Your Top 10 Favorite Composers

[Todd]

But more importantly, throwing huge numbers around and claiming that one had listen to a considerably fraction of that music, like you and Todd seem to do, obviously proves too much.

Looks like you missed my point.  The self-appointed cultural elites on this board seem to be unfamiliar with current pop music, and don't take the time to listen to any.  You're the one who came up with the magic number of 500; I asked 5, 50, 500, 5000.  If the number of pop albums one listens to is close to, or at, zero, then making a statement about the quality of current pop music is based on prejudice and ignorance, not knowledge.  Now, if you are not predisposed to listen to pop music, that's perfectly fine, but without actually listening, comments on quality are inherently uninformed; one needn't listen to hundreds of new albums a year, but it helps to listen to more than none.

So you should at least to some extent agree with my original point that the dominant popular culture does not help people developing their taste because otherwise the most popular stuff would be better or at least not so much of the bad stuff would be so popular.

What popular stuff is "bad", and how can it be "better"?  What evaluative criteria should be applied when making these determinations?  In addition to seeking out less popular pop music - and not multi-million sellers like Radiohead and REM, but actually less popular pop music - I also listen to truly popular pop music.  In that category, there's some entertaining, catchy, throwaway stuff (Taylor Swift, say), some stuff I can't stand but others love (eg, Adele), and so forth.  I have no expectation that the most popular pop music will display the musical sophistication of Schubert or Webern, and to compare such pop music to those types of composers is preposterous to begin with.  More serious, accomplished stuff - the Beatles, Tom Waits (writing, not singing), Lyle Lovett, Aimee Mann, Liz Phair, among others - can begin to compare to much vaunted art songs.  I can say with absolute honesty that a properly performed version of Long Way Home is superior to some songs I've listened to from even Schubert.  (I've not heard all of Schubert's songs, but only a few hundred.)

Also, I suppose I should inquire as to whether "dominant" popular culture, past, present, or future, is even supposed to be about, or ought to be about, helping people develop their taste.  What does that even mean, and would pop culture be able to do whatever it is you are proposing or hope for?  Ought it not be up to individuals to develop their taste?

Secondly, if in a forum dedicated to classical music denigrators of pop are clearly in the minority it seems obvious that there is no social capital at all to be gained by such a position. So why not try the idea that this is really our honest opinion...

It can be an honest opinion.  But the rhetorical questions posed, and the terms used, are undefined or ambiguous, and in extreme instances devolve into the cliché of the elderly not understanding the music of kids today. 

[Karl Henning]

McCartney's sheepish soft-pedaling notwithstanding, I think "Helter Skelter" is a fine specimen of a pop song.  Doesn't mean that everyone (or anyone else) has to like it.  Without necessarily thinking less of his designedly 'smoother' songs ("When I'm Sixty-Four," "Michelle," "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," e.g.), I especially like that McCartney veered back toward the raw energy more typical of their earlier R&B numbers (covers, or original songs).

Further resolved:  That I've heard all of it is another of the sounds produced by a mind snapping shut   0:)

[Florestan]

I have no expectation that the most popular pop music will display the musical sophistication of Schubert or Webern, and to compare such pop music to those types of composers is preposterous to begin with. 

Finally, something we agree on! (rhetorical device --- we agree on many things, actually...)

But for God´s sake, it is not me, or Jo or James or whoever you think might belong to the "self appointed GMG cultural elite" (whatever this might mean) who makes such comparisons. On the contrary, if anything we reject such comparisons. There is no useful criteria for that. "Classical" music (in its broadest sense) and "pop" music (also in its broadest sense --- and please be aware that, for instance, hardcore Heavy Metal (and its subgenres) fans would strongly and unequivocally reject being lumped together under this umbrella) inhabit different galaxies. Their philosophical, intellectual and aesthetical points of intersection are few and far between.

