On average, absolutely everyone is underrated, all the 'global brand' hype aside.

Coca-cola might just be approaching overratedness, but I don't think any of those bands are going to be claiming to be bigger than coke any time soon.

Sordid, trivial, and self-obsessed. Even in the echo chamber - perhaps especially in the echo chamber, since there's nobody there to disagree with you - criticism like that is only ever about criticism.

The quality of that conversation isn't bothering me as much as seeing DJ Shadow and the Stone Roses listed by a couple of people as over-rated.

I am shallowly affronted.

Isn't this the converse of "The stuff you kids listen to is noise"? It sounds to me like a long iteration of "The stuff you geezers listen to is crap."

I'd like to quote Teresa from a while ago. "Oh, barf."

Eh.

I used to participate in this sort of thing regularly, 'til I noticed that it's actually even less satisfying than sitting around cranking out "best of" lists.

This kind of mirrors my feelings about the entire occupation of (artistic) criticism. I'm sure there's plenty of critical writing out there that's worth reading on its own (the essays of Kenneth Rexroth, George Orwell, and glenn mcdonald, frex, have done me a world of good), but so much of it feels like an empty exercise in Having An Opinion.

This sort of thing is very much in vogue in rock criticism, and it's basically a pissing contest. The more stuff you can slag, the hipper you think you are. There are whole books' worth of this, e.g., Burchill & Parsons's The Boy Looked at Johnny, in which we learn that everything except the Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex, the Tom Robinson Band, and "Tamla Motown" (as the Brits call Motown) is total crap. Everything. And if you like anything else, you're just a wanker.

Well, since no-on else seems inclined to give Patrick the "carefully-calibrated putdown" (not sure the hyphenation there is strictly necessary, but I'm quoting, so I'll respect the author's intention) he claims as his right, I'll do it.

What is the difference between a few people shooting off harmless barbs at some iconic works (and some I frankly thought already forgotten) and you guys sitting here saying criticism ain't what it used to be ?

As for Mr Kelly's dismissive "sordid, trivial and self-obsessed" - puh-lease ! Aren't we all ? Especially all of us that blog or presume to leave pompous comments (including this one, naturally) on the blogs of others ? Seems like someone mislaid their sense of humour to me...

Maybe I'm biased, but I dunno what's so offensive here - I can see how someone might quite easily find it mildly annoying, but it seems to me to just be yer standard Friday, tired after work and ready for the weekend, bull session about inconsequentialities. Not a conversation likely to be productive of great critical insights, certainly, but hardly sordid. Or am I missing something?

i like all music. it is nice.

I like to Think Positive. Lists of the BEST of anything get me in a better mood. For example (does this belong on A New York Minute thread?):

Snail porridge
Wolfram Siebeck tries out what is supposed to be the best restaurant in the world – The Fat Duck, near London. Finally it's official. The best restaurant in the world is called The Fat Duck. To thank for this revelation are 600 experts (chefs, critics and connoisseurs) who were surveyed by the British newspaper The Guardian. And because 600 experts could never be wrong, we finally have the conclusive list of the fifty best gourmet restaurants in the entire world. An exceptionally high number of them – 14 to be precise – are in England. Which doesn't surprise anyone who has ever succumbed to the culinary seduction of English family hotels....

I was born in 1962, so I'm older than some here, and younger, just, than others.

We couldn't get radio most of the time, and TV was not even theoretically possible. I went to school in the next town over, and heard all the other kids talk about the great episode of Happy Days, or Welcome Back Kotter, or Starsky and Hutch that they'd seen. I looked forward to seeing these great TV shows. There wasn't a lot of interest in music, not that I was aware of, anyway, not even in high school, where Aerosmith, Lynard Skynard, and Kiss were favored.

You know what? I've seen those TV shows and well, that's about all there is to say.

But I'm having a blast discovering all the music I never even knew existed--and that page gave me a whole bunch more names to check out. And have you guys seen how cheap vinyl is these days? Between that and iTunes, I'm having a lot of fun.

"[I]t seems to me to just be yer standard Friday, tired after work and ready for the weekend, bull session about inconsequentialities. Not a conversation likely to be productive of great critical insights, certainly, but hardly sordid. Or am I missing something?"

Either you are or I am, because your two-sentence precis seems to me to be describing something completely different from the CT thread in question.

As for Waterhot, you'll have to calibrate more carefully than that.

My understanding is that any narrative has integrity, like a bubble, and its payoff comes from bursting that bubble of integrity.

The most immediate example is a joke, whether it's Steven Wright ("Curiosity killed the cat... but for a while I was a suspect") or Robin Williams, with his meticulous impersonations that spin off into wild tangents.

So in effect, great art is founded on disobedience, if not outrageous disobedience.

People complain that any child could dribble paint like Jackson Pollack -- except Jackson Pollack wasn't great because he dribbled paint. He was great because he disobeyed the brushstroke. What savage criticism of art his drips gave.

Chaplain's best movies are hard for me to watch, but that doesn't minimize his impact bringing a purer storytelling to moving pictures, when the silent movies before him were stories told in close-ups of faces. Who can argue with that kind of contribution?

Patrick, I'm honestly not seeing what you're seeing here - as I say, there seems to be a fair bit of bloviating in the thread, but nothing beyond the bounds of the average bull session. Perhaps if you could point to the offensive comments, and say more specifically what's offensive about them, I'd get it (although I'm about to head off for the weekend, so may not be able to reply until after that).

Henry, I am really stunned that I have to explain any of this. It's not about particular "offensive comments." It's about the entire worldview in which discourse like this is "inconsequential."

Obviously, foolishly earnest assholes like me (see also "mislaid their sense of humor") are so uncool (see also "inconsequential") in the eyes of the hipsters of CT that further argument is pointless.

Patrick, did you feel the same about the Caesar's Bath meme that was orbiting the blogosphere a few months back? If not, what's the difference?

So, the point of your writing is that you dislike writing that makes a point of disliking things.

The really clever bit was when you preemptively made a point of disliking any writing that makes a point of disliking your making a point of disliking writing that makes a point of disliking things!

I'd make a point about disliking that point, or about your certain dislike for my point, but I'm afraid if I do, the entire universe may crumple into a ball and get tossed toward the nearest waste bin. (Which, of course, it would miss.)

Please put things into the right perspective. This all started with a feature on Something Awful.

If you look at it as a list of "Who's Overrated?", then yes, I can take Patrick's point; but the post at Crooked Timber and many of the commenters are explicitly saying "This artist or album just never worked for me." Which seems inoffensive enough. Are you more offended by CT thread, or by the original "Something Awful" posts that inspired it?

As someone who has his own share of "This just doesn't do it for me" reactions, I prefer to take the CT post in that spirit, and I can't seem to get very offended by it.

