What Makes Music Bad? A New Scale: Part I, the Definition

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2431 ^ | William M. Briggs

[mattstat]

It might have been coming out of the air space between her ear buds and flesh, or it might have been seeping through the holes in the woman's head. Either way, that endless, non-varying thump-thump-thump was making me nuts.

This experience is similar that one endures when listening to a well known song by a bubblegum band named after an ubiquitous insect. The one in which the lyric, "I want to hold your hand" is repeated over and over and over and over and...

The "Boss", Bruce---Bruce!---Springsteen uses this technique as a bludgeon: "Born in the USA!...I was...[wait for it]...Born in USA!" Repetitiveness is such an integral part of this man's music that you have the idea he is ad-libbing most of his songs, though drawing on a shallow fund of imagination.

And then there is the sheer, gut-wrenching awfulness of most modern children's music, which includes music supposedly sung for the benefit of children. "Banana Phone" and "We are the World" come to mind. Not only are the lyrics of these songs simpleminded, but their melodies are brief, trivial; a handful of phrases recapitulated dozens of times in one sitting. Thinking children idiots is a recent phenomenon, incidentally.

Need I repeat what makes music awful?...

[SMARTY]

I think lack of skill, talent, etc. in musicians and composers = bad music.

When you listen to a piece of music written/performed by people who CARE about what they are doing, know the process, respect the form, bother to stay in tune and actually keep their instruments in tune... then it can’t be bad music.

It doesn’t matter whether it is classical, contemporary or anything else. That is why when you listen to Classical you want to hear the NY Philharmonic doing Beethoven’s symphony, and not some schlock outfit .... you want to hear ZZ Top doing rock and roll not a bunch of adolescent creeps who couldn’t keep it together if their lives depended on it.

Here’s an example of what I mean, though it is about the ballet. I am not an authority on ballet but this was MY introduction to the difference between ‘talent’ and NO talent:

I went to see the National Ballet do ‘Sleeping Beauty’. For the first 30 minutes or so, the chorus was performing and it was nice all the costumes, lights, color, music…etc. Super, I thought: ‘so this is the ballet!’.

THEN… the stage cleared and the prima ballerina came out. She began to dance and SIMULTANEOUSLY… as if on cue, the entire audience (myself included) gasped!!! She was THAT spectacular and THAT much different from everything else which was presented to that point. I had never been to the ballet, and I recognized it instantly. It was obvious at once that SHE was what it was all about and it only got better from there. I was almost sorry for all the others in the troupe.

I understood immediately the whole production was a mechanism to showcase talent. It is the same for all the arts.

In American popular culture, almost NONE of the people calling themselves artists are equal to the standard. They are a sham.

[HangnJudge]

This is why I like Ballads
Long narrative stories in song

Examples
Harry Chapin
- Cats In the Cradle
Arlo Guthrie
- Alice's Restaurant

[LibLieSlayer]

Inversion, repetition... it is all in the math.

LLS

[LibLieSlayer]

Very true... I did not think of Ravel... but then that makes me thing of Bo... yum!

LLS

[Interesting Times]

This experience is similar that one endures when listening to a well known song by a bubblegum band named after an ubiquitous insect.

Bubblegum band? This guy doesn't have anything useful to say about popular music.

[Texan Tory]

“Beethoven would disagree. Listen to his Fifth Symphony. It is a phrase repeated endlessly.”

Although I never really liked Beethoven’s 5th very well, at least in comparison to the 6th (Pastoral), 9th symphonies, and most of his other compositions, I disagree somewhat with your comment on the phrase being repeated endlessly. The rythmic phrase is repeated, but the chords and even the intervals between the melody notes are changing on each repetition so that the “Da-da-da-dahhh” rythmic phrase begins with a downward major third interval, immediately followed by a downward minor third interval, and pretty soon the rythmic phrase is repeated with a downward semitone interval, etc.

[Fiji Hill]

Much of the new contemporary “Christian” church music also fits this bill. Inane repeatings of the same, shallow lyrics, often on the same repeated note. The Wesleys and Newton would have covered their ears and raced for the doors.

I couldn't agree more. As far as I'm concerned, very few decent hymns have come out since "No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus" by Charles F. Weigle (1932) and "Jesus Is Always There" by Bertha Lillenas (1934)--and I didn't post links to them because it seems that only insipid "modern" arrangements of these tunes are available online.

[Richard Kimball]

Briggs must be a little too smart for me. Here's some of the "repetitive" music I like:

I've Been Everywhere

Pachelbel's Canon in D

The Boogie Woogie Flu

The Orange Blossom Special (Don Rich)

[LibLieSlayer]

Yes technically you are correct. I hate today's music but the repetition thing has been around a long time. Today's music is not music to me. Most of it is just commercial trash written by software algorithms.

LLS

[ClearCase_guy]

I'm a big fan of early Springsteen. In my opinion, he captures a certain aspect of the 1970's very well. Then he became a superstar and (IMO) lost his touch.

I suspect that I like a lot of music which Briggs would dislike -- but I agree with his basic premise that most of what passes for popular music today has very little redeeming value.

[mattstat]

1. Did we see the part where the MB measure is meant to be taken in a probabilistic sense? That is, a piece of music might receive a score of 0.5 (in all dimensions), which means there is roughly a 50% chance that it is bad.

2. Do not take this as a criticism of your choices, but surely you agree with me that because you (or anybody) likes a piece of music does not mean that music is good.

[smalltownslick]

“This was brought home to me with a commercial for some kind of juice. The “singing sensation” I had never heard of droning “shine on, shine on...”’

So glad I wasn’t the only one that hated that! And it was on so often. It got to where I was running out of the room with my ears covered (it was quicker than finding the remote)

[mattstat]

God had an inordinate fondness for beetles, not Beatles.

[brianr10]

This is repetitive, but she was one hip chick! Link

[aruanan]

Beethoven would disagree. Listen to his Fifth Symphony. It is a phrase repeated endlessly.

Or even worse, the "classical" version of almost every U2 song:



and:

[Colonel_Flagg]

Much of the new contemporary “Christian” church music also fits this bill. Inane repeatings of the same, shallow lyrics, often on the same repeated note. The Wesleys and Newton would have covered their ears and raced for the doors.

Amen. I have NO use for any church that has ever heard of the phrase 'worship team'.

[LibLieSlayer]

Nice catch!

LLS

[fwdude]

I have NO use for any church that has ever heard of the phrase 'worship team'.

That, and 'worship center.' Or how about calling their property a 'campus?'

[Colonel_Flagg]

I’m with you on both.