The other night we interviewed a prospective flatmate with the help of a good friend of Laura’s, the lovely Kris, an Australian nutritional expert. Our interviewee was Australian himself and fresh off the boat, so perhaps Kris’s Oz-related small-talk put him at his ease. So this guy Daniel – despite having an irrational fear of elevators – turned out to be a great guy, into experimental music from the rock and modern orchestral worlds (though not jazz). In particular we talked about Iannis Xenakis‘s Persepolis, a stunning, tectonic piece of work that can barely be described as music at all. Daniel was the first (and last?) person I’ve met who knows about it and so I was delighted to be able to talk about it.
As Laura and Kris didn’t share our tastes, they were mystified, and demanded that he admit to liking something they had heard of. I joined in, pointing out that while I couldn’t do without the excitement of surprising, complex and weird music, I also enjoy Outkast, Marvin Gaye and the Beach Boys.
I wondered if he was being more honest – to himself and to others – than me. Or had I just lazily forgotten to continue cultivating my tastes? Or was Daniel perhaps a musical snob, as Laura was gently suggesting. Is musical snobbery bad? Is a fondess for this kind of music honest and ingenuous or is there always a contrarian mentality as part of it?
I’m the first to recognize if I’m becoming lazy with music. If I keep putting on the White Stripes instead of getting into that new John Zorn album, I know I’m just going over old, familiar, easy ground, rather than exploring and altering and improving myself. But I do believe that my increasing openness to soul, for example, is definitely a sign that my taste is maturing. The exquisite and deceptively simple songs of soul music are works of artistic greatness, all the more admirable because they are popular as well.
So even if one pursued an exploration of a certain kind of obscure difficult music with a contrarian motivation, that is, simply to position oneself against or different from others, it doesn’t really matter. Who cares why you get into something, as long as you gain some understanding and enjoyment from it. You may well develop a more mature attitude later down the line. I think this has been my trajectory.
As to whether musical snobbery is bad, well, snobbery is always bad and almost by definition cannot be justified: snobbery is always a presumption. Musical snobbery is the presumption that a kind of music is inferior because of its popularity. If musical snobbery were only the belief that some music is objectively better than others, then many people, including myself, would have to confess to being musical snobs. Stravinsky is superior to Black Lace, Neil Young is superior to Ronan Keating. This is not a matter of taste but of fact. But to dislike music because of its popularity is absurd. Hankering after the weird can be infantile.
Didn’t Black Lace do the Birdy Song? Surely that’s better than Le Sacre du printemps? I find among my musical-snob friends that the inventiveness of this understanding is priceless. They can’t ‘prove’ I’m not serious, just as we can’t ‘prove’ you’re not serious about enjoying Mr. Xenakis’ dissertations.
Here are a few samples from my current iPod playlist:
1. Silence.
2. Keys, money, jingling; light chatting in a library on a Wednesday.
3. Can’t remember.
Yours faithfully,
Boris Bone
Stravinsky is better that Black Lace?
Facts you claim – I’m sure that you are either joking or exhibiting clear signs of musical snobbery – because it is not so.
It is a nonsense statement on a par with “hangliding is better than oranges”.
What measures do you use that allow you to conclude that Igor is “better” than Black lace?
Is it the effect their music has upon an audience? and the difference that makes to the listener? –
No i think not as you would have difficulty proclaiming such a fact against the reality that more people (certainly in the UK) have been encouraged to get up to dance and interact positively with friends and family to Agadoo that have ever watched a ballet by Stravinsky. More children have overcome their youthful shyness to mime the actions to Superman in a teen disco than there were parisian rioters at the premier of le sacre du print temps (or for the non musical snob the rite of spring)and certainly more familly feuds have been set aside to do do do the conga that have been healed by contemplating the angnst ridden orchestral reworkings of russian folk music
So how do we arrive at the jamjar facts of music?
Is it I know best? or perhaps I can support my opinion with rhetoric and call on the consensus on the small proportion of the population who engage with challenging orchestral music so come and argue about it if you think you are smart enough
If it has taken a third of a century for you to arrive at the conclusion that soul music can represent a clear and beutiful musical expression on life I can only hope that it will not be much longer before you realise the full extent of your blinkered understanding of music in general.
Surely it is enough to enjoy music as you cultivate your tastes rather than lookikng to conquer the cultural high ground and deride the taste of others – Is that not in itself musical snobbery.
Yours
Marvin Gaye
Marvin,
Thanks for the comment. You make some interesting points. In general your opinions seem to epitomize the intellectual and aesthetic relativism that is rife in today’s culture. Essentially you question whether any art can be described as better than any other art. This will not do. If one can reach a deeper enjoyment through Stravinsky than one can through Black Lace, this is certainly one criterion for better. If people would rather listen to Black Lace, this is evidence of their lack of interest in music, something which bad education, rather than inherent philistinism, is responsible for. Perhaps you could make the case that I am a musical elitist, rather than a snob, as long as you can say that elitism asserts the superiority of something but doesn’t necessarily claim that it is not, in the long run, accessible to the population at large.
To accept all musics as equal is to devalue musical works of art. Because literature is better taught and appreciated in society, let me use it as an example: if you are an English teacher do you choose – pretending for a moment that you had the choice to teach what you wanted – George Orwell or Jeffrey Archer, Shakespeare or Andy McNab, for your pupils to read. And why? Perhaps you would ask the pupils to come up with their own suggestions, and then put it to a vote? You wouldn’t, because you’re the teacher, meaning that you know more than they do. I believe that this kind of guidance might be helpful in music education. And I’m not meaning the old-fashioned blinkered approach to music education we’re hanging on to at the moment, but a truly exciting exploration of different, unusual, rich music from around the world.
