Is it all about the music - really?

 

Well said Roger, and I totally agree. But it also says something about the compositional style of the group/band, when they are capable of doing that ... when you have, by comparison today ... bands that state out front that they play "prog" ... and the singer and material is almost totally .... yeah ... and has nothing to do with anything except some person's ideas.

 

rogerthat wrote: Contrast the vocal melodies of Yes and Genesis, soaring and flat in the former and dramatic and expressive in the latter, reflecting the singing style of their respective singers Anderson and Gabriel.  In short, when the vocals are overemotive, ....

 

Add Greg Lake ... same thing in ELP and KC for him ... it's not singing ... it's almost poetry and making sure that you express the point clearly and it gets accentuated with the music.

 

The best example here is Peter Hammill, specially in his early years when so much of the material screams, cries, shouts, talks, whispers ... and the music is bent around the corner to match that emotion ... I can still hear "Bernina -- genuflection in church .... " or "a louse is not a home ..." ... and most people can not understand this at all.

 

It's hard to tell the folks that it is not about the notes or the singing ... it's about the expression and the poem and the words ... and how it comes out ... it comes out.

 
This brings me to another important issue and the one that in my opinion impacts our perceptions of music most: conditioning.  It pushes us to be biased towards or against some styles of composition or rendering. It is very difficult to overcome the effect of conditioning on our perceptions and in some aspects, it is not desirable to because every listener must have his tastes after all.

My own indifference towards external factors like artwork or the 'motive' of creating music (commercial or tr00) stem from listening to Indian music during my formative years. Only recently has the packaging of music begun to be considered important in India, but it was awful during the years I was growing up.   Just a flimsy piece of paper with a tiny photograph of the singer or composer (usually not very attractive ) or, if it was a film soundtrack, a shabby image of a poster of the film.  I could not then start paying as much attention as some rock listeners do to artwork when I started listening to Western music and I honestly believe I am happier for it because music is not necessarily always robbed of its emotions in the live environment (i.e. sans artwork) compared to the studio presentation, so it does not seem to be very important to me.  I also strongly dislike the overdramatic and overwrought quality of operatic vocals because I am so used to the more understated and earthy style of presentation favoured in Indian music. Now, THAT is something I have tried to overcome but to no avail.

 

Yes - they are two very different things.  It sounds like the artwork doesn't affect your perception of the music at all. 

 

I only latched on to Dean's suggestion of cover artwork as an example because I was getting a lot of responses saying "I'm not swayed by popularity.  I just care about the music".  I felt those responses missed the actual point of my question and I thought some people could relate to cover artwork as an external variable.

 

I've just recently been digging deeper into scientific studies indicating that we often are unaware of variables that contribute to perception and judgment.  The participants are specifically asked whether the variable affected their value judgment and they claim that it did not - when in reality the data strongly suggests that it did - in fact - affect their perception and their judgment. 

 

I'm becoming more aware of how external variables may have affected my perception of albums.  It is a very counter-intuitive idea, one which I tend to want to deny - but one which seems to hold validity nonetheless.  If I dislike hyper-emotional vocals, I tend to allow a hyper-emotional vocalist to adversely affect my perception of the songwriting. 

 

Of course, once I recognize that, I can counteract it by making a conscious effort to be more "fair" to the song.  To attempt to "hear" it in my imagination with a different vocalist to interpret it. 

 

As such, the halo-effect and the pitchfork-effect are more than anecdotal concepts.  They actually have a very scientific underpinning. 

It was a general rant about rock appreciation and not directed at you.  I have seen people call an album bad because they dislike the artwork, which is certainly not a position I understands.

 

My mood/state of mind can affect how I perceive anything in general. Personally, I try to put off listening to an album if I feel I am not in the right mood for it or not in a position to give full attention.  But isn't this a qualitatively different position from deriving a large part of the appreciation of MUSIC from the artwork that accompanies it? I can honestly say that the colour of the artwork on Meddle had no impact on my liking it. My favourite prog rock album, Red, also has bland artwork.