SPG900, I'm not going to quote you because my post would be far too long
You’re right; I don’t agree with you that there is a border between art and entertainment. How do you define entertainment and art? I would define entertainment as being something that provides satisfaction to the senses. And art? How can you define art? You can’t really, can you, because art is defined by the person exposed to it. In my view, art is everything, everywhere. That’s exactly what the Pop Art movement was meant to show.
I agree about your attitude towards commercialisation, but something has changed since Jerry Lee Lewis: The number of clothes (female) pop singers are wearing is on a very steady decline and sexual exploitation grows. Beyonce is a great example. She has enough vocal talent on her own, yet in some video clips and performances she looks more like a stripper than anything else. The marketing formula is perfect: Girls would like to be like her, and boys would love to have her.
Regarding Lavigne, she’s a very cleverly marketed puppet. She’s targeted at a very profitable ‘new’ market: kids who like bands such as Good Charlotte and think they’re listening to music she claims is deep and self-made, but who don’t read the small print. She claims that she co-writes the songs on her album. I’ve read an interview with her and she had trouble with words that feature more than two syllables, so I highly doubt that she ever contributed more to ‘her’ lyrics than the occasional ‘yeah’. And her holding a guitar and smashing it is a great marketing move too, and the public won’t realise that she actually doesn’t play the instrument, right?
I was not meaning to say that Aguillera is not talented in what she does, what I meant to say is that in my opinion there is not as much musical talent required in what she does, if you can catch my drift. In the end, the people behind her are coming up with ideas and are doing the main work. That’s what I like about Green Day. I never stated that they are dead serious artists, or that the bands I listed – as you like to differentiate it – are making art, not entertainment. But back to your question, the difference between Green Day and most of the outfits you find in the charts is that they play instruments their own instruments and write their own songs. Yes, they play them rather badly, and their songs are not poetic wonders, but at least they choose to write them themselves, and that’s what’s appealing about them.
And what about that group (forgot the name, Milli Vanilli or something similar) that even didn’t sing on their album and mimed their every live performance? That would be the ideal world for the record companies. Just imagine, you could let a supermodel mime a vocal virtuoso, thus eliminating the need to search for someone with talent and marketable charisma / the real artist. And you know what’s sad about it? Back then, the people protested against the group I mentioned, but now with that the public gets music shoved down their throat that has more sugar in it than most soft drinks, it’s just a matter of time until this sort of ploy will get generally acceptable.
"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. " Vexed & Glorious as ever _________________________ ---------GRAFFITITECH---------
Well Nastazja, looks like we won't agree, but just a few notes to your post:
You say entertainment provides satisfaction to the senses. There is a difference with art already, which doesn't have to do that. Think of all the dissonants in certain compositions eg, sometimes to such extremes that you can't possibly call it satisfying to the senses, but all the more to the intellect. And that's what I was trying to say: art is food for thought.
Art is everything? Erm, no. A can of soup, for instance, is not art. It can become art, perhaps by putting it on display in a museum, 'cause then there'll be a philosophy behind it. In this case, that philosophy would be "everything is art", but the fact itself that you have to put that bloody can in a museum to make that point, shows its fallacy.
The number of clothes is indeed on a decline. But note that times have changed: a well dressed lady, moving her hips ever so slightly to a cheesy pop tune, might have had the same effect back in the 60s as Beyone has now, with all of her explicit gestures and outfits. Also, I believe The Beatles had a bigger (or at least equal) sexual impact on teenage girls as any contemporary boys band.
Oh yes, we agree on Avril. Random quote: - "Would you consider yourself a feminist?" * "Dunno... what's a feminist?"
Green Day play their own instruments... Doesn't Christina too? After all, the voice is an instrument (and pretty hard to master, as the neighbours may have noticed while I'm taking a shower). Consider this: look at Christina as just a member of a band, with the sole difference that her "band" isn't in the spotlight with her. If Green Day was called "Billie Joe", would you say "oh look, he doesn't play the drums or the bass... how lame..."?
On song writing... I used to agree with you there. I changed my mind though, perhaps partly because of getting into classical music. How many of today's concert pianists play their own material? Does it make them less noteworthy? (I do wish we could go back to the days of Liszt and Chopin however, but I won't go into that here). A rendition is just as important as the actual composition. Without the former, the latter would make no sense, and furthermore: a performance can make or break just about anything. As such you could argue that performing a song is just as creative as writing it.
...And that's why Milli Vanilli are officially the crappiest pop group ever.
Ui, I almost thought I've written my long post in vain
Regarding satisfaction, I think that depends on a person's tolerance and their ability to adapt to the piece of art itself. For example, I can imagine an Eskimo getting a heart attack when getting visually overstimulated with very colourful and stark imagery, while my late grandmother would drop dead if she would hear a Heavy Metal tune. On the other hand, I enjoy both, and I'm sure I could even get used to Expressionist Jazz if I'd try hard enough.
You said that people have to look at Aguillera as a pure entertainer. Well, but aren't the words she sings conveying thoughts and emotions? Isn't this food for thought? And isn't this your main attribute of art?
The famous can of soup. What I meant to say with ‘art is everything’ is that even simple objects themselves are art, but not that they get any ‘artier’ if you put them into a museum. Design is art for the masses, but it is still art, hence I believe that a package design or any visual communication for that matter is a true work of art by itself. However, Warhol wasn’t pressing the point on aesthetics, was he? You’re right there.
To be honest, I don’t know enough about how the Beatels or the sexy lady you mentioned were perceived by the public in the past, but you have to ask yourself what’s more sexual and generally immoral, someone moving her lips slightly in a sensual way or someone getting completely naked. It’s not like it didn’t happen already. Look at Holly Valance’s ‘Kiss Kiss’.
