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Re: good music bad music

On 5/11/00 4:49 PM, kelvinbailey at springmail_com 
(kelvinbailey at springmail_com) wrote:

>
>.  Why is it that we are supposed to buy this idea that for music to be 
>ligitimately good it must be angry, edgy, provocotive, or even ugly?  Why 
>can't good music be nice?  Why is it that if I say that I appreciate the 
>Backstreet Boys because they are like the last bastions of 
>melody/harmony/song structure in top 40 music, I all of a sudden lose my 
>credibility as a music lover?  I just don't get.  
>Maybe someone can help me out here...
>
>"Bye, bye, bye..."



Hmph! No, you lose cred with me cos that's from an N'SYNC SONG!

Sheesh.




Anyway, I was reading a snippet from the recent book featuring the words 
of the Dalai Lama, and he was saying that no, suffering doesn't 
inherently make you a better person. It can help you deal with the world 
more easily, and give you a better sense of perspective, but it doesn't 
automatically jump you up the food chain. I'm paraphrasing, in case you 
hadn't realised.

I remember having this same debate from a literary standpoint when I was 
in 10th grade. All the summer reading we were assigned-- I went to 
private school, y'see-- was great literature, but VERY depressing. We 
debated why it seems all the greatest works of literature seem to be 
tragedies, or at the very least, never comedies. We never could come up 
with an answer.

I think people are afraid of looking silly and ignorant when they listen 
to "simple" music, as if it somehow implies they couldn't possibly handle 
anything more complex.

Having said that, of course, I think Peter Mulvey is utterly brilliant, 
but he seems to concentrate mostly on the minutiae of daily inner life, 
much like, say, Jane Austen. And while both of them are astonishingly 
talented, i don't think anyone's ever called them tragic (unless you 
count the mysterious wasting disease that slowly and painfully killed 
Jane), so maybe there's hope.
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