Indeed the only (relatively) meaningful comparison that can be made is with the Lieder / Artsong genre. I say relatively because off the top of my head I can name no Lieder composer who did not tackle any other genre, while off the top of my head I can name no "pop" artist other than Frank Zappa who extended his interest and abilities beyond songwriting, concept albums notwithstanding. Heck, Carl Loewe wrote several piano sonatas and string quartets, a symphony and a piano concerto; Hugo Wolf composed a finished opera and two string quartets. With, and within, these qualifications, I agree that there are many "pop" songs who are of the highest musical quality; I agree that there are "pop"composers who can be considered as masterful in their art as Schubert. I name five such people in no particular order: Eric Clapton, Ray Charles, Sting, Mark Knopfler and Willie Nelson.

Trouble arises when some people try to extend this legitimate area of comparison and to put, for instance, Beethoven and Tori Amos on the same list. It is only then that we ask --- in vain --- to be presented with at least a modicum of evidence beyond the obviously incontrovertible and unfalsifiable "I like them both the same" that musically, philosophically, intellectually and aesthetically they can be compared and that the comparison yields none better than the other.

The most annoying thing in all is the following: we of the "self appointed GMG cultural elite" defend, promote and mainly listen to a type of music which spans more than 1,000 years, is divided in countless truly defined and definable genres and subgenres, is scored for tens of different instruments and voice types, its vocals are sung in at least ten modern languages and two dead ones, requires years, if not whole decades, of strenuous and dedicated effort from the musicians in order to properly master their instrument and play it properly both as solo and in ensembles, and also requires from its afficionados a patient, gratification-delaying, continuous cultivation and development of their taste while guaranteeing to them an ever-increasing widening of their cultural horizon ---- and for unabashedly acknowledging and relishing all that, we are  labeled snob, closeminded and elitist. But if a "pop" fan shows himself, as all too oftenly they do, (gladly and sneeringly) ignorant of all that, stubbornly unwilling to extend his musical horizon beyond his favorite band(s) / singer(s) and only too eager to dismiss the music we cherish as elitist stuff fit only for snobs --- then we are to keep silent for fear not to appear or being misconstrued as snob and elitist, or even are to have feelings of guilt for not being in tune with the people, or even are to internalize that we really are snob and elitist and must do penance for our sins. It is this double standard that I find repulsive and against which I will raise my feeble voice whenever the occasion presents.

Dixi et salvavi animam meam.

[Madiel]

No. There can be no discussion, if only "experts" who have listened to 500 heavy (or doom/black/silly/...) metal albums and can name all the subdivisions are entitled to an opinion. And the mere existence of experts does not show anything. My cousin was an expert on Pokemon when he was seven or so.

I do not have to read more than a few pages of a superhero comic (and I certainly do not have to read 100s of them) to know that this genre will not be comparable to Russian novels in the second half of the 19th century or Greek tragedies or whatever. Even the best superhero comic that might rise far above the typical trash is extremely limited by the very genre.

But more importantly, throwing huge numbers around and claiming that one had listen to a considerably fraction of that music, like you and Todd seem to do, obviously proves too much. Noone of us can listen to 5000 albums per year (4900 of which we might not care for), not to mention the further 500,000 recordings by some garage band on myspace (or what this is called today). Or to hundreds of symphonies by Haydn's contemporaries.
We ALL rely on certain mechanisms filtering out worthwhile candidates from what is out there. And such mechanisms usually do not need hundreds of years to work. I claim no expertise but my brother is reasonably well versed and very interested in the last 4 decades or so of popular music and I am sure that he would have no problem to name what was the most important music of the 1990s and that most of those bands or songs were recognized as important in their day; so we do not have do wait even 20 years.

You apparently find some of these mechanisms unreliable and say that "popular" popular music gives a wrong or skewed impression. (Maybe not the mechanisms that lead from myspace to a buyable album but those from an album to a chart position.) And you seem to generally agree that a lot of what's in the charts is rather bad or forgettable.
So you should at least to some extent agree with my original point that the dominant popular culture does not help people developing their taste because otherwise the most popular stuff would be better or at least not so much of the bad stuff would be so popular. (Note that this "closing of the musical mind" was actually my point further above, not the absolute quality of some choice popular music.)

