uh ow-----uh ow.---etc etc etc etc etc etc. In case you missed her, I just filled you in on [Kay's] singing lyrics.
My response: "Right compared to "hee hee hee hee hee hee jamow jamow ""
It's all subjective. That's what makes music so much FUN! There's something (and a lot more than most mediums) for everyone.
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Post by Devil Marlena Nylund on Aug 19, 2011 22:43:59 GMT -5
Was Roger Ebert ever a director or actor? What training has he had to give him such an ability to write some of the most respected movie reviews today? (legitimate question. Has he been involved in movies before becoming a critic?)
Not that I'm defending the Rolling Stone music critics or their history as it relates to writing music reviews but I would find it hard to believe that a once-respected music magazine would hire people that didn't know what they were talking about when it came to music. Although it would suck pretty hard if these people didn't actually give the albums their full attention and focus when reviewing them. Media at its worst.
I do agree with you (Adonis) that it is essentially their opinion and it doesn't trump mine. They simply have an audience whereas I don't. I think it comes with earning credibility. If I became credible for something, anything, professionally, then my music reviews would likely earn credibility as well, even though I have little training in music and writing music reviews. Think about how big a deal it is when President Obama places an artist on his ipod playlist. He likely has no music-related training either but his influence is substantial.
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Post by Adonis the DemiGod! on Aug 19, 2011 23:26:57 GMT -5
Was Roger Ebert ever a director or actor? What training has he had to give him such an ability to write some of the most respected movie reviews today? (legitimate question. Has he been involved in movies before becoming a critic?) Not that I'm defending the Rolling Stone music critics or their history as it relates to writing music reviews but I would find it hard to believe that a once-respected music magazine would hire people that didn't know what they were talking about when it came to music. Although it would suck pretty hard if these people didn't actually give the albums their full attention and focus when reviewing them. Media at its worst. I do agree with you (Adonis) that it is essentially their opinion and it doesn't trump mine. They simply have an audience whereas I don't. I think it comes with earning credibility. If I became credible for something, anything, professionally, then my music reviews would likely earn credibility as well, even though I have little training in music and writing music reviews. Think about how big a deal it is when President Obama places an artist on his ipod playlist. He likely has no music-related training either but his influence is substantial. It's about the writing not about the music or the movies or anything else. These people earn credibility for their writing and not the underlying opinion they had. No one is going to trash the critics if the critics are wrong. Rolling Stone may come back years later and change their initial review like they did in the case of the Thriller album to reflect what the general public thought of Thriller. It's not a big deal when Obama puts an artist on his playlist other than to say great Obama has you on his playlist. It's not a big deal. I couldn't care less who Obama has on his playlist and neither should anyone else for that matter.
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gagagigigugu
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Joined: November 2009
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Post by gagagigigugu on Aug 20, 2011 3:44:51 GMT -5
as much as KP is as wacky as Gaga, i dont think she was and is trying too hard to sell her music...it comes naturally with catchy tunes and good videos...
and it is really an unbelievable feat...5 #1s in 1 album!!!
F**K THE CRITICS! :'(
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