Can music be objectively bad?

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david1806
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07 Oct 2019

"Here's the Austrian IceJJFish if you will. He made a big career out of it." - the difference being this idiot is just on a wind-up....isn't he? When he called himself a "nigger" and danced with the kids, that kind of gives it away. Otherwise he wants shooting. IceJJFish is deadly serious....and also wants shooting....

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aeox
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07 Oct 2019

david1806 wrote:
07 Oct 2019
"Here's the Austrian IceJJFish if you will. He made a big career out of it." - the difference being this idiot is just on a wind-up....isn't he? When he called himself a "nigger" and danced with the kids, that kind of gives it away. Otherwise he wants shooting. IceJJFish is deadly serious....and also wants shooting....
I honestly think he is just doing it for the views. It actually sounds like he's purposely fucking up every aspect harmony. The beats are actually decent though, that's the funniest part :D

reggie1979
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07 Oct 2019

guitfnky wrote:
07 Oct 2019
reddust wrote:
07 Oct 2019
yes, it can...

😂 you’re ignoring all the screaming fans in the background who obviously too stoned to notice just how bad it is.

There, I fixed that for you :D

reggie1979
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07 Oct 2019

david1806 wrote:
07 Oct 2019
"Here's the Austrian IceJJFish if you will. He made a big career out of it." - the difference being this idiot is just on a wind-up....isn't he? When he called himself a "nigger" and danced with the kids, that kind of gives it away. Otherwise he wants shooting. IceJJFish is deadly serious....and also wants shooting....
I hate rap. I hate the n word, I hate that it pollutes so much of entertainment.

david1806
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07 Oct 2019

Oh my days..........Alexander Marcus, my new legend to follow. Three Beat Slide hardly release anything now, but now I have this geezer - thanks diminished!!!

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guitfnky
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07 Oct 2019

reggie1979 wrote:
07 Oct 2019
guitfnky wrote:
07 Oct 2019


😂 you’re ignoring all the screaming fans in the background who obviously too stoned to notice just how bad it is.

There, I fixed that for you :D
aw, when I first saw that you fixed it, I was hoping you’d changed the video to have all the fans sound like a cacophony of screams of the sort you’d hear when Godzilla is attacking the city or something. that would’ve been hilarious. 😂
I write good music for good people

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PhillipOrdonez
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07 Oct 2019

Alexander Marcus is brilliant and has no place in this thread.

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guitfnky
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07 Oct 2019

PhillipOrdonez wrote:
07 Oct 2019
Alexander Marcus is brilliant and has no place in this thread.
and thus you’ve summed up why it’s impossible to objectively categorize something as good or bad. 😆
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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diminished
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07 Oct 2019

PhillipOrdonez wrote:
07 Oct 2019
Alexander Marcus is brilliant and has no place in this thread.
I know but it's music that's easily dismissed as shitty by the ignorant. That's why I posted him.

I'm really, really glad you guys like him. He's a real gem (and a part of me believes that most of his older stuff was made with Reason but I have no proof :) )
He plays with his parent's generation's narrow minded view a lot - about the world, (different) culture(s) and the, in their eyes, necessary "achievements" of their sprouts. He then takes their DUMB music and turns it into a contemporary, even more dumbed down version and adds elements of mental illness, failure and POSITIVITY.
It's magic.
:reason: Most recent track: resentment (synthwave) || Others: on my YouTube channel •ᴗ•

PhillipOrdonez
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07 Oct 2019

There is no comparison between music that is well made and intentionally made to be funny or ironically or whatever, to music made by an amateur who has no idea what they are doing.

You may not like the music made by the professional, but can tell the talent is there, even if you cannot understand the intention of an artist like Alexander Marcus cause you are so obtuse. With the second example, the amateur, there's no way is going to be good if said amateur is tone and rhythmically deaf. It is objectively bad no matter how edgy some people here want to pretend they are defending it.

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TritoneAddiction
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07 Oct 2019

david1806 wrote:
03 Oct 2019
So this could be subjectively "good"?



Surely not!!!!!!!!!!
I mean sure The Shaggs sound like ass. But at the same time I find that album absolutely fascinating. There's just something about it that stands out from just being bad in a normal boring way.
To be honest that album is way more interesting to listen to than a lot of music. That's gotta be worth something right? Who cares about the skill (or lack thereof) behind it? If it's interesting it's interesting. That's what matters in the end.
It's like the band never heard music before, got some instruments thrown in their hands and started writing songs. You can still tell they rehearsed a lot and knew what they were doing (in their own weird way of course).
It's one of those things that can never happen again, not even by the band itself. Their second album is objectively "better", but still bad. But that one doesn't have nearly as much of an impact as their first. It's too good to be so bad that it's good, if that makes sense.
It's like the movie "The Room". It's just perfectly shit in all the right ways. Stuff like this doesn't work if the artist tries to make it bad intentionally. It has to be with the intention to be good yet fail just enough.

