Do you think too much pop/rock music can be a waste of time?

[NicoleJS]

I have this thought often that by indulging in the kind of "People's Magazine" world of pop/rock music, that I'm wasting my time, or possibly losing out to something that classical music can bring me. Like I'm sure most on here, I would brand my kind of pop/rock music in some way superior to someone elses, but I don't often see it as that. Rock music can be a fairly sordid story, and I find even a prolonged look at progressive rock to be personally regressive for various reasons. How do I bring out the side of me that's naturally interested in classical music more? I think honesty is the first principle. I cannot get myself excited by much of rock/pop music, whatever form it may take. I can't look at Brian Eno as a great intellectual, or find a lot of similarity with the "art" of rock/pop compared to what I find artistic and tasteful. How do people stop wasting their time with this music? Is it like some kind of conditioning which people have limited control over?

[Jo498]

Yes.

[Monsieur Croche]

Yes.

Let's put it this way:

Regardless of the pop/rock genre, including those genres which are allegedly 'more sophisticated' due to their using less usual modes, scales, polymetrics, odd meters, mixed meters, etc.
~ the ultimate crashing dullness of a constant pulse as pounded out by trap set or other means -- the meter / meters / polymetrics are of superficial interest -- become moot -- when the composite rhythm remains nearly always an ever present 'four on the floor' drummed out throughout almost any 'song.'

A decision whether to listen to it, or how much to listen to it, comes down to just how much time you want to spend with simpler music with a steady pulse so obviously hammered and beaten out by percussion on each quarter note, ceaselessly.

Decent tunes, lyrics which distill an emotion and make it clear to us, an all right or more chord progression, are always welcome and I think will always have their place, whether it is a Schubert song or a current pop song.  I find it kind of a drag that so much pop music does have that four on the floor percussion as an almost omnipresent constant because I think it too often can and does detract from the lyric and musical materials of a good song; the constant tick-tock or bam bam bam bam percussion is both dulling and desensitizing to both the ear and (dare I say) 'musical soul.'

As with all things, taken in moderation, no harm.  I do think a more constant consumption with nothing else mixed in for variety is either dulling on the imagination, or at least sets up a conditioning of expectation where any other kind of music becomes 'less accessible.'

I don't know what to say to another kind of typical reaction from a person who is only immersed in pop music when it comes to their trying classical, i.e. "what is this about, I mean, there are  no lyrics!"

[71 dB]

I don't care if the music I am listening to is classical or non-classical. If I enjoy the music and the music happens to be what I want to listen to at the moment, it is the same if it's Elgar or Katy Perry. I don't count the minutes. Recently, Steve Roach's ambient has worked for me. 

Surely, most pop/rock music is junk, but I believe the best of it is so good it can be combared to classical music. Pop/rock just has different strengths. A genius is a genius no matter which selection of musical dimensions he/she operates with. To put some selections above other selections is kind of racist. We are quite racist when it comes to music genres. Fortunately it's about music, not people.

[Florestan]

To put some selections above other selections is kind of racist. We are quite racist when it comes to music genres.

I put Beethoven far above John Lennon, and Chopin far above Led Zeppelin. I guess I am a shameless Nazi. 

[71 dB]

I put Beethoven far above John Lennon, and Chopin far above Led Zeppelin. I guess I am a shameless Nazi. 

It's okay to put individuals above other individuals. It's like saying Robert De Niro is a better actor than Samuel L. Jackson. Putting white actors above black actors based on their skin color is racist. Similarly putting classical music above other music genres based on the selected musical dimensions is musical racism. Yes, I am a musical racist too. I have been able to fix it a bit over the years, but it's a long way...

Ask yourself, do you put ALL classical music above John Lennon and Led Zeppelin?

[Florestan]

Ask yourself, do you put ALL classical music above John Lennon and Led Zeppelin?

Basically, yes I do.

[71 dB]

Basically, yes I do.

Wow! Looks like you are a Muzi (Music Nazi)! 

[Florestan]

Wow! Looks like you are a Muzi (Music Nazi)! 

Told you so! 

[Christo]

Ask yourself, do you put ALL classical music above John Lennon and Led Zeppelin?

Not all, but yes: all classical music that I tend to play.

There's a lot of (alternative) pop music that I play with great gusto, but Lennon and Zeppelin are not among them.

[71 dB]

Not all, but yes: all classical music that I tend to play.

There's a lot of (alternative) pop music that I play with great gusto, but Lennon and Zeppelin are not among them.

I don't care much about Lennon or Zeppelin either*, but there's other artists (eg. King Crimson) I do enjoy a lot.

* I didn't get Lennon + Zeppelin education at home when I was a child, because my father is into jazz. Max Roach's drum solos was my education! 

[Scion7]

If it is junk, yes.
If it is worthwhile, no.

[Jo498]

It's okay to put individuals above other individuals. It's like saying Robert De Niro is a better actor than Samuel L. Jackson. Putting white actors above black actors based on their skin color is racist. Similarly putting classical music above other music genres based on the selected musical dimensions is musical racism.