I know that peoples' tastes can be remarkably quirky and impossible to rationalize. Not only does no work of art work for everyone, but one should also note that a lot of people like things that they themselves wouldn't predict - - and people also form irrational dislikes as well. Granted, an attempt to rationalize an irrational dislike is not a particularly worthy endeavor, but I have a hard time working up indignation about it.

That said, some of the commenters DO seem to miss the possibility that if something isn't working for them, the failure might not be within the work.

I wonder. I don't have a problem with 'this doesn't do it for me' threads in principle. In common with the writers of this thread, I have some trouble connecting to some of the music of the sixties, notably the Beach Boys. Nobody can like everything.

But if people are going to write about music, I tend to think they should concentrate on sharing the joy of new music that is good rather than whining about old music that doesn't suit them.

"That said, some of the commenters DO seem to miss the possibility that if something isn't working for them, the failure might not be within the work."

The trouble with that is that some people will take it to mean the failure has to be in the commenter. And I wouldn't be surprised if we've all come across that attitude, perhaps from a school teacher.

A lot of artistic communication is "out of channel", depending on a context of common knowledge. If you know what La Marseillaise is about, you have a different view on All You Need Is Love. Some modern art, and Jackson Pollack is maybe a good example, is almost entirely "out of channel".

Even the traditional "pretty picture" can be full of context-dependent symbols.

And part of the context of pop music is the time in which is was written; the assumptions about the world. Sometimes the music supports them, sometimes it challenges them, but they're a part of the work.

So there's some classic rock that I think I'm simply too young to "get". And, sensitive fannish soul that I am, there's a lot of the modern stuff I just don't have a context for.

Which all adds up to a reason why "Live 8" didn't seem as good as "Live Aid". And maybe why Annie Lennox makes Madonna look luke-warm.

Since except for the Beatles, I had NO idea who they were whining on about, I found the coversation boring in the extreme.

But I feel the same way about the many long recent conversations by adults who can't wait for the new Harry Potter book. They are equally unparse-able. Uninteresting. Unengaging.

The ways of minor dragons hardly concern me.

I think you are getting your knickers in a twist over very little, Patrick.

Jane

Of course, writing critically about anything less important than the Great Issues of the day opens one to the charge of "getting your knickers in a twist over very little". That's a shot that can be taken at most of us several times a day. If I'm tying my underwear in knots over someone else's comment thread, then what origami of the briefs is being performed by the people arguing over the exact nuanced extent to which U2 or Nirvana are contemptibly overrated?

My objection isn't to people disliking stuff, or to conversations about What Doesn't Work For You. My objection is to the stench that arises when a bunch of humans--often people who were decent and interesting up until that exact moment--suddenly decide to give one another permission to be as nasty as possible. That wasn't an everyday "bull session" or a reasonable discussion of how tastes differ; rather, it was--at least until the mix got diluted--an ugly little hate-off.

Go back and look at it. The primary subject of most of the early posts wasn't music, and it wasn't the dynamics of preference or anything so interesting. Rather, the primary subject was how those who disagree with me, or who make music I dislike, are crap people with bad motives.

I don't really intend to harp on the matter. And I suppose I should remind anyone reading down this far that CT is one of my favorite sites on the web. But how online conversations flourish, or go septic, is a subject that interests me.

Oh, and to answer Avram, I wasn't wildly entertained by the Caesar's Bath thing, but it's obviously different from the CT thread.

The "Caesar's Bath" challenge was to list five things (books, music, TV shows, whatever) that seem wildly popular in your social circle and which you just can't get into. By its nature it forces the writer to acknowledge a certain subjectivity, and highlights interesting issues of taste, inclination, individual quirk versus social trend. In exact contrast to the CT thread, the "Caesar's Bath" gimmick can't be used as a means of ginning up a comfortable group hate against the broad mass of people not cool enough to be Us.

"...the primary subject was how those who disagree with me, or who make music I dislike, are crap people with bad motives..."

That's exactly it. One of the things I like about Patrick & Teresa's site is that the goal of those who post here isn't to see who can outdo everybody else in the jejeune department.

I want to thank Mike for the interesting comment about art constituting the betrayal of the intergrity of a narrative. I'm sure there are other definitions, and angles, but I really enjoyed that perspective. I've even saved that post in my macjournal.

This feels like an overreaction to me, Patrick, honestly. I grok what you're saying, it's fair enough, but I can also see why Henry is puzzled about your apparent degree of ranklement.

Dave Bell -- could you elaborate please on the connection between Marseillaise and All You Need Is Love? All of a sudden I'm intrigued...

What do you think of The Believer, Patrick?

What's also interesting is that people had done something casually that offended Patrick. Then as many people as I've seen object to anything he's said are wondering why Patrick is complaining (not casually, but quite formally) about something a group of people have done casually and (arguably) victimlessly.

For some people, casual intent is an excuse for almost any behavior. The rational for this is because for some people, and to varying degrees, realizing possibilities comes first, which depends on tolerance of the casual. What then does a publicly-presented opinion owe to these people?

I'm wondering what kind of reaction Patrick would have gotten if instead he had expressed reservations that a court of people were demonstrating disgust at music fans who they (the court of the disgusted) felt were devoted to music -- not because the impact of the music held up over time (if ever, arguably) but because their devotion was based on reliving the past.

(I remember music [of the reliving-of-the-past variety] being a common theme in reaching difficult patients of Oliver Sacks [and so I withhold my sympathy from those who vent disgust at such an application of music].)

And how does this relate to the complaints, of which Patrick shared, against Kevin Drum for allowing access to his content by an unapologetic conservative. Is Kevin owed the same consideration against casual disgust as classic-rock fans, or no?

I will admit to being vastly confused by everything, possibly because I'm a musical ignoramus -- perhaps if the original post, the post about the post, the critique of the post, and the meta-commentary on posts and critique alike were all translated into their literary and/or genre fiction equivalents, I might be able to get a better handle on what's going on.

Then again, maybe not.

...a means of ginning up a comfortable group hate against the broad mass of people not cool enough to be Us.

That sums it up nicely. That's the aspect of the Culture of Irony that I'll be happiest to see go away: the notion that distaste for something that lots of people like is some kind of virtue.

Mike, what you're talking about with Jackson Pollack et al is art in conversation with art. Bursting the bubble of narrative integrity - a wonderful way of putting it - is indeed a vital part of this ongoing conversation. This is a different thing entirely than talking shit about all the stuff you're too smart and cool to like.

Count me among those whose reaction to this phenomenon is a knot in the boxers. To call it "criticism" is to elevate it too much. (Hell, to call it "wanking" is to demean masturbation.)

