Worst looking CD/LP artwork

Started by Maciek, April 12, 2007, 03:04:53 PM

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Coco

Quote from: ChamberNut on September 30, 2011, 12:48:07 PM
"Well, I like classical music sometimes, but sometimes I just need something more energetic, with more beat and rhythm."   ::)

"I've got your beat right here!" *smack* ;D

Grazioso

Quote from: ChamberNut on September 30, 2011, 12:48:07 PM
People just do not understand that classical music encompasses everything in music.  Everything!

Surely you don't seriously mean that  :o Classical music might touch on elements found in other musics--and vice versa--but it hardly replicates them all in their unique combinations. We wouldn't even be able to intelligently discuss different styles and genres if they were in reality all subsumed by some overarching, all-encompassing music. But we know that significant differences do exist, that each genre has its own history, sources, expectations, instrumentation, and emphases.

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on September 30, 2011, 04:33:08 PM
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU- I have friends like that too. Just get a bloody metronome if you insist it be accompanied by a click-track >:D It's especially rotten because if it wasn't for this drum-tapping fetish pop has given people, several of those friends would probably really like the music. Everything in their pop tastes hit towards things that classical could do better.

That's quite presumptuous. Why do you assume pop has given people a "drum-tapping fetish," when percussion forms a key element in numerous musical styles, both classical/courtly and popular, across geography and history? Western classical music is, if anything, an odd man out for largely jettisoning constant percussion accompaniment.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Gurn Blanston

I don't know about anyone else, but somehow I find this cover unnecessarily disturbing;



Wonder what that's about? :-\

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Coco

Maybe they were channeling Grace Jones?


Opus106

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on October 01, 2011, 05:52:19 AM
I don't know about anyone else, but somehow I find this cover unnecessarily disturbing;



Wonder what that's about? :-\

8)

Haydn dimultisected, after a cup of coffee.
Regards,
Navneeth

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: Coco on October 01, 2011, 06:08:24 AM
Maybe they were channeling Grace Jones?



Yikes! :o :o  Grace can be disturbing even without the artsy stuff!    :-X

Quote from: Opus106 on October 01, 2011, 06:09:03 AM
Haydn dimultisected, after a cup of coffee.

Well, I'm down with the coffee part of the equation anyway... :)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Lethevich

Quote from: Grazioso on October 01, 2011, 05:22:50 AM
That's quite presumptuous. Why do you assume pop has given people a "drum-tapping fetish," when percussion forms a key element in numerous musical styles, both classical/courtly and popular, across geography and history? Western classical music is, if anything, an odd man out for largely jettisoning constant percussion accompaniment.

Drums may be nice, but if you require them even to enjoy music then it's a sign of laziness. It's the same as people who whine about "boring instrumental music".
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

snyprrr

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on October 01, 2011, 04:15:05 PM
Drums may be nice, but if you require them even to enjoy music then it's a sign of laziness. It's the same as people who whine about "boring instrumental music".

Theme from 'A Man & A Woman' ;D

Renfield

#808
I'd argue it's simply a clash of paradigms, rather than inherently a lack of listener sophistication.

Consider how we (broadly speaking) apply our own musical norms to much of pop music, when we decide we dislike it. For a classical listener, structural and harmonic sophistication is paramount. For a pop listener, it's not a primary concern - tunes are.

Invention is a mark of good music that carries over between most (all?) genres; but otherwise, of course someone with pop-musical criteria, who wants music to grab them by its sheer élan, will enjoy classical music as - at best - a benign anaesthetic.

Edit: To elaborate that point a little, I mean that they will enjoy 'light' classical, and won't listen at all to the rest.


I wouldn't call them stupid or lazy, though. :)

I don't call people who don't worry about things like metaphysics and formal semantics stupid or lazy, even if I could make a pretty convincing case for why it's more 'sophisticated' to worry about them - but not to want to do so, which is often the real issue.

Coco

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on October 01, 2011, 04:15:05 PM
Drums may be nice, but if you require them even to enjoy music then it's a sign of laziness. It's the same as people who whine about "boring instrumental music".

Yes. And even the simplest classical music has more "rhythm" than most pop music that is supposedly more rhythmic — but if there isn't a constant thud behind every gesture then it's "rhythmless".

Grazioso

#810
Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Pettersson on October 01, 2011, 04:15:05 PM
Drums may be nice, but if you require them even to enjoy music then it's a sign of laziness. It's the same as people who whine about "boring instrumental music".

I would posit rather that percussion (or at least percussiveness or a very prominent beat) satisfies a widespread, deeply rooted musical desire across time and cultures. It is surely no coincidence that these things feature so prominently in so many diverse musics--and in the most (literally) popular musical forms.

Along the same lines, song is another deeply rooted musical fundamental: look at classical music's harmonic ancestry in a cappella religious chant and song. Vocal music was granted primacy of status in the Baroque as well. It's hardly lazy for people to desire to hear (and join in with) the human voice.

Quote from: Coco on October 01, 2011, 08:19:31 PM
Yes. And even the simplest classical music has more "rhythm" than most pop music that is supposedly more rhythmic — but if there isn't a constant thud behind every gesture then it's "rhythmless".

How do you mean "more rhythm"? The vast majority of both classical and pop music has fixed rhythms. Ad libitum sections are comparatively rare. Your average baroque piece chugs along at a steady tempo in one time signature. How is that more rhythmic than your typical Western pop song? And of course, you can find rock/pop songs in shifting meters, using hemiola and other metrical "tricks." If you broaden "pop music" to include jazz (questionable in its current incarnation, but some do), then odd meters and polyrhythms become relatively common.