But this not a very good analogy.
Would you call someone who rejects Bollywood movies as sentimental trash racist because they are all Indian actors?

The selected musical dimensions are not random or superficial. So the analogy to skin color is quite misleading.

We do such judgments all the time and in most areas, like McDonald's burger and fries vs. a good homecooked meal or haute cuisine dinner there isn't even a discussion because it is obvious that there are huge differences in quality and that the selected dimensions are not superficial. Likewise with literature and most visual arts. Someone might prefer the newest X-men or Star Wars flick to Citizen Kane but if one claimed that it was wilful prejudice that almost all professional critics and most cineasts regard Citizen Kane as being on a different and higher artistical level than Wolverine he would be laughed at. Only in music one is an arrogant asshole or even the equivalent of a racist if one defends such distinctions. I am still puzzled why this is the case.

[Rinaldo]

I can't look at Brian Eno as a great intellectual, or find a lot of similarity with the "art" of rock/pop compared to what I find artistic and tasteful.

I'm pretty content with Eno being a great artist (although I'd argue his intellectual endeavours are quite wortwhile as well).

If you feel like you're wasting time with pop/rock, switch the channel! Different music serves different things and from where I'm standing, there's nothing like 'too much music'. An Eno track or a two chord punk song can give me aesthetic pleasure that a Beethoven sonata or a Grisey soundscape never will - and vice versa.

[bhodges]

Folks, just as an aside -- and a glimpse into the types of spam that the moderators deal with every week -- the original poster, ostensibly from Los Angeles, was actually posting from Vietnam, and cut-and-pasted the initial post from a longtime (apparently) Talk Classical poster. (The tone and punctuation, and the way the profile was completed, made me suspicious and I checked the IP against the multiple sources we use to determine if an account is "real.")

Though the account has been deleted, I decided not to delete the thread itself, since some of you have posted thoughtful replies.

Such is the Internet in 2016...sigh.

So carry on! 

--Bruce

[Parsifal]

To quote Ellington, "there are two types of music, good music and the other kind."

Mostly I listen to classical and Jazz these days, but it is simply narrow minded to claim that a certain genre of music is inherently uninteresting. In all types of music, including classical, there is music is utterly formulaic and/or commercial, and music which somehow invests the formula with something unique or expressive or beautiful. I think of Bob Dylan, whose voice was certainly not beautiful, who was certainly not a virtuoso on any instrument, but who created a weird kind of poetry which could not exist without that voice and without that conception of music.

[Florestan]

Only in music one is an arrogant asshole or even the equivalent of a racist if one defends such distinctions.

Ummmm... not quite!

Remember the uproar Saul Below caused by stating something to the effect that if the Tolstoy or the Proust of the aborigenes would be pointed out to him he would be only too happy to read them?

Likewise, if I say that this:



is a masterpiece while this:



is just pretentious pseudo-artistic pseudo-philosophical shit, would I not be labeled "an arrogant asshole"?

The sad truth is that this whole "everything-goes, everyone-is-an-artist, there-is-no-objective-greatness-or-bullshit-in-art" crap is pervasive in the contemporary culture, and it is an equally sad reflection on the selfsame culture that anyone daring to question this pop(ular) consensus is automatically equated with a racist or a Nazi.

[James]

is a masterpiece while this:



is just pretentious pseudo-artistic pseudo-philosophical shit, would I not be labeled "an arrogant asshole"?

The sad truth is that this whole "everything-goes, everyone-is-an-artist, there-is-no-objective-greatness-or-bullshit-in-art" crap is pervasive in the contemporary culture, and it is an equally sad reflection on the selfsame culture that anyone daring to question this pop(ular) consensus is automatically equated with a racist or a Nazi.

Amen. And is it any surprise that France's Duchamp was a huge hero for chancer's like Cage. "One way to study music: study Duchamp."

Yet when he (Cage) got to know Duchamp's work, he realised Duchamp had composed music using random procedures decades earlier, in a piece called Erratum Musical (1913). "I was 50 years ahead of my time," Duchamp told him.

[James]

I like a lot of popular music (rock, pop, jazz, funk etc.) and I think one could get a lot out of it - for sure. It certainly wasn't a waste of time for me growing up, and it's what made me fall in love with music in the first place! It inspired me to pick up an instrument and learn it, getting deeper into music. There are some great musicians and talent within popular music, for sure. Great entertainers too. And I was lucky enough to grow up during a time where the stuff was pretty darned good and holds up well. And of course, if you survey the relatively short History of popular music, you'll find more. However, I'd say that the very best of Classical Music- is without a doubt the best we've done as human beings though.

[71 dB]

But this not a very good analogy.
Would you call someone who rejects Bollywood movies as sentimental trash racist because they are all Indian actors?

Are the Bollywood movies "sentimental trash" because the actors are bad, or because they are Indian or because Indians want to make such movies or because your cultural reference makes them look sentimental trash?

The selected musical dimensions are not random or superficial.

Are you sure? What kind of law dictates them if they are not random and even if such a law existed, the law itself might be random.

So the analogy to skin color is quite misleading.

Skin color is not random. The placement of people on Earth has become more random.