reggie1979
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07 Oct 2019

guitfnky wrote:
07 Oct 2019
reggie1979 wrote:
07 Oct 2019



There, I fixed that for you :D
aw, when I first saw that you fixed it, I was hoping you’d changed the video to have all the fans sound like a cacophony of screams of the sort you’d hear when Godzilla is attacking the city or something. that would’ve been hilarious. 😂
Sorry, I'm not talented like Lil' Wayne :lol:

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guitfnky
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07 Oct 2019

reggie1979 wrote:
07 Oct 2019
guitfnky wrote:
07 Oct 2019


aw, when I first saw that you fixed it, I was hoping you’d changed the video to have all the fans sound like a cacophony of screams of the sort you’d hear when Godzilla is attacking the city or something. that would’ve been hilarious. 😂
Sorry, I'm not talented like Lil' Wayne :lol:
you should be proud. 😆
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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jam-s
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08 Oct 2019

david1806 wrote:
06 Oct 2019

Just in case you forgot who I mean:


I mean...C'MON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: So I just actually listened to the above track again, from start to end - nope, I am sorry but this ends the argument for me. There is just NO POSSIBLE way that this track could be "subjectively good", no way at all.
Sounds like a typical cloud rap track. That genre just has that kind of sound and obvious display of lacking skill to it. OK for it to be "real and legit" cloud rap he should use much more autotune of course.

reggie1979
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09 Oct 2019

david1806 wrote:
06 Oct 2019
PhillipOrdonez wrote:
06 Oct 2019
Obviously the track posted from the original post is a terrible piece of stuff made by a complete amateur who had no sense of rhythm or musicality. How can anyone defend it? It is shit, plain and simple. It was not made out of knowledge or taste. It was made out of ignorance. It surely must be objectively bad!

This isn't some piece that was intended to sound bad. They wanted it to be good and failed spectacularly. You having a laugh? 🤷‍♂️
I had to laugh, I couldn't have put it better myself. This is exactly what I meant in an earlier comment, about how if a track is made and it is intentionally supposed to be something, but gets it all wrong (tuning/timing, those sort o things) then surely it is just shit?

I mean going back to our man JJIceFIsh or whatever his fucking name is, that is surely indefensible, it is so bad it sounds like it has been made bad intentionally, like it's all one big wind up. But it's not, the guy is deadly serious.

Just in case you forgot who I mean:


I mean...C'MON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: So I just actually listened to the above track again, from start to end - nope, I am sorry but this ends the argument for me. There is just NO POSSIBLE way that this track could be "subjectively good", no way at all.
Wow! That is bad.

reggie1979
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09 Oct 2019

A good call for autotune :lol:

Yonatan
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29 Oct 2019

This video does not answer this question but at least it is in the same category of thoughts.


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Kalm
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29 Oct 2019

The answer is literally the standards you give it. There's a lot of music I consider bad but if 10,000 Elvis fans say its good then who's right? Ever since my professor 2 years ago posed that question to me . . . there's nothing you can really to say that
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demt
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29 Oct 2019

even a detuned violin sounds better than a basssynth set to emulate a man farting
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reggie1979
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29 Oct 2019

Kalm wrote:
29 Oct 2019
The answer is literally the standards you give it. There's a lot of music I consider bad but if 10,000 Elvis fans say its good then who's right? Ever since my professor 2 years ago posed that question to me . . . there's nothing you can really to say that
But people like twitter too. That doesn't mean it's "good" :D

Yonatan
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30 Oct 2019

These issues about good or bad, can br objectively judged only if first put up a model of rules and expected criteria. If one does not live up to those criteria, it can be said to be objectively bad compared to the model used as a reference. Genres is a form of reference clusters, what to expect and sonic norms. A music production can be seen as highly quality within a sub genre but outside that context, be seen as "terrible".

If throwing every model or rules out the window, then all that is left is the listeners own inner memory bank of what we come to learn to reference against.

So, if I with certain limited context meet a work of art that is beyond my reference library, I will either have to work myself towards the work by trying to understand its context and with open mind slowly digest ist flavour. Fist after that, I can say if it has any value at all for me.
Or if lazy, I can just put a bad label.on it and call it crap, saving myself energy, but losing out on a chance to grow and evolve my senses.

All that is relative and subjective in its nature, can mainly be judged by explaining why one dont find it interesting or meaningful for oneself.

So, some works might be beyond our perception, where we lack the high sensitivity to understand the nouances.
But then there are works that we might have surpassed, we might have been there already, made same "mistakes" and thus we feel we can say it is "not good" but another person that same work might be a development and a challange to try to understand.