And then if you use "popular music" in the broadest sense of non-scholarly, unwritten music of the people:

http://www.youtube.com/v/He4qVF-AZxQhttp://www.youtube.com/v/9btCyYdsVSEhttp://www.youtube.com/v/p6cByvRheZw
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

chasmaniac

Quote from: Grazioso on October 02, 2011, 05:33:45 AM
I would posit rather that percussion (or at least percussiveness or a very prominent beat) satisfies a widespread, deeply rooted musical desire across time and cultures. It is surely no coincidence that these things feature so prominently in so many diverse musics--and in the most (literally) popular musical forms.

Along the same lines, song is another deeply rooted musical fundamental: look at classical music's harmonic ancestry in a cappella religious chant and song. Vocal music was granted primacy of status in the Baroque as well. It's hardly lazy for people to desire to hear (and join in with) the human voice.

How do you mean "more rhythm"? The vast majority of both classical and pop music has fixed rhythms. Ad libitum sections are comparatively rare. Your average baroque piece chugs along at a steady tempo in one time signature. How is that more rhythmic than your typical Western pop song? And of course, you can find rock/pop songs in shifting meters, using hemiola and other metrical "tricks." If you broaden "pop music" to include jazz (questionable in its current incarnation, but some do), then odd meters and polyrhythms become relatively common.

And then if you use "popular music" in the broadest sense of non-scholarly, unwritten music of the people:

http://www.youtube.com/v/He4qVF-AZxQhttp://www.youtube.com/v/9btCyYdsVSEhttp://www.youtube.com/v/p6cByvRheZw

+1. Gimme some Elvin Jones, baby!

Graz, you're the most indefatigably sensible forumite I've ever come across.  :)

Now, what d'y'all say about the plague of chest-beating among classical music fans? Harumph!
If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."  --Wittgenstein, PI §217

TheGSMoeller

.
[asin]B00006EXJB[/asin]

the forest God, known as Paavo Jarvi, is afraid this thread is in danger of losing it's humor, don't force him to turn and look at you  :o

Grazioso

Quote from: Renfield on October 01, 2011, 08:16:32 PM
I'd argue it's simply a clash of paradigms, rather than inherently a lack of listener sophistication.

Consider how we (broadly speaking) apply our own musical norms to much of pop music, when we decide we dislike it. For a classical listener, structural and harmonic sophistication is paramount. For a pop listener, it's not a primary concern - tunes are.

Invention is a mark of good music that carries over between most (all?) genres; but otherwise, of course someone with pop-musical criteria, who wants music to grab them by its sheer élan, will enjoy classical music as - at best - a benign anaesthetic.

Edit: To elaborate that point a little, I mean that they will enjoy 'light' classical, and won't listen at all to the rest.


I wouldn't call them stupid or lazy, though. :)

I don't call people who don't worry about things like metaphysics and formal semantics stupid or lazy, even if I could make a pretty convincing case for why it's more 'sophisticated' to worry about them - but not to want to do so, which is often the real issue.

Well said. I do wonder about the sentence I bolded above. We like to think that's case, but is it? How many classical listeners are cognizant of and can articulate the structures they're exposed to in the music? How many could tell you what a C chord is, let alone perceive and explain the procedures a piece uses to modulate? How many "merely" enjoy the melodies or the drama or the sounds of an orchestra or a piano?

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

kishnevi

Quote from: Grazioso on October 02, 2011, 06:04:22 AM
Well said. I do wonder about the sentence I bolded above. We like to think that's case, but is it? How many classical listeners are cognizant of and can articulate the structures they're exposed to in the music? How many could tell you what a C chord is, let alone perceive and explain the procedures a piece uses to modulate? How many "merely" enjoy the melodies or the drama or the sounds of an orchestra or a piano?

Being able to enjoy the structure and harmonic depth of a piece does not require in-depth knowledge.   You don't need to know  that composer x is modulating into a distant key via a diminished seventh followed by a minor fourth and then restating the second subject in the new key as a canon in augmentation*  because your ears are telling you in their own way what the music is doing.  If it where otherwise, we wouldn't need recordings or live performances; we'd just need copies of the full score.  But it is that structural and harmonic depth that makes 'classical' music what it is.  Melody and beat are important, but ultimately they serve the structure and harmony, not vice versa.

Whereas pop music's focus lies on the melody.  There can be structural and harmonic depth--except that the commercial pressures seem to continually suppress it--but the key always seems to be melody, which was after all the original germ of human music making.  A popular "pop" song seems to always have a recognizable melody from the very first bar, and focuses on that melody.
I'd say the beat is important but not as important as melody.  (And often enough "light' classics are popular because people hook onto their melodies).

*example made up as I typed this.  And honestly, if I were sitting in a concert hall, I probably wouldn't be able to identify a diminished seventh or minor fourth, or know if the canon I was hearing was in augmentation or diminution, if my life depended on it.

Sandra

I think the argument was that for many listeners pre-recorded, repetitive drum beats are more than satisfactory as the most prominent feature of the music they like. For us (classical music lovers), it's intolerable. We require more sophistication and creativity in the music we enjoy. If admitting this makes us elitists, then so be it.
"Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!" - J. Sibelius

Renfield

But as you no doubt know, you can actually do pretty sophisticated things with a repetitive beat. And even the pop-like overbearing pre-recorded beats are often derived from electronica, where they can be part of fairly sophisticated counterpoint.

(Not Bach-sophisticated, but sophisticated.)


Point being, it's not the beat, it's how you use it. Though I grant you that uncreative use of drum beats is just that: uncreative.

TheGSMoeller


Renfield

Greg trying to Paavojärvi us back on topic... ;D

TheGSMoeller

 
Quote from: Renfield on October 02, 2011, 07:23:42 PM
Greg trying to Paavojärvi us back on topic... ;D

Don't get me wrong, it's actually an interesting conversation you are all having, I'm just having fun...so is Paavo.  ;D