Criteria

[borntohula]

how do you evaluate music, or art for that matter? theres so much of it out there that one has to pick and choose what constitutes "good" art, and what constitutes "bad". not only that but fundamentally, art is criticism and therefore should be looked at with a critical eye.

 

so, what do YOU do to evaluate a piece of work? what criteria do you have? is it set, or is it fluid?

 

how do you justify to yourself (i dont care about other people here) buying the latest killers album as opposed to... ravi shankar or harry belafonte?

 

i have my own criteria but i'll post it after the discussion gets going. this may or may not be presumptuous of me because there are times when no one reads/responds to my threads. huzzah.

[no yu begin wher i end]

I don't know how to explain it. If I don't like it, I don't buy it. I don't think I can really explain why I do or don't like something other than saying "it sounds good." It's subjective, after all. Lyrics that I think are cool or intelligent can be complete ass fungus to someone else.

 

Point being: if I like it, I'll listen/buy. It's pretty general, but I'm too dumb to expand on it.

[Shortcut To Moncton]

*waits for cringleman to write an essay--one that's going to kick everyones' asses*

[AnOceanPearl]

It depends on what it is. I've bought a lot of CDs after reading about bands online or in a magazine and have just fallen in love with them, without even hearing a song before I purchase their disc. To me "good" music will make me think, it'll hit me in some way that impacts my thoughts/views/opinions, the way I look at things etc, or it'll strike an emotional chord and I'll spend time trying to figure out what it "means" to me.

 

Same kind of things with movies I guess, and to an extent, videogames. I don't care how fun the gameplay is, I like a story that is somewhat sound and interesting (say, the Ace Combat series for example), or one incredibly open to interpretation (a la Shadow of the Colossus).

 

When it comes to paintings/sculptures etc, if I look at it, keep going, then turn back because I noticed something, to me it's "good".

[shade]

As long as it doesn't sound typical and the artist grows as they make more music I'll listen.

 

AVANT-GARDE ISN'T THAT BAD GUYZ!!!

[andydanger]

mg, radiohead, and broken social scene are the only bands where i will buy everything they ever put out... unconditionally

 

otherwise.. as long as i don't think the style has been done to death im interested...

[hobo_ted]

The unconditional thing applies to MG only, otherwise the way I evaluate music is more or less the lyrical quality (intelligent, original, etc), i also have a soft spot for those types of bands that have been around for years and are very talented, but no matter how hard they try, can't seem to get the recognition they deserve. you guys know what i mean?

[Shiri]

Like who for example?

[Some Random]

i can't explain (very well) why i like what i like. different reasons for different artists. i don't like any artist unconditionally, anymore. matthew good included. i used to have to have everything by any music group i really liked. for example, i bought every bad religion album that ever came out. now, i only have up to 'stranger than fiction'. if i don't like an album, i don't keep it. i hardly buy anything anymore, so that's irrelevant. i don't like matthew good's first album so i don't have it/listen to it.

[borntohula]

i thought i knew what i looked for but after putting a lot of thought into what i would say, i've discoverred that it's hard to be objective in this instance. it's difficult to break down what i practice versus what i preach. so i might sound hypocritical on occasion, but im trying my best not to. essentially, what i'm saying is: my criteria are fluid... i'll never be able to break it down to a proper formula for music listenning.

 

warning: sometimes i resort to name dropping below. i acknowledge that i'm doing this, and i'm doing it to serve a higher purpose than to stroke my ego. trust me?

 

as far as contemporary music is concerned, im usually looking for individuals whom i believe to be doing something that is vastly different from everyone else. i like to be surprised, even if it sounds awful. i enjoy music because of the range of emotions that it can make a person feel, so if something makes me want to vomit, that's equally as good as something that makes me want to dance. if we don't listen to stuff we hate, we cant learn why it makes us feel that way. sometimes the things we hate eventually turn out to be things we love anyways. if a song makes you feel uncomfortable, it's best to know why, so that you don't avoid something just because it doesn't meet your pre-concieved notions of what good music consists of."bad" music will either reinforce, or topple our ideas and conventions concerning music. by the word "bad" i mean bad as in music that we don't consider pleasant (john cage, wolf eyes), not music that's strongly believed by many to be shit (ie my chemical romance).

 

that said, i have soft spots for shoegaze music, baroque pop and the occasional soul/funk song. my enjoying of these genres/sounds will often skew my ability to look at a band critically.

 

recently i've come to the realization that lyrical content is very low on the scale of important criteria that i evaluate when trying to understand whether or not i like an artist. a large part of this understanding came from my participating on this very board. when people argue about music, one of the first things they argue about is lyrical content. if you like a band, you parade their lyrics around constantly, using it as ineffable proof of the band's superiority, and when you're on the opposite end of things, you use lyrics to deconstruct a band, pointing out flaws in their logic or sayings that make absoultely no sense. a perfect example of this would be when people are trying to voice why they dislike the mars volta: "the lyrics make no sense, they're utter jibberish". such examples are boring rhetoric and hardly work to support an arguement. if anything lyrics should be icing on the cake for the listenner.

 

i don't think i'm the only person here who likes to listen to music sung in other languages... french, spanish, italian...i can't understand any of them, but that doesnt stop me from enjoying a song. they could be singing about raping children and putting cats in blenders but it comes off as pure beauty to me. or take sigur ros for instance. aside from singing in icelandic, they've made up their own language and sung in that as well. what does one do in that situation? here's another example: slayer. i know EXACTLY what they're singing about. melting faces and the holocaust. do i care? hells no, because their music is fucking badass. end of story.

 

that mentionned, i think it's required that a band i listen to have a sense of humor about themselves. slayer obviously being one of those bands. whether that comes out in their music or interviews i've seen/read/heard. people who take themselves too seriously are missing the point. this means you, "the killers".

 

there's no genre or artist that i like unconditionally, but given previous efforts by bands, i'm more likely to continue buying their records if they've had a strong past. tool being a good example. however more likely it is that i will buy their new albums, it doesnt necessarily mean i'll like it. i enjoy consistency; not in terms of sound but in terms of quality. however, it's important not to rely on a certain act.

 

just as my emotions change, so can my opinions change in regards to bands, or music in general. for instance, i really liked death from above 1979 when i first heard them, but then a friend introduced me to lightning bolt, a band with roughly the same concept as DFA 1979 but who've been around for a lot longer. lightning bolt's sound is a lot more relentless than DFA1979's and i liked that quality to their music, and subsequently began to view DFA1979 in a more negative light than initially.

 

this turned out way longer than i had planned. congrats if you've made it this far. i've lost my train of thought. feel free to cut me up and argue.

[Some Random]

i felt like i cheated when i only read the beginning of that and the congradulations part, so i went back and read all of it. i'd just like to address what you said about lyrical content. if someone doesn't like the mars volta (or any band) because they think their lyrics are jibberish, that's every bit as valid a point as you saying lyrics should be the icing on the cake. both are statements of personal taste and opinion.

[borntohula]

remember, i was talking about my own personal criteria.

 

i never strayed from the fact that what i was saying is my opinion and isn't an absolute. next time ill start each sentence with "i think" "i believe" or "in my opinion" to get that across a little better.

 

all i was saying is that i'm tired of arguments about music and how lyrics are always brought up first.

 

in the same vein, im tired of lead singers being the focal points of a group.