Soren wrote on Nov 12
th, 2011 at 3:21pm:
Grey wrote on Nov 12
th, 2011 at 1:04pm:
Soren wrote on Nov 12
th, 2011 at 11:53am:
WHich, of course, is not what I have said anywhere. But you and grey and co have this stupid pat answer at the ready, regardless what anyone says. Beethoven is not gereat because he is dead.
Pop and wock 'n woll are crap as music or art because:
musically they are primitive
emotionally they are fake
intellectualy they are dumb
fun-wise they are repetitious and very basic, like a Luna Park.
They are almost invariably made and performed for money and chicks and fame and more money and more shagging. There isn't anything wrong with a lot of money and a lot of shagging. But my definition of art is not "whatever gets you laid and pays a lot".
Where did I say Beethoven is great because he's dead? Putting words in my mouth is about the only way you'll get any traction Soren. So sorry then for not dumbing down to supercilious twerp level, but you'll have to do better than that.
What you say about popular culture in the now, is true of popular culture in any age, only the extraordinary will stand the test of time. There's a lot more of the extraordinary around in the present because there's a lot more of us and the world is both smaller and bigger. Smaller in that you can cross the planet in hours rather than months and bigger in that communications mean that culture is globalised.
Art is universalised in the post-modern, artists are unconstrained by geography or discipline. Not only does Pavarotti collaborate with U2 and the spoken word collaborate with song, but music merges with the visual and sculpture becomes performance. I know, you hate the post-modern, it confuses you. The fact that you find it difficult to pick out what is extraordinary in the present reflects only your lack of discernment.
In the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty. - Bob Marley
The post-modern doesn't have the power of cohesion and certainly not the purposefulness to confuse me, and increasingly, anyone else. "Art is universalised" is just one of its grandiloquent nonsenses.
There is art, good art, made now. Not in pop music or pop anything, but still. Good art, like any other human endeavour of excellence is elite. This does not mean that it is inaccessible, only that it requires effort to access it: effort of education, interest, effort of reflection, cultivation and so on. Pop crapp requires no effort because it has nothing elite about it in the sense of excellent. Just like junk food, it i cheap, easy and is everywhere. There is nothing postmodern about junk food, just because it is lmost universally available. It is still junk. Do I dislike junk food because I am confused and lack discernment? What an utterly puffed up idiocy you re propagating.
This is only a doco but I do recommnd Scruton's books on aesthetic for anyone who has bad taste in his mouth over the relentless sludge of pop crapp - pop aesthetics.
Amusing that Scrotum (if he cared about beauty so much he'd change his name) and I both turn to Michelangelo as the ultimate in beauty. Was anything more 'pop' than David? Only the Sistine Chapel or his Pieta, perhaps that's why art increasingly moves away from the beautiful; he left us nowhere to go down that path.
Reproduction of beauty in the way of Michelangelo can nowdays be done by a robot with a chisel and a computer. Not that there's any truth in 'beauty ' being what art is all about, not now or ever, gargoyles, Shakespear, Milton, Goya not even Bach or Beethoven were all about beauty.
What is todays pop music if not a troubador tradition that goes back way beyond symphony orchestras and harpsichords? Songs that remain ever popular like Greensleeves and that tune that goes back into the 'mist of toime' Danny boy.
I agree that twentieth century architecture has a lot to answer for, but then after a blitzkreig there was perhaps something to be said for utilitarianism. I don't like Warhol, as I intimated and what was he but a follower of Duchamp? I think their products are overvalued but I think they did some good in drawing attention to excellence in the work of commercial artists. The coke bottle and the latrine are both deserving of recognition, but that is an appreciation that should've been directed at the original designers.
Of course there's a heap of crap produced in the name of post-modernism and pop music. Theres much that is pap, consumed in the now and forgotten, I certainly would never deny that. But there is much imbued with originality, beauty and/or meaning that will stand the test of time with the best of the past. Nothing that you have posted is 'elitist' it's music that has remained relevant because it is popular. I would posit that Gorecki's Symphony No3 will be around long after the more esoteric works of Sculthorpe or Glass which are elitist. This despite being basically simple and, Universe forbid popular. I trust Leonard Cohen's work to not fade gently into the great night either.
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