Maybe it's just that my own tastes are so frequently the target of snobbery and vitriol. But this kind of thing makes me fantasize about an Initiative-style brain chip that would go off whenever someone uses the word "overrated."

Debra, the way it's been explained to me is that a youth-market blossomed after WWII, which included a large consumer-appetite for rock & roll music.

There's kind of an inconsistency to the current devotion to classic rock & roll. The initial impact of the youth-centered music was in its innovation, but 40-50 years later that same music no longer carries any impact for its innovation. Like intelligence reports of Osama bin Laden's drive to attack the US, the interest is largely historical.

How then do we weigh the value of rock music whose innovative impact may not hold up, but continues to illicit such devotion? To the community Patrick refers to, the appropriate reaction to such music is disgust. Patrick objected, and here we are.

Mike, what you're talking about with Jackson Pollack et al is art in conversation with art. Bursting the bubble of narrative integrity - a wonderful way of putting it - is indeed a vital part of this ongoing conversation. This is a different thing entirely than talking shit about all the stuff you're too smart and cool to like.

Does abstract expressionism receive no shit? In both cases, merit is questioned. Are you sure you mean to say they are different entirely?

Yes, I'm saying that abstract expressionism as a response to art is entirely different than "your music sucks" as a response to art.

More to the point: I think your premise that "in both cases, merit is questioned" is flawed.

Abstract expressionism doesn't question the merit of realism. It provides an alternative to it, which is not quite the same thing. Abstract expressionism, cubism, impressionism all looked at the state of the aesthetic before them and said "Yes, but does it have to be this way?" And they each went on to show that, no, it didn't.

I'm not saying, I suppose, that new frontiers don't arise out of contempt for the status quo, because they obviously can. John Lydon loves to tell the story of how he hooked up with Sid Vicious because of Sid's "I Hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt. Incidentally, this kind of attitude gets the same kind of *facepalm* reaction from me as the CT thread - except that John and Sid went on and picked up their instruments and made Never Mind the Bollocks, and that *act of creation* as a response is, I feel, a lot worthier of respect that sitting around and stroking your hate-on for all the stuff you're too damn good to like. (And I see that the Sex Pistols were among the first targets of the sneering on CT, right about where I could no longer bear to read on. The wheel is come full circle, and there you are.)

I suppose the point is that, except in a few extreme cases, "the appropriate reaction is disgust" is a contemptible way to have a conversation with art. Disgust is appropriate? Just because it's not your thing? There's something seriously skewed here, and moreso that it's so commonplace that we shrug and call it "blowing off steam."

Does abstract expressionism receive no shit? In both cases, merit is questioned. Are you sure you mean to say they are different entirely?

Dan, I didn't realize you thought I was comparing abstract expressionism with disgust.

As to what I was trying to say, does disgust at abstract expressionism bare so little resemblance to the disgust at music to which Patrick cites that a comparison isn't worth making?

Ah, I think I understand what you're getting at.

In which case, a comparison is entirely worth making. Contempt for Pollack is pretty much in the same league with contempt for U2, and my patience for both is pretty thin.

Patrick, I'm not sure what I said to provoke your reply above, but this conversation is obviously heading in the wrong direction, so I'm bowing out.

Contempt for Pollack is pretty much in the same league with contempt for U2, and my patience for both is pretty thin.

So from your previous misunderstanding of what I said: you hold contempt in so much higher regard than Pollack that you balked at comparing them?

I hate to burst your bubble but, in evolutionary terms, abstract expressionism is actually more recent than contempt. So is U2.

Jackson Pollack's drip paintings have been determined by computer analysis to each have a distinctly different fractal dimension. He may not have been able to articulate what he was doing, but he KNEW what he was doing. One can easily say the same thing about many rock musicians. And, Patrick, what was that line quoted on your once-separate blog? Something akin to:

"Rock criticism is people who can't write discussing musicians who can't talk, for subscribers who can't read."

I take it that you are irked by a substratum even lower than that.

Er, Mike, no. I don't know what the language barrier here is, but my point was that I find contempt for Pollack and U2 equally tacky and deplorable. (To be clear, I'm not a big U2 fan, though I like Pollack, so susbtitute "Norman Rockwell" if you like, if an example of art I don't especially like helps make my point better.)

In evolutionary terms, contempt may be older than abstract expressionism, but so's rape. That doesn't make it a good thing for our culture to indulge in.

I'm not certain what the debate is anymore, or whether we're having one at all. Indeed, I may have failed to understand the question you do me the honor of asking.

i've been involved in a conversation at Smirking Chimp that has gone on for nearly 7 weeks and 2100 posts now, about music.

It started with someone talking about the Eagles reunion show on tv, and several times drifted dangerously close to "you suck because the music you like sucks and isn't what i like" (and you can substitute "books" or "paintings" or "food" or whatever for "music"). But with a little bit of effort it's been turned into a mostly "here's some music i like which you may not have listened to before" discussion, and i suspect a number of people who participated in it are listening to different music and appreciating it who otherwise might not have.

Where I live, we have the American Dance Festival in town for 7 weeks every summer.

Now, dance is a language i don't speak, an art form i simply don't get. I have no comprehension of why human beings feel compelled to spend years training their bodies to do those things, or what emotions and insights they're trying to express or invoke in their perfomrances. Certainly not to the extent that i get, say, science fiction or pop music. But i've certainly enjoyed all the performances i've gone to over the past dozen or so years. And when i've been fortunate enough to attend with someone who does get it, who understands the grammar and vocabulary that dance employs, i appreciate the extra insight into the performance.

Of course, at some point in time, blog comments will be considered an art form, and our children will have the opportunity to engage in another variant of ingroup/outgroup behavior depending on which poster on which blog they like/hate.

I know what's wrong with it. It's just so . . mean-spirited, mean-minded, and dumb. It's that dull-witted sort of bashery that people engage in to stop real conversation from going on. It's a kind of Limbaughesque approach to popular culture. You make "not getting it" into mark of a kind of purity -- free of the impurity of thinking, or getting into stuff, or having an esthetic reaction to things.

I've got opinions too. There are things I don't like that other people do like. There are things I even think are kind of bad that some other people think are kind of glorious (Patrick and I have had a go-round about some of these things, in the distant past). So it's not about everybody having to like or even respect certain pieces of music. It's a general attitude that music (or any artistic endeavor)must be soulless and inferior and unenjoyable if those people revere it(whoever those people might be at the moment, but honestly it's usually those lefty intellectual aging hippies who somehow seem to be running the esthetic world or something).

I'm worse than blind and deaf to rock music. Billy Connolly, slightly older than me, said that when he first heard Elvis, it was like opening a door on a new world, and like coming home. When my friends found the Beatles and the Stones, it changed their lives. I heard that music, and felt only incomprehension and dismay. They liked this? They liked this?

