Is there such a thing as shit music? When people dismiss music I like as shit I just take the attitude that it is not to their taste, which is fine. Similarly, when I call music shit I am aware that to some people it can be great.
One way of thinking is that if some people think a band is great then they cannot be shit, because some people enjoy it. Taste varies, so maybe music cannot be shit as a matter of fact, but instead shit in the individuals opinion.
Another way of thinking is that music is either shit or good or the varying degrees in between. This assumes that you either know what is good or you don't, and some people just have terrible taste. If this is the case, who decides what is shit and what is good?
I have always been of the opinion that I have my taste, and others have theirs, but I have my moments of hearing what sounds to me like horrible horrible music, and in those instances I cannot understand how anyone can like it, and I start thinking that those who like it are deluded or just plain wrong.
Hmm. Not sure how well I put that across, but I'm interested to hear people's opinions.
...
I tend to class music as shit if it's completely derivative. Or if it's a 'now' band a year after 'now' started, despite the fact said band have probably been plugging away at that sound for years and are just unlucky that their peers got signed before them.
If it's clever, or trying something i've not really heard before, i'm much more reluctant to describe it as shit.
The more i listen to different sorts of music, the more I find myself classing stuff I used to love as shit.
That's exactly the problem
The more you listen to different sorts of music, the more you find yourself classing stuff you used to love as shit. But that doesn't mean the music you used to like is really shit. That just means you are the type who has a short attention span and is always seeking something new.
To me I guess it comes down to
the extent to which the act concenred is doing what they're attempting to do.
For example I don't really like funk-rock but I probably wouldn't say Red Hot Chili Peppers were shit as I'm guessing they're making the music they want to make. I might be baffled as to why they'd want ot make it, or why people like it, but I wouldn't call them shit.
On the other hand I do think Johnny Borrell is a shit lyricist as he is attempting to write meaningful, deep lyrics and he doesn't really seem to pull it off.
well
is there such a thing as bad art? music is an artform, and whilst not every record has to 'advance musical theory' blah blah blah, i think if something misses the point in terms of the style it's going for it can be described as bad.
There's people out there that'll like whatever. Jamiroquai, Vin Diesel, coprophilia. Doesn't mean it's good.
Coprophilia doesn't deserve to be lumped in
with that shit
depends what critera your using
and that depends on the audience the music is intended for.
if an artists classifies his/her music as 'art' a different criteria is applied to someone who is a professional producer that makes music on commission- other criteria applies.
its easier to find good artists and shit artists in the same genre because they share the same values.
In no-wave for example which was a scene that did not highly regard musical ability (except for maybe james chance) you can still tell if something is shit according to intention, the actual ‘labour’ involved in the work and, something that should be overlooked- sincerity in the belief that what you are doing is good. So Glenn branca is good,, Lydia Lunch is shit.
Nowadays there is a lot of music put out in the ‘noise’ genre. You can tell shit from good from the same criteria.
So it is not a matter of taste all the time. Even with music that you like there are some artists in that genre that are shit.
With commercial music I’m looking for something different with a different criteria, for example production technique, so Timberland=good in my opinion, bodyrockers=shit
*should not be overlooked
no
the reality is that there is no such thing as 'shit music'. musical taste is completely subjective. at the end of the day it's just an arrangement of sounds and tones.
you can try and explain why you don't like something. but ultimately your hanging ideas after the fact on a preference that was established at some subconscious level.
i agree
if you are looking at a musical piece devoid of history or identity of the artist that made it.
there is no way you can say one is shit over the other.
if you do bring in external factors such as the criteria the artist wants to be judged by you can judge it as shit or good.
but if you are not its intended audience and you do not share the same criteria (which comes out of a shared culture)then it is not possible to criticise
but then also
a book is just an arrangement of words
yep
and whether you like it or not will just be a personal preference. not based on any objective universal measure of 'shitness'.
sometimes it goes further than that though
absolutely everything is subjective, but some things are a little less subjective than others, y'know?
meh
the thread was asking a genuine question 'is there such a thing as shit music?' and no, however many times I may categorically state 'This piece of music is shit' - the reality is that there genuinely isn't.
you can have a good set of criteria by which you choose to decide whether one thing's good or not. but it doesn't mean someone else would agree with your criteria.
when i say criteria
i'm talking about an agreed set of standards that both the artist and the intended audience aspire to or hold in special regard.
if people like a particular brand of music they can tell what is shit and waht isn't..and usually the srtaists themselves know if it is shit or not.
but you're right
cannot argue with you.
but if artists invest time in their art and conumers invest money in it...shitness matters
it's completely obvious that it's subjective though
what concept isn't?
there ARE criteria for a reason.
Criteria
are borne out of a person's social and cultural context/background. So there can be many types.
when people
talk about quality..no one is pretending that it is objective..unless they are stupid...
however, judging on agreed criteria and culture is as good as objective
i like these threads
but they always die before 12 posts and its usually last post that kills it them :(
*my last post
shit happens
17 post so far!