Nevertheless, I am also wary of the claim that there is some totally different "unpopular" pop music with lots of hidden gems.  I never was really into any popular music but I listened to some of the stuff that was supposed to be "better", e.g. Radiohead or REM or whatever back in the mid/late 1990s (when I was more sociable...). This stuff might be better, but it is/was both quite popular and not totally different at all. It usually follows very clearly the typical song patterns etc. (and at least in clubs or concerts it is almost always played so loudly that I can hardly bear it). Stuff called "alternative" or "underground" still sells half a million albums I guess and additional merchandise.

It is also hardly plausible that most would denigrate popular music to "look down on the plebs". First of all, you seem to do something very similar yourself if you claim that what is in the popular charts is usually bad. Secondly, if in a forum dedicated to classical music denigrators of pop are clearly in the minority it seems obvious that there is no social capital at all to be gained by such a position. So why not try the idea that this is really our honest opinion...

I never suggested it wasn't your honest opinion. But it was at one point a highly dismissive opinion.

The rest of this I'm just not going to bother with any more. There is too much to unpick and it's not worth the time.

[Madiel]

Trouble arises when some people try to extend this legitimate area of comparison and to put, for instance, Beethoven and Tori Amos on the same list. It is only then that we ask --- in vain --- to be presented with at least a modicum of evidence beyond the obviously incontrovertible and unfalsifiable "I like them both the same" that musically, philosophically, intellectually and aesthetically they can be compared and that the comparison yields none better than the other.

No, trouble arises when you don't read the title of the damn thread. Because you can't possibly have had the title of the thread in mind while writing this absurd paragraph.

[Madiel]

PS But thanks all the same for highlighting these two. You've reminded me that I have both of their signatures in the same book. Beethoven's on the outside of a travel diary that my parents gave me before heading to Europe, and Amos' on the inside from when I met her in Vienna.

Musically, you're right though. I'd more readily compare Amos with Chopin, but he just fell off the draft list. It was a damn close thing though. If only his work had been a bit more varied.

[Ken B]

I won't give my list, just note that it incorporates men from multiple continents born centuries apart, who speak a variety of languages, none of them sharing a native tongue with me by the way, who wrote music for 1 to several hundred performers, dozens of kinds of instruments, with and without words in again a variety of languages, or varying lengths and forms using varied harmonic systems. Not a variety remotely comparable to that of pop music all written during my lifetime of course, but what can a narrow soul do?

[Todd]

On the contrary, if anything we reject such comparisons.

I suppose there's some truth to that: the self-appointed cultural elite of GMG (which is pretty self-explanatory if you have a dictionary handy) denigrate popular music as inferior, as "bad", as something that can be made "better", or perhaps something that could have been made better if it hadn't already been done much better in the past than can ever be done now or in the future, yet offering nothing substantive in terms of falsifiable (such fancy philosophizing) arguments as to what that means, or to what (objective?) evaluative criteria are used in making such assessments.  My bad, I mischaracterized what the self-appointed cultural elite wrote.  The self-appointed cultural elite have not made comparisons.  The self-appointed cultural elite have, without even deigning to so much as listen to much, if anything, in the way of modern pop music, already decided what it is and what it can be.  Had you not so expertly used bold type in your quote, I would amend the sentence, but alas, it is not to be.

[Jo498]

I regret having been drawn into that silly classical vs. popular discussion because I am not really very interested in that. As I mentioned several times, my original point was different. Namely that the absolute dominance of popular music is crippling for the development of musical tastes. It is a "closing of the musical mind" that music equals "music" in the framework of Anglo-american popular music of the last 60 years. Sure, present company is excluded because we here all listen to a broad spectrum.
But facts like that people refer to everything as "song", that the organization of downloads, databases etc. are all tailored to popular music based on songs are all evidence for that dominance. (Imagine that someone would expect all books to be like comic books and would be surprised about a book without illustrations and considerably exceeding the typical length of comic books. By the absurdity of such a scenario we see how much worse the situation is for music than for literature.)
The dominance can hardly be denied and the second claim is very plausible from what we know about cognitive development, imprinting etc. (Orfeo conceded the gist of that second claim as true, of course without my implication that it was "crippling".)

