Worst looking CD/LP artwork

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

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

springrite

Look, I am far more handsome than Dad!
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

kishnevi

Antoine posted this in a comment on the Purchases Today thread, but I think it deserves a place here

Grazioso

#822
Quote from: Sandra on October 02, 2011, 11:41:43 AM
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.

You're not in a position to speak for all of us. You're certainly not speaking for me, a hardcore classical music fan for many years.

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on October 02, 2011, 08:48:17 AM
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.

My signature speaks to the sentence I bolded above. If someone can't consciously recognize and articulate those details, it remains to be seen whether or not he or she is really picking up on them, even subconsciously, and whether he or she understands their import, cleverness, or originality.

I'm not saying one must be a musicologist or musician to enjoy classical music, but precisely because music can be complex and sophisticated, it's dangerous to assume that just listening, without knowing specifically what to listen for, will tell the whole story. It's one thing to enjoy, another to really hear and understand.

Ask your average person to step outside for a few minutes with their eyes closed. Then ask them what they heard. Provided they were even paying attention and not daydreaming, they may say, "I heard some birds and a plane." A skilled birder is going to be able to catalog by sound alone all the audible species heard during the experiment, and suggest what the birds were likely doing. An aviation enthusiast might be able to tell you the general type of plane and approximate airspeed and altitude. It all depends on if a) they're paying attention b) they've trained themselves to notice certain things and c) they can articulate them. Because of their interests and focuses, their emotional reactions are likely to be different, too.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Renfield

Quote from: Grazioso on October 03, 2011, 04:45:59 AM
Ask your average person to step outside for a few minutes with their eyes closed. Then ask them what they heard. Provided they were even paying attention and not daydreaming, they may say, "I heard some birds and a plane." A skilled birder is going to be able to catalog by sound alone all the audible species heard during the experiment, and suggest what the birds were likely doing. An aviation enthusiast might be able to tell you the general type of plane and approximate airspeed and altitude. It all depends on if a) they're paying attention b) they've trained themselves to notice certain things and c) they can articulate them. Because of their interests and focuses, their emotional reactions are likely to be different, too.

This is a very persuasive argument, that requires some effort on my part to contest.

But I will anyway, as I've a strong feeling that what Jeffrey is saying (and I'd also posit) may have substance: namely, that our subconscious, intuitive capacity to grasp structure may outstrip our conscious ability to codify and express it.

(In which case we may well notice sophistication, even in terms of its form, but not be able to describe it.)

However, I cannot but grant you that (self-)consciously codified acquaintance with a given structure, as in the examples you provide, may qualitatively alter one's experience of that structure. There's certainly experimental evidence backing this. :)

Grazioso

#824
Quote from: Renfield on October 03, 2011, 06:52:33 AM
This is a very persuasive argument, that requires some effort on my part to contest.

But I will anyway, as I've a strong feeling that what Jeffrey is saying (and I'd also posit) may have substance: namely, that our subconscious, intuitive capacity to grasp structure may outstrip our conscious ability to codify and express it.

(In which case we may well notice sophistication, even in terms of its form, but not be able to describe it.)

However, I cannot but grant you that (self-)consciously codified acquaintance with a given structure, as in the examples you provide, may qualitatively alter one's experience of that structure. There's certainly experimental evidence backing this. :)

I was wondering about the same possibility. We process stimuli all the time without necessarily being aware of them consciously or being able to conceptualize/verbalize them. The heart knows things the mind doesn't, so to speak. And, to stay with the example of music, I know from experience that once you become cognizant, through practice, of certain musical elements or devices, you start to note them with less and less conscious effort, processing them rather matter-of-factly, just as you process the feeling of the pull of gravity. (I know also from experience how easy it is to miss things in music unless you've been trained to pick them out.)
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sandra

Quote from: Grazioso on October 03, 2011, 04:45:59 AM
You're not in a position to speak for all of us.

Your distasteful tone aside, why waste an entire sentence like this? How could I, or anyone else, possibly be "in a position" to speak for everyone?

I don't need your consent to make a point that those who love classical music would find music based on synthesizer drum beats (house, techno, etc) a bit more unpalatable.

