Do you hate certain prog because of popularity?

You are correct. I think this is because people try and mirror something insecure inside with something outside they can show others immediately; culture does that to people.

Paravion wrote: A subjectivist approach is restricted, and I don't recall I've said otherwise. - Consider the following discussions: 1) A: David Gilmour is a drummer B: David Gilmour is a guitarist 2) A: Pink Floyd is rap B: Pink Floyd is prog 3) A: Pink Floyd is bad music B: Pink Floyd is good music Discussion-participant A can only apply a subjectivist approach in discussion-example  3 - simply because 'drummer' and 'rap' only have meaning, and can only be used, insofar as there exist a common agreement as to what they mean. The statements 1a & 2a can be subjected to empirical testing and can easily be proven false (the former to a higher degree than the latter) and operates outside a value judgement universe. This little fact about language automatically prevents that a subjective approach to taste can be expanded to some situation of complete idiolectic relativism and make claims as 1a & 2a equally valid - because it will undermine and disregard the very nature of language. So presenting this as a danger and misfortunate consequence of subjectivism is overlooking and ignoring an important aspect about what language and communication is - an aspect that simply prevents this consequence. That's why I think your criticism is pointless - you expand subjectivisme to discussions of sorts 1 & 2. I think that it makes sense to distinguish between kinds of discussion - kinds where subjectivism cannot be applied - and kinds where it can be.  Initially, I favoured a subjectivist approach to taste -  I never favoured complete relativism. Discussion-example 3 is only about how good or bad Pink Floyd is. The meaning of adjectives like good and bad cannot in the same way be subjected to objective investigation - neither claim in 3 can be said to be objectively true or false - they describe how you value some sensory input - and only you, your personality, you cirsumstances, your background, your experience, your 'whims' can determine whether PF is good or bad - Pink Floyd doesn't have a property of being either good or bad in the same way as Gilmour has the property of being a guitarist and PF has the property of belonging to some genre. That - I feel - is an essential distinction that has to be made in order to understand what is meant by a subjective approach to taste. By complete subjectivity is not meant that it should be expanded to areas where it cannot be expanded - it's meant that there aren't at all any goodness/badness properties objectively existing in the music which are insensitive to how a person happens to experience the music.

Well, I am just being a bit semantic, if that's the right word, about it  - if it is restricted, it cannot be complete.  And while I haven't YET seen confusions of the category A, I have seen confusions of category B defended in the name of subjectivity. Not in THOSE extremes that you mention in your example, but still cases where there should be no confusion at all, where, usually, the listener is just reluctant to admit he is wrong about it.  I agree that the judgment of good or bad cannot be a completely objective evaluation but I would again differ in that I would be inclined to give weight to the listener's experience, not in terms of years, but in terms of time spent listening to that particular kind of music or band.  It is difficult, if at all possible, to quantify these weights but that does not mean they have no relative values vis-a-vis each other. 9 times out of 10, I would give more importance to the opinion of an experienced listener who knows the album in question well to an uninitiated listener who has heard it for the first time.  There is a remote possibility that, coming from a fresh perspective, the latter may have picked up something the former didn't, but usually the former has already been through the same journey with the same album that the latter is yet to embark on. Long story short, some opinions are more valid than others.  It is not possible to quantify by how much, but that does not necessarily obstruct their being more valid.  

Paravion wrote: How you'd value my statement  "I don't like Rush because the music is bad" is completely irrelevant to me (and to everyone else). You don't have access to my experience,

Not necessarily, suppose that hypothetically you are a 15 year old kid, haven't learnt music prior to this and haven't been exposed to much music before.  If you then say Rush sucks, it's doubtful of what value such a statement is to you, let alone others.  You'd plainly have been forming a snap judgment which you'd likely snap out of with time. There are times when a listener is not really in a position to judge but he decides to because he does not draw the line. Yes, it's not comparable to "earth is flat" but it's not completely irrelevant. There are of course different situations where it's difficult to comment favourably or unfavourably on one listener's experience over the other but this doesn't mean in all situations an opinion cannot be more valid than another. I think I had already demonstrated this with the example of a person telling a composer that the former's opinion is as valid as the latter's. You say that since opinions are subjective, there's no question of attaching objective validity to it. But the moment you say the value of opinions is irrelevant, it follows that they are equally valid.  That is also what is seen to happen in practice. 

