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The Beatles - Abbey Road

joel said:
Would you give some examples of debased music
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sideshowbob's word, not mine :)
joel said:
I wonder if Western art music has more universal relevance than, say, contemporary black american popular music and its derivatives.
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Western art music, like Western art in general, takes as its subject the various facets of the human condition, and has the capacity to provide - via abstract musical means which transcend language, location and time - extraordinarily powerful depictions of everything from an irrepressible joie de vivre (Mendelssohn's Octet, the Symphonie Espagnole) to the worst horrors imaginable (the St Matthew Passion, A Child Of Our Time). Consider the various reflections on, for example, mortality: a general fear of and anger with death (Mozart's Requiem), the pain of bereavement (Brahms's Requiem), terror at man's insignificance in the scheme of things (Verdi's Requiem), rage at being deprived of the beauty of the world (Das Lied von der Erde), death as a serene departure from a happy life (Strauss's Four Last Songs), death as a terrifying voyage into the unknown (Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances), etc. etc. etc. If you've ever valued a long-standing friendship, you'll recognise it in Brahms's Double Concerto or the Enigma Variations; if you've ever felt sexual attraction you can respond to Tristan und Isolde. If you're nostalgic for a particular time and place there's likely to be any amount of pop music you could listen to to bring it flooding back; if you want to know what nostalgia feels like, you'd be better with Dvorak's Cello Concerto. And that's before we even get into the more esoteric, less-readily-described realms of the imagination and intellect evoked by the likes of late Beethoven.

I find it a little upsetting when people suggest - which I know you're not BTW, but hey, I'm on my soapbox now ;) - that classical music is about the middle classes sitting stiffly in their suits in a concert hall on a Friday night. Classical music is about being alive, and I don't think you can get much more universally relevant than that.
 
Thank you Pete, you've eloquently put what I could not and provided one of the most stimulating posts I have seen on pfm. Enjoying classical does not make one a pompous or condescending git - nor is it the only music to listen to.

When you're in a crowd or in a car you can fake an interest and be seen to like something, to create an image as it were. When you go to the trouble of listening to 90% of it at home it's going to be a bit more of a genuine interest though. I don't see this as highbrow, just simple enthusiasm. I bought 9 classical box sets today, quality stuff on quality labels (over 40 pieces of vinyl) and I can't wait to start on them. I also bought 7 jazz albums this weekend and I'm tracking down 2 rock and looking out for a handful of world albums. However, there certainly is something about feeling alive listening to classical. I think it would leave a bigger vacuum than any other genre if I had to give up one form of music.

Sir Horace
 
Enjoying classical music does not make one a pompous or condescending git (please point out where this was said or implied). You have completely missed the point of the argument. You stated the Sex Pistols brought nothing to the field of rock (which you describe as kiddie music) and that anyone that could enjoy them obviously knows nothing about real music and that only classical music is really capable of making someone feel alive.

Hence, it was your (narrowminded) views that made you come across as condescending (you described yourself as a git), it had nothing to do with whether you like classical music or not.

I find a lot of classical music very stimulating and enjoyable, but this in no way diminishes or changes what I feel about the rock/pop/blues music I enjoy or that this genre is any less relevant or important.

I had no idea who Sir Horace Cutler was (I'm not in the UK), so I looked it up. He seems to have been an ultra conservative. Seems appropriate.
 
I had no idea who Sir Horace Cutler was (I'm not in the UK), so I looked it up. He seems to have been an ultra conservative. Seems appropriate.
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He was the Tory leader of the Greater London Council who famously said the world would be better off without the Pistols, they were wreckers of civilisation, blah blah blah. Bit of a twit.

-- Ian
 
PeteH said:
Classical music is about being alive
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But it's not unique in that. And some of it makes me wish for an early death, i.e., the bits involving fat people singing :)

-- Ian
 
they were wreckers of civilisation
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I thought that was what The Daily Mail called Throbbing Gristle, it’s not fair, not everyone can be a wrecker of civilisation. <sniff> It’s just not fair, I so wanted to wreck civilisation, but my mum wouldn’t let me.

Tony.
 
"Wreckers of civilisation" was indeed said of TG, specifically Cosey and Gen's Prostitution art show at the ICA, which was considered a scandal because it included pictures of Cosey taken from her time working for porn mags. Cutler said something similar about the Pistols, must try and find the exact quote.

-- Ian
 
When any conservative (or ultra conservative) says that a band is "the wreckers of civilisation", generally means that the band is onto something. No doubt the Velvets, Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls etc have been described as such by the authorities at some point in their careers.

Thanks for the info on Sir Horace (the twit).
 