As for me not knowing what I am talking about wrt popular music. It is true that I never really was into popular music. There is obviously a lot I have never heard and of course I am not following any recent development (I am just too busy with music I care about for that).
But I think I have heard enough of the "classics" or well known songs/albums from the 1960s through the late 1990s to have a good impression. If I include folk (which is admittedly more than half of it), I have about 50 discs with popular music on my shelves and I have heard a much broader spectrum because there was a time when I went out more frequently and I also have a brother who is very interested in popular music beyond the "mainstream" (and we are both in our early/mid 40s, so no 60s nostalgia). On that basis I am rather unimpressed with the variety and the more sophisticated stuff I have heard, e.g. "The Wall" is still basically only songs (There is nothing wrong with "only songs" and I admittedly have not heard some of the other "Art rock" stuff from the 70s/80s, apparently it didn't really stick anyway and most pop reverted to the formats that fit its purposes better). 
There is a lot I do not dislike but hardly anything I care to listen to on a regular basis. (There is also stuff like most rap and some of the "screaming" heavy metal/punk/hardcore variety I absolutely detest and would switch off immediately. I also admittedly detest many more general aspects of current (popular) culture but that's beside the point.)

The "self-appointed cultural elite" nonsense I am not going to comment on. I never claimed any of that although I deplore that words like "intellectual" or "cultural elite" have become invective (and not only the words but the very concepts behind them).

[Karl Henning]

. . . but what can a narrow soul do?

Enlarge, boy, enlarge! 

[Karl Henning]

I regret having been drawn into that silly classical vs. popular discussion because I am not really very interested in that.

If the intent is immiscible contrast, I am not much interested in that, either.  There is a practical sense in which I am clearly "on one side," since my artistic endeavors are nothing like pop music. (Or, I don't know, maybe my recent dabbling in electronic efforts qualifies as a point of similarity.)

I find the comparison/contrast exercise of interest, even of quite practical interest, frequently.  I don't think there is any need to apologize for the activity.

[North Star]

But I think I have heard enough of the "classics" or well known songs/albums from the 1960s through the late 1990s to have a good impression. If I include folk (which is admittedly more than half of it), I have about 50 discs with popular music on my shelves and I have heard a much broader spectrum because there was a time when I went out more frequently and I also have a brother who is very interested in popular music beyond the "mainstream" (and we are both in our early/mid 40s, so no 60s nostalgia). On that basis I am rather unimpressed with the variety and the more sophisticated stuff I have heard, e.g. "The Wall" is still basically only songs (There is nothing wrong with "only songs" and I admittedly have not heard some of the other "Art rock" stuff from the 70s/80s, apparently it didn't really stick anyway and most pop reverted to the formats that fit its purposes better).

And what about something like Charles Mingus' Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, then?

[Brian]

And what about something like Charles Mingus' Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, then?

Still (in another thread) my nomination for the Great American Symphony  0:)

[Karl Henning]

Still (in another thread) my nomination for the Great American Symphony  0:)

Save that it is definitely a chamber ensemble 

[Ken B]

Still (in another thread) my nomination for the Great American Symphony  0:)

In what sense is it current pop music? I mean, isn't it rather obviously art music? Form over 50 years ago? 

[Brian]

In what sense is it current pop music? I mean, isn't it rather obviously art music? Form over 50 years ago?

I think you must have quoted the wrong person, but Jo498 was talking about 70s rock albums, anyways.

[Ken B]

I think you must have quoted the wrong person

That would be true no matter whom I quoted on this thread.

[Todd]

Namely that the absolute dominance of popular music is crippling for the development of musical tastes.