The difference between Agulillera - and most pop artists for that matter - and any band is that any instruments in the background is pre-recorded, and where’s the skill in pushing the play button? I agree with you that you need a lot of skill to sing well, but there are people who have enough skill to play an instrument and sing at the same time, and even more important, who do a great job at it. The same goes for song writing. I guess it is tolerated in classical music because these compositions are something that is left from a world which was not able to record the original. But when it comes to recent non-classical artists cover relatively recent songs, why shouldn’t they make the effort to write their own fresh material instead of covering something over and over again? In the end, It’s up to you to make up your own mind about what you regard to be as a 'better' piece of music.
hello i hate rap and r&b, thats not music, thats noise with a little boy like eminem who wants to f*** the world... now im listening on massive attack, chemical brothers, bjork, david bowie, portishead, muse, debussy, placebo, coldplay, marylin manson, brahms, rage against the machine...
listening good music make good inspiration for drawing!
I already sort of said that the whole entertainment/art thing is quite subjective. This is not a discussion about facts, so I'll let you have your opinion (how kind of me). To me, though, Aguilera's lyrics aren't "food for thought". They're just easy rhymes that get stuck into your head after one or two times (and that's what they're written for, I'm sure). You'll always have people who think that Beautiful is a song with a very important, deep message. Whereas I just thought it was an ironic statement, coming from her (not unlike Jackson's Black or White), and that's all the time I wasted on that. Some people will say it's art, I'll say it's more like the fast food of the music industry: written with immediate and passing satisfaction in mind. If anyone disagrees, well, it's all - or partly? - in the listener's ear.
Soup: I know what you meant to say... the museum thing was my own opinion. I believe our definition of art is somewhat different, so that too would be an endless discussion. I like to exclude functional objects from art. You obviously don't.
One thing though, which I believe is a fact, and which I believe you have wrong: you seem to put playing the guitar or drums or whatever on a higher level than singing, as you seem to demand from singers that they also play some other instrument. Allow me then, to look down on any guitarist, pianist, drummer... as they don't sing at the same time, and obviously have their mouths free to do so. On what grounds should you demand from a singer that he/she plays another instrument too, while you're satisfied with other musicians who can't/don't sing? I, and most professional vocal music teachers with me, will say that great singers are as valuable as great instrumentalists.
Something else: "The same goes for song writing. I guess it is tolerated in classical music because these compositions are something that is left from a world which was not able to record the original." --> Wrong. How about 20th century classical music, for instance? Why are people still recording Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Bartok... while many of their compositions have already received what you could call "definitive recordings"? What with all the famous Stravinsky recordings with him as the conductor? It's always interesting to hear a new interpretation. The same goes for older classical music. I guess there's no point in having hundreds of different recordings of the same Bach piece, strictly speaking. But I happen to appreciate the wide variety among them. For some reason though, I do get annoyed about most pop song covers, as they tend to fall short of the original (Limp Bizkit's awful Behind Blue Eyes for instance). Why that is, I'm not so sure. Perhaps their innate inability to do anything great? After all, I thought Hendrix' All Along the Watchtower was almost better than the original, and there are other examples. I could think of other possible explanations, but zZz.... Moving on. (*)
We didn't come to the point of song writing with cover versions, but simply with people not writing their own material, which you held against someone like Aguilera. I don't think that's what really bothers you though. This is a wild guess, sorry. But, have you listened to Dusty Springfield (you know... Son of a Preacher Man)? I have her Dusty in Memphis record here, and looking quickly, I don't see any song on there which she (co-)wrote. Some of them are covers, while other songs were probably written specifically with her in mind. Once again, a wild guess, but I sincerely believe you'd enjoy that record. And since I'm guessing, I'll also say that you don't like Delta Goodrem, because you probably think she's too much of a commercial babe like all the others. She does play the piano however, and she writes her own songs.
(*) edit: Another two things... - In classical music, there's a long tradition of looking at composing and performing seperately. This hasn't got anything to do with the invention of the record, necessarily. Today, if you want to study classical music (at least at the school I auditioned for, and many others), you have to make the choice between composition or instrument. While it is true that many of the great composers of past centuries were also great pianists, conductors etc, alongside them was nonetheless a whole group of musicians focusing mainly on performing, whose names are mostly forgotten by the layman. Some of them are remembered though... you might have heard of Goldberg, who was a harpsichordist in Bach's time. Also, many musicians commission works from composers, who in turn aren't necessarily interested in performing their work themselves. In pop/rock music, this division is less clear. The original recording is often regarded as the actual "composition", rather than a mere rendition. Even more so when artists started using all possibilities of the studio back in the 1960s, and to this day. (This also happened in classical music, to the point of the composer pushing the play button of a tape recorder on stage, but that never caught on big time). - Slightly related... covering a pop song might be a bit of a problem because we listen to pop music differently, or at least I do. The magic of a pop song can be its relation to a certain moment in your life, a certain person you once met... etc. The song (or rather, the specific recording) becomes an emotional attachment to that moment, or period. I've never experienced this to the same extent with classical music, however. There are certain songs I will never want to hear covered, simply because of this. This does not mean, though, that the artist in the recording has to be the actual songwriter for it to be of any value. Eg. Dusty Springfield, and many others.
well I listen to: linkin park, red hot chilipeppers, caesars palace(a swedish band with a different name in the states) blink 182, nirvana and other stuff too, yeah maybe a bit mainstream but I don´t really care!
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- It´s lonely round the fields of Athenry
)