To a certain degree,
its dependent on whether the person making the music achieving their goals.
If the main aim is success, then Snow patrol's last album was perfect.
If they really wanted to create a musical legacy then it was shit.
^^^ I disagree
there are literally thousands of wannabe's out there with no better intentions of being the next borell/gallagher and what fraction of a percentage can even claim to have their, ahem, talent? Yet they plug on regardless... shit is when the artist believes they have achieved their own vision but their perception of that vision is so far off that it warps the end production into something bland, derivative and energyless. At least if an artist knows something is bad then they are making progress, when they labour under the misapprehension that what they're created is amazing THEN it's crossed a line.
It's all subjective...
i agree with i-deserve
and disagree with everyone else, who are saying it's about the artists intentions.
I think saying something is shit is a slightly wider comment than "i dont like this". They're both subjective (to the extent that everything's subjective), I dont think they're the same thing.
and the wider comment means you don't think it is has any worth within a particular stylistic or cultural setting. e.g. "kate nash is shit, it's not good pop music, it's a piss poor imitation of lily allen" is saying it's shit. "i dont like kate nash, she's shit, i hate all this fashionable mockney joke bands" is saying you dont like that kind of thing...
oh i agree with amyblue as well
and i dont think my example is very good. if someone clever than me can see what I'm trying to say and phrase it better that would be lovely.
i think i did
a few times above.
or maybe not
kate nash
:D
somebody had to
treat this thread seriously.
of course there is shit music
any sort of "art is all subjective" attitude is just erroneous, regardless of the lack of stone-clad criteria of what is "good".
I'd say its more of a comparative thing, within and without genres. If something vaguely resembles a piece of "good" music but lacks imagination, skill, tact, emotion etc... basically the things which make that piece of music "good", then they generally fail to be "good" themselves. And since there are differences in quality between "similiar" sounding things i'd say it follows that there are differences in quality between dissimiliar things, even if they can only be compared in respect to other music of a similiar style.
Basically, i hate the subjective approach to art that various people push forward. Some things are just better than others regardless of whether certain people like it or not. And the only way a person can have a grasp of what is "good" or not is by having a broad knowledge of various different styles and examples of music, good and bad.
^this
My post was more identified shit 'artists' rather than music.
Somebody somewhere loves every piece of music ever made, so it could be said that no music is shit.
The problem
isn't that nothing objective can be said about music. You can be objectively right or wrong about the instruments used in a song or whether a singer's voice is in key or not.
The problem is that words get their meaning from a consensus on how they are used. There is no consensus on what "shit" means regarding a piece of music, other than the person talking doesn't like it. You could use "shit" to mean that a song or artist doesn't fulfil the objective criteria you have decided to judge music by, but why not be specific about what you think the music lacks, rather than using such a loaded term as "shit" which will inevitably not be understood as you mean it to without further explanation?
I do it to , I confess, and the reason in my case is pure laziness.
thing is
arguments where you have to say something 'just is' are pretty hard to get behind. like sad oak said just now, someone somewhere likes every piece of music ever. there's nothing objective about any kind of music. for all we know the reason we like certain arrangements of notes in certain orders could be just through familiarity. when music was in its earliest stages it could have been just a few peoples whimsical preference which established scales and keys and what was and wasn't dissonant. just as there's no real reason why a suit and tie looks smarter than jeans and a t-shirt, it's just conditioning reinforced by years of repetition. it's nonsense to say some piece of music just is inherently 'shit'. You can say 'this music has nothing in it which i look for' which is fine, and i wouldn't suggest that everyone should just try and like everything equally. But to say there's an absolute criteria of good and bad is based on nothing.
but it is based on something
i'm mainly saying that music criticism relies on comparative judgements and on an understanding of the "broader picture" as it were.
and i'm not saying some music is just inherently 'shit'. I'm saying there's a definite gradation of quality based around different musicians using similiar techniques, their intentions in using them, and the deftness with which they apply them
am i to assume that your playing the semantic/principalistic devil's advocate for this discussion?
well yeah
the original thread starter said 'Is there such a thing as shit music?' so I'm saying that 'no there isn't'.
it really depends on your definition of "shit"
if something is so far down on the gradation of the quality scale that describing their many faults would be unwieldy and unfruitful, i'd say its acceptably reductive to describe such things as "shit"
yeah
and I describe things as shit all the time. But I know there's no real reason why they are. it's suit of armour/ice cream sundae interface.
music's just music. you'll never really know why you like it or not. so you'll never really know why you think it's shit or not.
apart from Kasabian. they are just shit.
The Fray
^^
went in this thread to write just that!
Yep.
There really are people
with absolute shit taste in music and they're wrong and awful people whom I prefer not to associate with... unless she has really big tits.
Music that's derived from entirely derivative music
i.e. Anyone who lists Oasis in their influences.
By and large, I would class this as shit music