What evidence do you have for this assertion?  And what, precisely, is meant by "musical tastes"?  Part of the point of what I wrote is that broad assertions are made without evidence, and then vague and intrinsically elitist proclamations are made, and the assertions, without objective or at least thoroughly reasoned arguments, appear to be nothing other than an "I have good taste (as I define it); I don't like it; therefore it's bad" type syllogistic argument.  This weak argument is exacerbated by the fact that it is based on little, if any, listening.

Now, of course, no one need like pop music, or movies, or pop culture generally, and that's quite fine.  As an example, I listen to almost no rap music, because my prior experience with it has not been positive.  That written, I know there are some musically substantive acts in the genre.  Some of the music has already lasted decades and receives accolades from the purported experts in modern music (ie, critics and academics), and some will last for decades, or centuries, more.  Some of it may well be contemporary high art.  I do not see any evidence that rap music's existence has been deleterious to society or culture, or that it has crippled the development of musical taste.  I just don't like much of what I've heard.  But my preference is purely subjective.  I know that.

[Jo498]

The overwhelming factual dominance of popular music is not in dispute, I hope.

In fact, almost everything else is so marginal compared to it, that this is already some evidence of the conditioning. The conditioning hypothesis also fits well with what we generally know about cognitive development, learning etc. It fits well with tons of anecdotal evidence, e.g. that many listeners of popular music stick to their teenage favorites, that most classical listeners start as teenagers and that the theory seems wrong that people somewhat "automatically" switch from popular to classical around 30-40 or so.

I do not know if there is conclusive scientific evidence. I am not even sure how this should look like and how it could be done without impossible "experiments on humans" (namely isolating children).
There is evidence that people who listen to classical and/or jazz usually have broader tastes, namely that they listen to popular as well (this also correlates with socioeconomic status, I read one such paper more than 10 years ago but I cannot find the link anymore). I you google "musical taste status" you will find both popular and scientific articles. There seems to be an ongoing debate in that branch of sociology whether "omnivorousness" or exclusiveness of musical tastes conveys more "cultural capital".

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cars.12068/abstract;jsessionid=B40B548CDDE9CD526CF73CFB84EF744A.f01t02

But as we probably have discussed elsewhere a lot of that research is fairly shallow.
Actually those very studies show the incredible dominance of the forms of popular music. Because they also tend to have "classical" as one genre (sometimes opera as another which is also problematic because opera is not disjoint with but a species of classical) whereas pop, rock, christian music, whatever are treated as alternative genres, each supposedly of equal weight or relevance as classical.
This is like investigating reading preferences and grouping "highbrow literature" in one class and compare this to classes like superhero comic, franco-belgian comics, graphic novels, Science fiction, Fantasy, books with vampires etc. Namely you take "serious stuff" from many hundred years and cultures together in one block and compare it to lowbrow or middle brow genre stuff from the last 50-80 years and divide up the latter into many subgenres.

[Madiel]

Actually those very studies show the incredible dominance of the forms of popular music. Because they also tend to have "classical" as one genre (sometimes opera as another which is also problematic because opera is not disjoint with but a species of classical) whereas pop, rock, christian music, whatever are treated as alternative genres, each supposedly of equal weight or relevance as classical.
This is like investigating reading preferences and grouping "highbrow literature" in one class and compare this to classes like superhero comic, franco-belgian comics, graphic novels, Science fiction, Fantasy, books with vampires etc. Namely you take "serious stuff" from many hundred years and cultures together in one block and compare it to lowbrow or middle brow genre stuff from the last 50-80 years and divide up the latter into many subgenres.

But this is exactly what I criticised you for doing in the opposite direction. You complain about the lack of division of classical, but up until now you've insisted on avoiding divisions of pop music. When I observed that my nephew can subdivide heavy metal, you dismissed the idea out of hand.

You can't have it both ways. If you want people to recognise all the variety within your preferred kind of music, you really ought to have the courtesy of recognising all the variety within the kind of music you don't prefer.