That's only blindness and deafness, though. I'm worse. I spent a year as a resident teacher in a boarding school, where one of the few privileges of the inmates was to play music in the gym on Friday and Saturday nights. I had to be there, too. Naturally they played whatever they thought most out-there at volumes calculated to melt fillings on teeth. My reaction was acute nausea.

To this day, I can't write names like Jethro Tull, Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple, The Pistols, the Clash, Def Leppard and so on, without feeling physically ill. A car pulling up beside me at the lights with the boom box going is enough to produce a cold sweat and a griping gut. A loud party in the next street, and I have to get out. Somewhere, anywhere.

Now, I know this is both unjustifiable and irrational. I know that by being so phobically resistant to rock music - all rock music - I am walling myself off from an important and, what is more, essential part of the culture I live in. I can't help it.

A misguided friend once gave me one of Sky's albums, on the grounds that these were classical musicians giving a far more profound treatment to rock, actually using its idioms in a complex, technically difficult and intellectually satisfying way - and playing classical pieces as well. I sat through it, grimly determined to hear what they had to say. (Sky, I understand, is widely scorned by rock fans as soft-centre pap, and too damn complicated.) I heard these fine musicians, and it was as if a dear friend, a beautiful lady whom I had long admired discreetly from afar, had told me that she'd noticed how silly I was being, and that she'd be glad to bed me for an appropriate sum, for after all that's how she'd put herself through college.

This is not an intellectual reaction to a music that I consider (intellectually) to be impoverished, for all its technological equipage, and usually banal, lumpen and violent to boot. That would be banished by providing examples of rock music that isn't like that, and I would then be forced to admit that the form is not in itself intrinsically loathsome. It's not like that. I can't be moved by such instances.

Consider Rome, 100 AD. To the average person, a day at the Games was an ordinary part of a holiday. The spectacles, the blood, death and agony involved, were tremendously popular, and an essential part of the culture. Romans who loathed the brutality and the crude excitement - and there were some who did - were thought quaint, effete and effeminate.

But that form of entertainment was an affront to civilisation, and revolting, and hideous. It does no good to quote to me the occasional examples of comradeship, decency and dignity found in the arena, nor to tell me about its essential courage, power, artistry and skill. The arena was a loathsome thing, in and of itself. Accounts of it make me feel physically ill. And that's the same reaction that I have to rock music.

Dave - Don't feel bad. I have a great friend who doesn't like much written since the 80's. The 1780's that is.

He even refers to old Ludwig van as "Boom Boom Beethoven."

I have, however, managed to get him to see the virtues of They Might Be Giants. Nerds are as nerds do, after all.

Er, Mike, no. I don't know what the language barrier here is, but my point was...

...originally, your point was:

Yes, I'm saying that abstract expressionism as a response to art is entirely different than "your music sucks" as a response to art.

And, as for the former, you said:

...my patience... is pretty thin.

...from which I concluded:

So from your previous misunderstanding of what I said: you hold contempt in so much higher regard than Pollack that you balked at comparing them?

So tell me about this language barrier to which you refer, Dan.

Dave, if you dislike both Jethro Tull and the Clash (and I speak as a fan of both), then you're probably a step up the evolutionary ladder from those who hate one and love the other.

I'm curious--is there a form of popular music, not necessarily current, that you do like?

Anyway, I don't know exactly why this topic bugs Patrick so, but it bugs me on this ground: I tried very hard when I wrote record reviews not to write pans, on the simple ground that they were useless. My job was to point people to things they'd like, preferably things they wouldn't encounter unless they heard about them from someone like me.

Now, there are certain sacred cows that I enjoy beating, that should be beaten. I'll happily tell people that Sgt. Pepper and The Beatles are the downhill slide of a band that peaked with "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane". At least, I used to do that, when people cared about the Beatles, and there was a shot at getting Revolver into their heads.

That wears thin pretty quickly, though--five minutes or less.

There's also a lot of joy in taking a contrarian position. I think Warren Zevon's Transverse City is an underappreciated near-masterpiece, and I push it on people. I'm here to tell you that Bob Dylan's Planet Waves is as good as Highway 61 Revisited or Blood on the Tracks or Love and Theft. Miles Davis' In A Silent Way is...oh, you get the idea.

Oh, and Robert L: Roxy Music, at least the first two, and Patti Smith are also cool. You wanker.

Now, there are certain sacred cows that I enjoy beating, that should be beaten.

I personally enjoy the esoteric sport of sacred cow tipping.

Jeremy -- the brass bit at the beginning of "All You Need Is Love" is the opening bars of "Marseillaise". It could be Paul doing "love conquers all", or John having us on, or something I haven't guessed.

Dave -- wasn't that you in Slippery Jim and the Rattettes? If so, how did you stand it?
I'm not fond of loud music in large doses, but there are still a few pieces I like to put on at high volume (usually in the car on the highway, where the neighbors won't notice) -- frequently Jefferson Airplane (not the obvious pair of songs but some of the more interesting LP cuts that never get on the radio). To each his own poison (which I read as part of what upset Patrick).

Maybe they've changed the content since Patrick posted, but I really can't see what the comments are that have got a couple of people aggravated.

I mean, it's a bunch of people saying which albums they couldn't get into, and/or think are over-rated (combined with the occasional pop at the artist, which is only to be expected). I've had similar conversations with friends. It's no big deal, unless you take the viewpoint that "all art is precious art, and must not be criticised".

(If anyone does hold that viewpoint, I'll try to avoid having a conversation about art with you, because I don't think either of us would enjoy it.)

adamsj: Irving Berlin, if I'm allowed to specify "Puttin' on the Ritz". Delicious. Gershwin, most of it, though some is a bit treacly for me. "Porgy and Bess" is the last great opera, though. Come to think of it, I like quite a lot of Sondheim, though I find him very New York, with apologies to present company. Even Lloyd-Webber, though I know, I know, that much of it is cliched. (How do you put that acute in, again?) But "So you are the Christ", Herod's song from "JC Superstar" is, I think, superb. And the Pie Jesu (there's that acute not there again) from "Requiem" is a lovely thing. It's simple, and it's all in the performance if it's not to be mawkish. I've heard Placido Domingo drive a horse and cart through it, apparently with the approval of the composer, but sung as it should be sung, plain, scrubbed clean, distant, with calm crystal certainty, it has real power.

I don't know. What counts as popular music, currently?