And then there are music that just seem to be universal in some way, where few can say it is bad without coming off as a jelous jerk.

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Kalm
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30 Oct 2019

Yonatan wrote:
30 Oct 2019
These issues about good or bad, can br objectively judged only if first put up a model of rules and expected criteria. If one does not live up to those criteria, it can be said to be objectively bad compared to the model used as a reference. Genres is a form of reference clusters, what to expect and sonic norms. A music production can be seen as highly quality within a sub genre but outside that context, be seen as "terrible".

If throwing every model or rules out the window, then all that is left is the listeners own inner memory bank of what we come to learn to reference against.

So, if I with certain limited context meet a work of art that is beyond my reference library, I will either have to work myself towards the work by trying to understand its context and with open mind slowly digest ist flavour. Fist after that, I can say if it has any value at all for me.
Or if lazy, I can just put a bad label.on it and call it crap, saving myself energy, but losing out on a chance to grow and evolve my senses.

All that is relative and subjective in its nature, can mainly be judged by explaining why one dont find it interesting or meaningful for oneself.

So, some works might be beyond our perception, where we lack the high sensitivity to understand the nouances.
But then there are works that we might have surpassed, we might have been there already, made same "mistakes" and thus we feel we can say it is "not good" but another person that same work might be a development and a challange to try to understand.

And then there are music that just seem to be universal in some way, where few can say it is bad without coming off as a jelous jerk.
and point.
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Yonatan
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30 Oct 2019

Point? :)
Universe is full of contradictions as long as we live in a relative state.
Same philosophers corner of endless discussions if asking about objective good and evil. Or if there is any ovjective truth. It is easier to see that "this action A does more good than action B, we can measure it as we compare".
Or "this X is truer to reality than Y because we can test it out"

So as long as we use rational mind having a limited set of criteria, it can more objectively be said that A is better than B, depending of what we compare.
Just like we also do in sports, a person wins the world championship, and thus announced as "best in the world on..." while theoreticaly that person is only the best performer on a stadium with only a selected few who compare themselves. A farmer somewhere might beat that achievement, but is not at all into sports.

The more narrowly limited, concrete and measurable, the more the rational mind can calculate and rate, the easier it is to say that "this is objectively better than the other".

So my point is that, and the need for a reference.

The more intuitive and less concrete something is, as some art and music can be, the quality of its expression is harder for a concrete measuring labeling mind to say it is objectively good or bad.
If some note is out of tune, someone might say "oh, look it is bad!"
or if the tempo are changing "this is not tight".
But that comes from a reference in the mind of the person who might have no clue about tiny quarter micro tonality, or believes that good music needs to be slave to a metronome, or are unaware of polyrythmics etc.

When art are more intuitive, the question of objectively good or bad somewhat loses its meaning. It often more about if the composition reflects and paints what was intended to be expressed in that work. What was the aim behind it etc.

I short, in some way the will to classify things in good and bad labels, can have its practicality, but in essence it is a dull way to describe and it somewhat relates to some kind af competitive culture.

It is more relevant to ask what someone wants to express and if that comes through as intended. But if the artist had intended to do it in a certain way to raise some awareness, it is more important than if a random person out of context are being asked if it is good.

In some way art and music is a bit theatrical or cinematic and a movie with a lot of dissonance can be beautiful in its way to portrait a life journey. And then we have Sound of Music movie with colorfull landscapes. Show t
it beside a rougher movie and probability is high that a little baby child would prefer Soundofmusic.

So, the question comes down to how one can find beauty even in places not being pretty, or hearing harmony even when there might be a few tritonus along the way.

Is there an i born sense of harmony and beauty?
I think there is. But also one can learn to expand the field to also include more into it. Just as we may not only say that sweet food is "good" food.

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Chizmata
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30 Oct 2019

aeox wrote:
02 Oct 2019
everyone is gonna dance to that soon!

tbh the approach reminds me of matthew herberts the puzzle, which did absolutely everything wrong in terms of techno's established aesthetics back then, from sound design to note placement, but for my feeling it was groundbreaking for those "sick" tracks everyone loves today.



what does this mean for the topic? i think music cant be completely bad if it has any kind of notion or expression, which can also be "bad". i once saw a small installation in a museum just made of nails connected by a cord, and they were placed so ridiculously unexpressive that it just annoyed me it should be art - but in the end its the only piece still stuck in my head today. it had a really strong unexpressive expression.

i think really objectively bad art could maybe be sensual impressions that communicate no coherent notion at all - even if you look for it, it just tells you "no, nothing here" - and that would be no art at all.

i also find it really important if the creator finds his intentions well realized in a piece. doesnt mean others appreciate it but it means there is something that CAN be artistically appreciated.

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xboix
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30 Oct 2019

No, music cannot be objectively bad. Music is subjective. Always.

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