It's really hard to understand why some people find it so easy to be rude on the internet. Would you really respond like that to people you were having a discussion with around a dinner table?
"Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!" - J. Sibelius

Grazioso

#826
Quote from: Sandra on October 04, 2011, 12:05:04 AM
Your distasteful tone aside, why waste an entire sentence like this? How could I, or anyone else, possibly be "in a position" to speak for everyone?

Because that's exactly what you tried to do:

"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."

Quote
I don't need your consent to make a point that those who love classical music would find music based on synthesizer drum beats (house, techno, etc) a bit more unpalatable.

You have changed the point you made: "intolerable" is now "a bit more unpalatable."

Quote
It's really hard to understand why some people find it so easy to be rude on the internet. Would you really respond like that to people you were having a discussion with around a dinner table?

I was not being rude, and I'm sorry if you interpreted it that way. On the contrary, I found your statement to be rude, snobby, and inconsiderate of people who like other things in music than you and of classical music fans: we are not all snobs, we do not all hold the sames views on music, we do not all happily consider ourselves elitists.

When making such statements, it would be more respectful to speak for yourself only.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Grazioso

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on October 02, 2011, 08:06:40 PM
Antoine posted this in a comment on the Purchases Today thread, but I think it deserves a place here


Reminds me a bit of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Arcimboldo
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

TheGSMoeller




"I love you, Antonin."
"I love you too, Nikolaus."

TheGSMoeller




"Don't move Nikolaus, I can see it, it's right at the tip of your nose."

TheGSMoeller




"Shhh, Nikolaus, don't tell them I'm here."

Mirror Image

 :P

Yeah, Greg, those are some bad looking covers.

Coco

another one in that vein (not sure if this has been done already)


TheGSMoeller

Quote from: Coco on October 04, 2011, 05:20:25 PM
another one in that vein (not sure if this has been done already)



Man on the right, lookout for the cactus!!

Sandra

Quote from: Grazioso on October 04, 2011, 04:15:44 AM
Because that's exactly what you tried to do:

"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."


People generally don't speak in absolutist terms. If someone says something like "the people in Mexico like to eat tacos", would you hurry to tell her that she is not in a position to speak for all Mexicans? Do you think anyone would be stupid enough to make such a statement thinking a full one hundred percent of the population of Mexico likes to eat tacos?
"Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!" - J. Sibelius

Grazioso

Quote from: Sandra on October 04, 2011, 10:48:10 PM
People generally don't speak in absolutist terms. If someone says something like "the people in Mexico like to eat tacos", would you hurry to tell her that she is not in a position to speak for all Mexicans? Do you think anyone would be stupid enough to make such a statement thinking a full one hundred percent of the population of Mexico likes to eat tacos?

If I knew such a statement to be both false/misleading and inflammatory or derisive, yes, I would speak up. Particularly if I was one of the people being misrepresented by the statement.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. --Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

mc ukrneal

Quote from: Sandra on October 04, 2011, 10:48:10 PM
People generally don't speak in absolutist terms. If someone says something like "the people in Mexico like to eat tacos", would you hurry to tell her that she is not in a position to speak for all Mexicans? Do you think anyone would be stupid enough to make such a statement thinking a full one hundred percent of the population of Mexico likes to eat tacos?
What!?!?!?!?! Mexicans don't like tacos?!?!?!?  :P >:D
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

snyprrr

Quote from: Coco on October 04, 2011, 05:20:25 PM
another one in that vein (not sure if this has been done already)



I have that one. The picture of Chavez is superimposed onto the picture of the group. What is up with that?

TheGSMoeller

Quote from: snyprrr on October 05, 2011, 08:31:59 PM
I have that one. The picture of Chavez is superimposed onto the picture of the group. What is up with that?

Chavez missed the photo-shoot?

Dancing Divertimentian

"...ninety-nine red balloons go by..."




Veit Bach-a baker who found his greatest pleasure in a little cittern which he took with him even into the mill and played while the grinding was going on. In this way he had a chance to have the rhythm drilled into him. And this was the beginning of a musical inclination in his descendants. JS Bach