CHip: Yes, that was me, playing (God forgive me for abusing the word and the instrument) a bass guitar in Slippery Jim and the Ratettes", a filk band. Of sorts. And it is undeniable that we played bad, and as loud as we could, which was thankfully not very loud. It was, however, very bad. I stood it by telling myself that I wasn't there, that all experience was useful, and by using earplugs. Watching Ian Nichols - the same as advised me that rhyming verse is now alien to the culture - rendering "Sweet Transvestite" is an experience that will stay with me to my dying day. Nobody who saw that performance will ever forget it.

First of all, most of the music we class as classical was popular music in its original time, so the distinction isn't simple and straightforawrd, it's complicated. Cultural artifacts change in meaning as the culture around them changes.

Paul, please go back and look at what I said, because I think I did explain the difference between a bunch of people listing what they don't like and what that crew is doing. Context, tone, details matter. It pays to pay attention to nuance.

CHip -- Oh yeah, right! I had to poke Ellen and say, "What's the brass bit at the beginning of All You Need Is Love"? And she said, "Da da dah dah, dah dah, DAH, da dah, da da dah, dah, da-da, Love, Love, Love", and I said "oh yeah, that's the Marseillaise!" and she was like "duh"... I guess every time I've listened to that song I have known what I was hearing but it never really registered.

Dave Luckett -- I really don't mean this as a criticism but I'm genuinely puzzled by your post. I think I have known one other person who expressed similar sentiment and I considered him a real jerk but for other, independent reasons. I mean I don't really get e.g. classical music or most jazz or rap but I don't object to hearing them -- it seems pleasant enough to have music in the atmosphere around my head even if it's going over my head. And I keep listening to them in hopes that I will one day wake up to what I'm hearing even if I don't seek them out like I do folk music and blues and some rock. And, what is the extent of your visceral disgust at rock music? Does it encompass everything that would be identified as Rock & Roll? Rhythm & Blues? Motown? Do you differentiate between different styles of popular music or is it all trash? & What about the music that is the roots of rock, like primarily the blues and western folk music? Any reaction positive or negative? I ask only because I'm curious.

Honestly, the thing that keeps me from sneering at people who like music I don't is that I retain an appreciation for a handful of Rush albums, most notably Permanent Waves.

If I encountered their music today, I'd probably run screaming and be ready to dis their fans. Gotta say that this is enough to make me tolerant of the Britney and 50 Cent crowds.

Right now, my car CD case is full of The Mountain Goats, Cake, Sigur Ros, Bjork and my Eurolingua Deutsch 3 language discs. Aside from the German practice, my music preferences seem to have become "Post-Alternative" for lack of a better label. Thank the heavens (or at least Paul Allen) for KEXP which actually plays new music that I like and run out and buy.

Lucy - the thing is that I don't get any of what you list in your post from the CT comments I read; that's the "problem". Some of the comments do seem to get a little meaner as you go down, but c'est la vie.

But I still don't see what's actually wrong with saying that you don't like X. There seem to be people on here who have the idea that the CT post is saying "you must not listen to these bands because they suck!!!", and I don't get that from their post at all. They're expressing opinions, that's all.

I've just searched the thread for 'bad'. There's one post from someone claiming punk is "bad music"; one post from someone commenting on Meg White's drumming; and the next usage comes from Teresa. I think saying that their post and comments are saying music foo is 'bad' is probably unjustified.

As it stands, it really does just look to me like those people are saying they don't like such-and-such, and that's fine. Or are people not allowed to point out groups and albums they don't like, or that they think are over-rated?

I think I might have to abandon this thread, because I really can't see what there is there to get worked up about. You're all usually fairly level headed, which makes me think you really are just seeing something I'm not. (Whether it's there or not is a whole other argument.)

Larry: nothing wrong with Rush. :-) I have a particular soft spot for Grace Under Pressure (as long as you remove The Body Electric).

It just occurred to me - maybe the reason that I don't have a problem with it is because, when talking about music and books and art and stuff, I generally mentally redefine 'good' and 'bad' to be 'stuff I like' and 'stuff I don't like'.

There are obvious exceptions where most people seem to agree - Crazy Frog, anyone? - but I find that it helps.

I just watched the CBS-TV Sunday Morning show, with fascinating stories on the University of Texas museum/library, the sex life of lobsters, and Kenny Chesney, Country Music superstar. This last item is on-topic.

In a sense I grew up with Cowboy Music as part of my heritage, along with Broadway, Baroque & Classical, and 1940s/1950s American pop. I'm a great great grandnewphew of the immortal Lorenz Hart, a great-uncle of mine produced 2 of the top 3 radio shows in the country, my parents went to every major Broadway show, and my Dad had all these 78s of Cowboy songs, and told tales of his summers on an Arizona dude ranch.

So I have no problem with (although they are not on the top of my playlist) the original Country Music (as revived by the film "O Brother Where Art Thou"), Acuff & the Grand ol' Opry, Western Swing, Bill Monroe & Bluegrass, Honkytonk Music, the Nashville Sound, or the "oulaws" (Willy Nelson, Waylon, Johnny, and Merle, Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, The Outlaws, The Marshall Tucker Band, David Allan Coe, The Charlie Daniels Band). Hank Williams had lyrical and vocal genius. Loved Patsy Cline.

I had no problem with the early '80s convergence of this with mainstream pop, through such phenomena as John Travolta's "Urban Cowboy," and spurred on by Dolly Parton's movie "9 to 5." But that seemed to me to have opened the door to music as shallow and vapid as any pop, with none of the sincerity and grit of real Country, or the tragic voice of John Conlee. I couldn't see the point of Alabama or their wannabee imitators (Atlanta, Exile and Bandana, Restless Heart, Confederate Railroad, Desert Rose Band, the Kentucky HeadHunters). Except Reba McEntire, who sounds real.

And then I lost touch completely. With some exceptions -- such as Shania Twain (maybe because of clever videos) -- the field slammed shut for me with the rise of Garth Brooks, the most popular country music artist of all time, in terms of worldwide following, albums sold, and awards won, who alone has sold more than 60 million albums. I was lost when when the big money finally hit the scene. The music failed for me exactly when it reached its financial success.

Country became the most popular radio format in America, reaching 80 million adults, roughly 40 percent of the adult population in the USA.

I'm not knocking the "new traditionalists" (George Strait, Ricky Skaggs, the Judds, Randy Travis, and Ricky Van Shelton).

But just what is it that makes Garth a super-superstar? Or Kenny Chesney? My wife and I are baffled. We can't hear anything in the lyrics, the voices, the instrumentation, of any consequence. We can't see anything in the onstage choreography. We feel utterly alien-anthropologisty at seeing a packed football stadium go nuts over these guys.

The last time I tried was when "Achy Breaky Heart" by Billy Ray Cyrus was some sort of media phenomenon, and people who never listed to Country before got excited, and line dancing caught on big time. I listened with what thought was an open mind. Nothing. No value at all in the banal lyrics and soft soft rock crossover sound. Nuthin'.