Bub,

Good to hear.

By the way, do you like (any or all of) The Velvets, Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls, Flamin Groovies, 60's garage bands etc?
 
Derek, I would not wish to imply that someone who likes the SPs knows nothing about real music, they may well understand music in theory, playing or just generally much better then I ever will. In any case it does not matter and it's not about the music. None of us is naive in seeing the SPs alone in being bad boys in some way.

However, I had never seen anything like them and there is absolutely no way I wanted then or would want now my children going anywhere them. You would have let them babysit your sons would you? Saw them as role models? Harmless boys having a bit of fun? I'm sorry, I simply saw them as a bunch of c***ts. So, I would be wary of anyone thinking that was all okay and actually looking up to them. I'm sure I'm as bored as you now, let's acknowledge that each other has equal rights in society and smile politely and ignore.

Paul
 
I know I wouldn't want Sir Horace Cutler (or Mozart for that matter) to babysit my kids!

PS Not sure of the relevance this has to listening to music.

(Smile politely and ignore mode).
 
However, I had never seen anything like them and there is absolutely no way I wanted then or would want now my children going anywhere them. You would have let them babysit your sons would you?
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I think you are perhaps overreacting a tad – the Pistols took the piss out over our grossly overpaid and utterly useless monarchy and somewhat unsurprisingly offended the Daily Mail reading classes, so what? Good going as far as I’m concerned. A bit of harmless fun. Musicians are in reality perhaps not the best babysitters; as an example the ever present audiophile stalwart Miles Davis was a smack head, a pimp and IIRC a wife beater. Great musician? Unquestionably. Great babysitter? Perhaps not.

Tony.

(who has no use for babysitters)
 
as an example the ever present audiophile stalwart Miles Davis was a smack head, a pimp and IIRC a wife beater. Great musician? Unquestionably. Great babysitter? Perhaps not.
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Makes me think of that classical music composer who lived on Mallorca, Chopin. His private life was certainly not what you would encourage your children to follow. He had TBC and a very active sexlife, equivalent today to having AIDS and a very active sexlife.

If we where to judge music from how the musicians live their lives, very little music would be listened to!

JohanR
 
My last comment on all of this is that for me personally there is a distinction between composers/musicians who had their fair share of our usual human weaknesses, as it were and wasters who put their degenerative messages first and happened to use the medium of music as their outlet. Call it Sir Horace, ignorant, worthy of punching, condescending, call it what you blood well like but for God sake don't ask someone to dignify it beyond condemnation.

If I come round to your houses and smear shit all over your walls (and remarkably earn a fortune from an appreciative art audience) then am I going to get slated by you (and a damned good kicking) or will you appreciate the art and will you instead condemn the conservative ass-holes who did not have the intellect or broad-mindedness to realise that there were deeper social messages at work here within a genial mind worthy of lasting admiration.

Paul
 
So it's personal. Did one (or all) of the SP's do something to you, your family or one of your friends?

If not, I'm not really sure what you are on about.
 
Paul L said:
If I come round to your houses and smear shit all over your walls (and remarkably earn a fortune from an appreciative art audience) then am I going to get slated by you (and a damned good kicking) or will you appreciate the art and will you instead condemn the conservative ass-holes who did not have the intellect or broad-mindedness to realise that there were deeper social messages at work here within a genial mind worthy of lasting admiration.
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No one, not even the Pistols, has ever come round to my house and smeared shit on my walls. If they did, I'd take a very dim view of them, I might even be reduced to using stern language. Releasing records, on the other hand, well, I have no objection to anyone doing that, unless it's Pink Floyd, obviously.

I'd forgotten how easy it was to épater le bourgeoisie, it's heartwarming to know it's still an effective strategy.

-- Ian
 
Yes, I believe there are things which degrade the world we live in and leave behind. The SPs are in the company of the Prodigy, punk in general, gun-crime music (rap, ho-music) most 'action' flicks, hoods and more. Violence and menace does us no favours, to trivialise it as a phase of life we go through is not really good enough, to glorify and reward it is very, very backward to me.

I appreciate it we all went through it in some way, some more than others, but I really think it holds us back as a race. For thousands of years we have been hitting each other over the head, getting possessive, territorial, angry, pre-emptive, re-active and so on. Let's face it, it probably isn't going to change. You guys see the SPs as a bit of harmless fun and wonder what all the fuss was about it. I saw it as amoebic and wondered how on earth anyone could react in any way except being appalled. Unsurprisingly I have quite a bit of Floyd although I obviously only play it when I want to get angry and left-wing ;-)

Paul
 
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