 

Paravion wrote: Subjectivity can be restricted and complete at the same time without forming a contradiction. When applied, it's complete.  In situations where subjectivity is applied there aren't believed to be any objective goodness/badness properties existing in the music independent of what the experiencer happens to experience at all, - thus complete.

See example of how a rock song is meant to be played, etc earlier in the discussion. Even the subjective judgment has to necessarily flow out of some fairly objective parameters. I say fairly because it's harder to establish exactly what is this way I refer to here but it doesn't also mean that listeners are not aware of it and cannot tell when the band lacks tightness and energy and their playing is too laidback, that is, not the way a rock song would generally be played. 


Edited by rogerthat - February 10 2011 at 19:56

i don't hate anything... I just don't listen what I don't like


and I'm not stuck only in prog -I listen a lot of jazz, blues, occasionally some pop music and classical.
I don't hate pop music becouse it's "popular" and "not prog".   There is good and bad pop music FOR ME (as well as I sure "bad prog" also exist ) ,. It's just a matter of taste and personal preferences, and has nothing to do with popularity

rogerthat wrote: Vibrationbaby wrote: boo boo wrote: Vibrationbaby wrote: The more unpopular it is the better. Once bands start selling millions of albums and everybody is listening to it it loses it's mystique.  Just like murder, " make it legal and it loses it's mystique" ( quoting Monty Python ). If Cluster started to get too popular I would have to stop listening to them.  I think they just broke up so maybe they wil fade out into oblivion forever so I can like them even more.   Please tell me you're joking.  Not really. I think that the internet has ruined a lot of the mystique surrounding the more obscure . I would spend literally  years hunting down albums. Now anything is available by the click of a mouse. In fact, because of the internet I have unfortunately lost interest in many bands. The thrill of the chase is gone. As I mentioned I never liked being with the "in crowd". One artist who fortunately I still listen to is Tom Waits. I have come across many people who buy his music just to be hip but don't unerstand him at all. Pink Floyd is another band that people are into because it's cool. I like certain Floyd albums for different reasons. How many times I have to listen to Money or look at a 15 year old with a DSOTM T shirt? I dunno. That only means you care about the obscurity and the snob value it brings than the music itself.  If you really liked the music, you would not care what kind of people made up the fanbase of the artist.

Oh sweet Jesus, classical snobs are the worst.

Edited by boo boo - March 04 2011 at 11:34

Music is based purely on how the sound strikes a listener at the time of listening, quite obviously, and those who will only listen to music due to its being completely underground and unheard of, are trying to give themselves some feeling of self-importance because they feel ahead of the curve.

A true music fan would base their tastes on whichever bands happen to strike their fancy, regardless of their level of popularity.

Music is much easier to comprehend than sometimes even I would like to believe, even progressive and classical compositions. I believe every song has two meanings, the one initially intended by the band, and, more importantly, the one that is revealed to the listener and the listener alone. This is why certain people enjoy certain styles, while others can despise them. Because of this second meaning, music never truly strikes two people in the same way. Therefore, nobody can judge the quality of a band based solely on its popularity, because the music is different to every listener. Therefore, your exact perception of music, how you experience it, will always only be heard by you. Basing taste of a band's level of exposure is absolutely ridiculous.

(De)progressive wrote: Take Ke$ha as an example, I really don't think one here would dare and say it's music. It's just... CRAP. ''let's party, dance till mornin', get high, spend our allowances, we're spoiled rich fa****s eventually''  her music is all about this.

I love certain bands because of obscurity. But despite probably being frustrated if a band became very popular the quality of music would always take me back

By--Tor wrote: I used to hate Genesis after Peter Gabriel left the band, partially because they became overwhelming popular with Phil Collins at the helm, and partially because I really didn't think they were anywhere near as good.   I mean once you start hearing Genesis all over every pop station and see Phil Collins cutting MTV videos you start wanting to distance yourself from anything that has the name Genesis on it.     I coudn't even bring myself to listen to any of their early 70's music because it was tainted by any association with Phil Collins at that point.