Maybe I'm too old, too urban, too something. I'm willing to admit that it's me, and not some Quantum Mechanics barrier to people in black imitation cowboy hats and drycleaned jeans.

And don't get me started on Rap.

Do I really have to note once again that none of my reaction to the CT thread had to do with which particular music was and wasn't being dissed? Evidently I do. Once again: they could have been discussing Dixieland jazz or styles of interpretive dance for all the difference it would have made.

Anyway, this has mostly served to piss off a couple of people I like and confuse a lot of others. As I should have foreseen. Never mind.

PAtrick, there is something worth discussing here -- maybe, though, another opportunity will arise that shows what you're talking about in ways that can be more easily pointed to.

Gosh, did I just catch myself hoping for some know-nothing proud-to-be-a-lunkhead boor to spout off about something again? I think I did. Oh well. No, wait, what I'm hoping for is that when the inevitable happens, and a know-nothing proud-to-be-a-lunkhead boor spouts off, they do it in such a way that it's easily used as an illustration.

Anyhow, it was clear to me that the type of music wasn't the point.

Patrick,

I think most of us get that it wasn't the subject matter that got your goat, and most of those of us who get that have at least an idea what did, but if you would put it into words, it'd help.

Geoffrey A. Landis comments:

"Modern country & western has little or nothing to do with the folk-rooted traditional music in 'Oh Brother Where Art Thou' (brilliant film)."

"Interestingly, modern country tends toward storytelling; unlike pretty much anything in the rest of popular music. Each song tends to be a
little short-story."

Of course, Patrick's declared that it wasn't the subject that twisted his panties, but I still felt like posting about my neo-twang-deafness.

I'd also commented, earlier, that pure distilled venomous ignorant negativity was a Bad Thing to inculcate.

My Dad used to ask me: "would you rather be right, or happy?"

Dan, Mike,

I hope I'm not stepping on toes if I observe that there does seem to be a language barrier thing going on.

Dan said: Contempt for Pollack is pretty much in the same league with contempt for U2, and my patience for both is pretty thin.

Mike said: you hold contempt in so much higher regard than Pollack that you balked at comparing them?

To me, it reads as though Dan is saying his patience for the contempt has worn pretty thin, not his patience for either Pollack or U2.

But, you know, I don't really understand a lot of what you're both talking about so I've probably got this wrong. I'll stop butting in.

Madeline, that's it exactly. Thank you.

Patrick, am i correct in saying that it's the generalized snarking, rather than the actual opinions expressed, that you (and I) find offensive? It gives the reader nothing excpet attitude. Dave Luckett, on the other hand (to take one example), though I don't share his opinions on music [well, OK, I'm not exactly a huge Tull fan, though their first few, pre-Aqualung LPs are OK; and Iron Butterfly I think are generally pretty bad], is openly sharing his feelings and opinions in (mostly) a nonjudgmental way, so I don't find his post offensive. I like reading other people's opinions that are different from mine when they actually do something other than stand on the sidelines and smirk.

adamsj: //channeling Julie Burchill// No, you show your obvious hippie tendencies by advocating art-rock noodlers who are just the Grateful Dead and Big Brother & the Holding Co. with New Wave haircuts.//unchannel

The thing that gets me about such threads as the CT one referenced here is the general sense of "Disliking X is a virtue." By all means, list your likes and dislikes, but acting as though not liking [insert popular pop artist here] somehow makes you more enlightened than the unwashed masses of [pop artist]-lovers can grate on one's nerves.

A related species of disgustversations involves the declaration of "I loved [music band] before they sold out" where the phrase "sold out" is actually used to mean "got discovered by the general populace so that those of us who liked them could no longer consider ourselves a privileged and exceptionally discerning minority." Now, I thought "sold out" really meant "has thrown out their artistic integrity in order to pander to others' tastes for the sake of record sales," and that it isn't the only way to become popular. But there are those who believe that popularity itself is a crime, a sin against good taste, a proof of iniquity. At that point, to these folks, it doesn't matter what the band is actually playing; the basis for liking or disliking them is how many other people like or dislike them. Strikes me as a silly reason to dislike a band.

Thanks for catching the language barrier, Madeline.

Sorry, Dan. Declaring your contempt for contempt was confusing to me like a double-negative.

Interestingly, modern country tends toward storytelling; unlike pretty much anything in the rest of popular music.

Except rap, of course. But I'm not supposed to get you started on that...

That finally explains Robert Hunter. He's a country rap artist.

Composer and singer (pop, Jazz, opera) Carmen Balas comments:

"When I was in Fresno, I tuned in to C&W stations, although Fresno is not the cow town it used to be. Wouldn't you know it, just when I thought it was safely dead and buried for good, somebody went and COVERED that whiny pukefest of the '90s, 'Achy Breaky Heart'! That's right, folks, somebody else recorded 'Achy Breaky Heart' and it's playing on C&W radio...at least in Fresno. The talentless, tone deaf wonder."

"'May he be captured by Midianite maniacs, that offspring of a squashed cockroach! (curse supplied by 'Biblical Curse Generator')."

Rap isn't all bad. (I figure it's a genre like any other, and the quality will range from trite to trash to terribly brilliant. Sturgeon's Law again.)

I tend to think of the rap I like as spoken word poetry, which is possibly horribly snobbish of me but I continue to listen. Aesop Rock's Lucy is good. So's Circe from Ursula Rucker. Well written, well spoken both.

I will not even try to convert anyone here to soca.

Jeremy Osner: I really don't know why I have an actual phobia about, well, some rock music. Not all of it, on further reflection, though I know I said that. I merely acutely dislike most of it, which is not the same thing. There is even some that is lightweight and silly enough to be mildly enjoyable. The aforementioned Rocky Horror Show, for example.

The elements that went into rock aren't by any means bad. Delta blues and (the original) gospel, plus work songs, that's genuine music. Bluegrass, dixie, swing, "primitive" jazz - no problems. Those last are not meant to be taken too seriously, of course. But something happened when they invented the amplifier.

Because part of it certainly is the volume. "If it's too loud, you're too old." Well, it is, and I am. Loud means "I'm invading your space, and there's not a thing you can do about it." That's aggression, ipso facto. Loud also signals rage, and it implies danger, and it requires raw power. Those things frighten me.

Part of it is the nihilism, the exultation in sheer mindlessness. There's violence there, and it's not too far away. It's overpowering, hypnotic. The kids used to tell me that you hear it in your gut.

Did they mean that the essential response to rock was emotional, not intellectual? I don't think so. That's way too complicated. They meant that this music is felt as ecstasy and rage.

I think they were right. Every time somebody tries to add some layer to rock music, to make it a little more complex, somewhat less dependent on volume and crushing power and visceral excitement, isn't there an immediate countering response? Isn't that response to glorify crudity, savagery, searing rage and berserk nihilism all over again, and to state - not in words, which are far too effete a medium, but in action - not only that those things are the essentials of rock music, but that all other elements detract.

I think that's true. And I think that's why much of rock music appalls and nauseates me.

"[P]art of it certainly is the volume. 'If it's too loud, you're too old.' Well, it is, and I am. Loud means 'I'm invading your space, and there's not a thing you can do about it.' That's aggression, ipso facto. Loud also signals rage, and it implies danger, and it requires raw power. Those things frighten me.

"Part of it is the nihilism, the exultation in sheer mindlessness. There's violence there, and it's not too far away."

I am now so, so sorry I started this thread.

Yes, it's all about the nihilism. What I spent my weekend in the studio doing was "getting in Dave Luckett's face," and I glory in the fact that there's "not a thing he can do about it." Also, I'm all about "sheer mindlessness" and "violence...not too far away."

Christ on a crutch. With one gang of idiots, I'm a loser because I like some groups that are on the Index Nolongerhipatorius. With another, I'm the second coming of Beelzebub because I make with the evil, compelling jungle beat. Next: Harry Potter, satanist D&D, and Your Child's Brain. One way ot another I'm sure it's all my fucking fault.

Just to clarify, I would like to ask Dave Luckett a simple question.

Why do you expect me to be the most tolerant and fair-minded person on the planet?

Would I go to your, I dunno, your weblog where you periodically talk about your enthusiasm for, let's say, woodworking (work with me here, this is an Imaginary Story), and post lengthy comments about how woodworking is all about "nihilism" and "exultation in sheer mindlessness"? And if I did, do you suppose onlookers would think I was smart for doing so?

What the fuck kind of reaction do you expect to get over this? Do you expect to be clapped on the back and heartily congratulated for the bracing honesty with which you express your utter contempt for the art I feel most vulnerable about doing? Are you thinking at all? What on earth is going through your brain?

Dave, had it escaped your notice that Patrick plays guitar with a NYC bar band? It's the other thing he does for fun.

Robert, please reassure me that your tongue is in your cheek with that "hippie tendencies" business.

I tend to think of the rap I like as spoken word poetry, which is possibly horribly snobbish of me but I continue to listen.

I think, if anything, it sells rap a bit short. Good rap is good music--no need for a special category.

PNH - If I'm ever in NYC coincident with one of your Whisperado dates, I'll try my darndest to be there, even though you don't know me from Adam. (Except, of course, from my comments here.)

I enjoy bar bands. I had a co-worker who's got one that plays mostly 80's and 90's covers plus some original stuff, and I always enjoy their shows. I have nothing but admiration for people who find the time in their busy lives to make some music, for themselves and to make others happy.

I feel like I just watched Dave Luckett walk into a bear trap, whose bait was "Tell us more about how you feel about rock music and why you think it makes you feel that way?"

Except I'm not sure that bear traps in fact get baited. Maybe they just get put invisibly in places where bears are known to roam all unsuspecting-like.

Larry, I bet Patrick does know you from Adam. Adam is shorter and doesn't have a navel.

But . . . but . . . the comparison of rap, at least some schools of it, to spoken word, isn't artificial or lessening or even revealing: there's a conscious, deliberate, family connection, through hip-hop and slam and a bunch of other stuff. I mean, there's nothing to argue about there at all. It's like somebody said, with surprise, that they noticed a similarity between Bartok's music and Gypsy fiddling.

`

Of course. But, at the risk of quibbling, I don't think that what you're saying is quite what Sundre said. If somebody said "I tend to think of Bartok's music as Gypsy fiddling," I'd say they were selling Bartok a little short, too (and not because I don't like Gypsy fiddling).

But I didn't mean it to be a criticism; I just wanted to point out that there's plenty to like in rap from a purely musical point of view.

I like some rap. But don't get me started.

Upon consulting Google I've discovered that a musical pseudo-genre called "country rap" already exists, and it isn't exactly what I had in mind to describe Robert Hunter's music. "Folk rap" has also, apparently, been invented. This ruins the great thesis I was going to propound about how Hunter is a country rapper with crossover into folk rap, whereas Richard Thompson is a folk rapper with crossover into country rap.

BTW, the term of art that now refers to "hippie music" is "jam band," and there are a lot of good ones: Gov't Mule, Leftover Salmon, Railroad Earth, etc. As an unrepentent "hippie music" fan, I stand by the opinion that Donna The Buffalo is currently the greatest dance band/jam band on Earth. This is a great live show, but you have to know how to deal with Shorten files to listen to it. Here's a nice MP3 studio cut.

(Maybe this belongs over in the "deep water gills" Geek thread.)

I'm really really sorry your point got lost here Patrick, because it's an important one. Saying to your pals, "Hey, let's all get mean and nasty and vicious together" is anti-civilization and we shouldn't be encouraging each other to do it. You're right and it's important and never mind the side coversations over there in the alcove.

Oh, and Sharyn, you are an evil and wicked woman.

MKK

My Dad used to ask me: "would you rather be right, or happy?"

"...and now on this new Earth they've given me Africa to do, and of course I've done it all fjords again, because I happen to like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely Baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's 'not equatorial enough.' Well! Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day!"
"And are you happy?"
"No. That's where it all falls down, of course." -- Douglas Adams

With one gang of idiots, I'm a loser because I like some groups that are on the Index Nolongerhipatorius.

Where exactly in the CT post are you seeing that?

Yes, I am aware that Patrick played in a band, though I had no idea what style of music he played. "Whisperado" has resonances of cowboy music to me, and hardly evokes loudness. To the contrary.

Because what I was talking about was loudness. That's the thing I take to be threatening and frightening about rock.

What am I frightened of? Well, I experience extreme volumes of sound as threatening. Is that unjustifiable? In all truth, I don't think so. I also find very high volumes disorienting, destructive of connected thought. Am I unique in that? Again, I don't think so.

Of course I know that all music evokes, and should evoke, an emotional response. That is not the same thing as saying that it should destroy connected thought. Yet time and time again, people told me that was what rock was for. That was why it had to be loud. It had to sweep you away. You had to feel it viscerally, and its principal effects should be exhileration, disinhibition and sensory overload. (That's not how they put it, of course. I'm afraid the written word doesn't serve to give the means by which I received that understanding.)

But that's what I meant by nihilism. Reducing thought to nothing. I'm sorry, but I find that set of ideas frightening.

As for whether it's all Patrick's fault, or whether he's getting in my face by playing in a NY bar band as a hobby, obviously not. As Chico once said, when asked if the tenor he was acting as agent for had been heard in America yet, "Well, he's-a sing loud, but I no think he's-a sing that loud."

And no, I didn't expect to be clapped on the back. I'm glad to hear that you think it's honest, Patrick, and I agree an utterance can be honest, but not commendable or courteous. That was my mistake, for which I apologise. I did not mean to disparage your tastes or devalue your music by stating my own, and the perceptions by which they were formed.

Jim, so when you let us know Patrick has the means to verify Larry's navel, are we talking x-ray vision or some off-airport frisking?

comment on my Country Music posting from Julia Hart Post:

...Said with much more eloquence than the former generation who simply yelled at us through our bedroom doors over the din of The Beatles and The Stones, "Turn that crap down!!!!"

Music does not have to be deep, nor pay deference to the trailblazers before ... as long as it moves a soul.

Tim: Yes, rap is music. And some of it is very, very good music. And some of it is very, very good poetry. I enjoy when it's both at once.

Tim, I'm not talking about identities, I'm talking about family history.

Music has family history, that's all I want to say.

Sounds as if we're all in violent agreement!

Robert, please reassure me that your tongue is in your cheek with that "hippie tendencies" business.

Teresa, please note the "channeling Julie Burchill" that preceded my remark. Ms. Burchill, as I noted earlier, is co-author of The Boy Looked at Johnny, which allows as how only a very narrow range of music (certain punk-rock bands + token R&B) is worth anything, and everything else is shite. I think you know me well enough to know that I do not share this opinion. But adamsj is trying to pull my leg, and so I am responding as I imagine Ms. Burchill might. (Last I heard, Ms. B. was saying how Andrea Dworkin was the best contemporary American writer. [This was before Ms. D.'s recent passing.])

I actually enjoy reading Julie Burchill's writing (I have two of her later books as well), cringe as I do through most of it.

Professor Philip Vos Fellman, Full Professor of International Business Strategy, Southern New Hampshire University, who also has a B.F.A., in Music from California Institute of the Arts, comments:

"There's a lot of non-musical 'music' out there."

I've mentioned him before as someone having written permission to write in a Zelazny universe, and who has some published Science Fiction (such as "Born on the Net" about prenatal education).

One person's "non-musical 'music'" is another's Desert Island Disc.

Robert L.:

True, but people keep driving their cars next to mine at stop lights, with megawatt amplifiers blasting what to me is "non-musical 'music'" until my windshield wobbles. I tend to crank up my Bach as high as it goes, but don't think I'm being heard.

I once had a neighbor call the police, claiming that I was playing my stereo too loud at dinnertime. The cop covertly listened outside my door first, then knocked and explained the circumstances. "Got the call," he said. "Had to investigate. Doesn't sound too loud to me. Eroica Symphony?"

I've also enjoyed some very loud live concerts by the Who, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe & the Fish, the Grateful Dead, the Voidoids, and the Dead Kennedys. But I started wearing earplugs to these events at least two decades ago.

Our most annoying/embarrassing moment was when my daughter was practicing her bagpipes at home and a neighbor yelled out "Please turn down the stereo!"

She almost never practised at home after that, which was too bad for me, as I adore the bagpipes, especially when she played them.

Dave L: Every time somebody tries to add some layer to rock music, to make it a little more complex, somewhat less dependent on volume and crushing power and visceral excitement, isn't there an immediate countering response?

My immediate counter is "Nonsense!". I've heard punk called the first reactive movement; before them you have at least a decade of rock moving in many directions less dependent on visceral excitement: art, complexity, maybe even disinvolvement. IMO, whoever gave you that list of key components of rock was leaving out a lot, both in what they claimed defined rock and in what they claimed was exclusive to rock; "volume and visceral excitement" are some of the reasons I still sing in two ~classical choruses.

Has it never occurred to you that the kids at that school were sending you up? I remember my years at prep school; my issues with the faculty weren't identical with my classmates', but there were times when what I most wanted was to pull some adult's chain hard enough that I could see him flush.

CHip: So take pity on my ignorance. What defines rock music, and what is essential to it? Not necessarily exclusively. I'm well aware that Wagner and Tschaikovski and even Beethoven used the utmost volume of sound that their technology allowed - in places. So did Bach - he wrote a lot for organ, far and away the loudest musical instrument of his time.

I know - or I think I know - that one essential is a driving beat in a square rhythm, and a very strong bass section. Another seems to be volume. (I would be delighted to be instructed that that is not the case.) Another appears to be the decorated instrumental line imported from jazz, but not, it appears, extemporised, and carried on the lead instrument only. Still another might be the concentration on themes of rejection, abandonment, and anomie. I only say 'might be'.

Of course the kids were putting me on. Of course they were trying to boggle me. I'm not going only on what they said.

I rather thought grunge was another reaction to over-sophistication, and after that we had the garage band movement and industrial metal, both concentrating on simplification and raw power. Punk certainly was, inter alia, a rejection of complexity and technical musicianship - and of anything else perceived as effete. (Or, I would say, civilised. But that's going too far, no doubt.)

One person's "non-musical 'music'" is another's Desert Island Disc.

Given my fascination with musical randomness and electro acoustic noises, most of what I've been listening for the last couple of years tend to be considered non-music by people around me. I'm lucky I have very nice and tolerant neighbours, cause I know places were I would have gotten killed for listening to, say, Alva Noto or Ryoji Ikeda's work 24 hour non-stop.
Truth is, I've gotten to the point where listening to natural random electro acoustic noises can hold me under a spell for hours (last time was a midnight empty train's buzzing dying neons in the subway).
[/other kind of Trivial and Self-obsessed moment ?]

To fall back on the original topic: what I find a bit saddening about that discussing habit (hey, I like the sound of that)is the way all of those indulging in the activity tend to feel superior to the criticised objects. It's not only how much they feel cooler for not liking them, but also the way they're debasing those works by considering them below some fluctuating non-defined imaginary standards. They're just "below", and thats' what matters in the end.
There's something ugly reeking behind.

That being said, apart from a couple of songs, and however I've tried, I still don't get the Beatles. -_^

The Beatles Random Acoustic [bootleg] Album

If the rain comes
they run and hide their heads,
they might as well be dead
buzzing dying neons in the subway

Yellow matter custard
dripping from a dead dog's eye
buzzing dying neons in the subway

She said
I know what it's like to be dead.
I said
who put all those things in your hair,
things that make me feel that I'm mad?
I know what it's like to be dead,
buzzing dying neons in the subway

Timothy Leary's dead,
no, he's on the outside looking in.
Turn off your mind
relax and float down stream.
Lay down all thought
surrender to the void.
When ignorance and haste may mourn the dead,
buzzing dying neons in the subway