Also, I forgot to ask: do you, in fact, believe that better cannot be used when comparing pieces of music? Do you believe different pieces of music have different value? You do seem to be saying that popularity is indicative of some kind of value. However, you are also familiar with Igor’s masterpiece and therefore may well have an appreciation of its value. Wherein does its value lie, given that it is known only by an elite? I don’t believe that pure subjectivism can answer this question adequately.
Interesting responses and they confirm (to me) at least that your appreciation, which i did not doubt, of the issue of musical value is greater than suggested by your original post.
However it does reinforce your primary misconception. Your are the subject and the music is the object not the other way around.
Music means many things to many people. Music has function and applications within a social context.
Your affirmation of “better” is not an intellectual and aesthetic judgement but a social one
Indeed it is a a stattement that you believe that your appreciation and interaction with music is superior to others. On this justification I reject your revision and maintain “snob” and not elitist, a mantle you seem curiously enthusiastic to claim.
It is not the music that your are judging by popularity but the way that those people who like popular music choose to inlude music in their lives.
Criticising not only their taste in music but their social outlook and attitude towards life.
I would suggest that you rise up from your padded armchair in your new Town tory club get out and talk to some of the people your opinions so casually demean.
To move on, If I were an English teacher, and I wished to demonstate use of the english language to articulate an intelectual concept, describe a situation, inteligent use of vocabularly and sentence structue or even getting a free meal in Paris – Orwell would be my choice. If i were to suggest a book to read on the plane andy mcnab over shakespear (which should be heard or seen). You should not underestimate the importance of skill and craft – remember orwell was a journalist before a novelist. And as an english teacher if i got a class of 14 year olds to write like Archer I could be pretty sure that they would pass their exams and if they wished be equiped with all the literacy skills required for a career in popular journalism.
Even I had to come through the motown system singing popular and well executed pop duets before earning the opportunity to exercise greater creative freedom on “What’s going on” establishing the soul album as unified piece rather than a collection of songs as had previously been the case.
I do not believe in absolute relevatism, although boris has alluded to how difficult it can be to disprove. “intellectual and aesthetic relativism” is not the issue for me here.
To claim a piece as “better” is intelectual short hand – a lazy way to appreciate music – it puts a barrier between a lister and the piece. Like someone bagging munroes and not looking at the view from the top.
I believe that you and i jamjar would broadly agree in a discussion about the individual enjoyment provided by most of the pieces that you list. However we differ on how relevant your opinion is the the value inherent in a piece.
I ask you, bearing in mind it is only recently that you have thought soul music a valid medium if you had posted the blog 6 months ago would it have been Issac Hayes or myself chosen rather than black lace as your easy target?
I am sure that you can point out many many reasons or areas where Stravinsky whether in his neo-classical works or later 12 tone phase has more to offer than black lace however there are things that they offer over stravinsky – in my opinion the scales are weighed in the russians emigres favour – however to baldly state “better” acts as a barrier to understanding what each piece does have to offer. It hides from the arrogant and elitist that often it is a weakness or lack of knowedge (whether it be social, situational, aesthetic or intellectual) on the listeners part not the artists or composers that prevents us from appreciating their work ask Brian Wilson or Stravinsky
Marvin Gaye
Music means many things to many people. Music has function and applications within a social context.
Your affirmation of “better” is not an intellectual and aesthetic judgement but a social one.
Music may mean different things, but all musical works have things in common, so the “functions and applications” of music are limited by these. Music cannot be used to burn coal or look after ill people. “Better” could actually be intellectual, aesthetic and social: intellectual and aesthetic preoccupations change as society changes.
People can be much more than they are. I believe that people should challenge themselves, and that when they don’t then they are less likely to make positive contributions to society. Now, I also believe that people should have an all-round education rather than – or as well as – a narrowly focussed vocational one, and I believe somebody who independently carries this on after formal education has finished is, all else being equal, able to make bigger and better contributions to society and the lives of their family and friends.
Music, though distinct from all other disciplines and special in the way it stimulates the intellect and emotions, is no different in that you can improve yourself (old-fashioned idea I know, but there you go) by seeking out new examples of the form.
As you no doubt know, there are people for whom the experience of music is about the repetition of formulas that do not challenge them. Some may positively reject anything that is different, which, for example, uses unfamiliar instruments. I believe that there are certain pieces of music which these people can comfortably accept, such as, in this culture, most rock music. So yes, it has a place. Yes, it has a function. That is no justification for the music, but an indictment of society.
It is from this perspective that I say that some music can be better than others. Whether this is a socially-dependent statement or not is beside the point.
And yes, I enjoy a lot of rock music. But, as I said, I try to resist the temptation to avoid music that takes more application to appreciate. And that does not mean that I am innately better – it is my orientation.
To answer your charge of snobbery, and answer my own original question, I say that I’m not a snob because I don’t believe anyone is naturally unable to appreciate Stravinsky, and I don’t believe that there is one type of music for the smart folks and another for the dumbos and degenerates. If, for example, I detest the behaviour of some of the young men in Glasgow or Edinburgh who are commonly called neds, it is not out of snobbery, because I don’t feel myself to be naturally better than they are. It is just my belief in good standards of behaviour, potentially achievable by anyone. This is an important distinction, and I have always been an enemy of snobbery. Saying that one piece of music is better than another is not the same as saying one person is better than another.
To claim a piece as “better” is intelectual short hand – a lazy way to appreciate music – it puts a barrier between a listener and the piece. Like someone bagging munroes and not looking at the view from the top.
You definitely have a point here, but true open-mindedness requires that you’re ready to reject some things in favour of others, that is, make a choice as to which is better.
I ask you, bearing in mind it is only recently that you have thought soul music a valid medium if you had posted the blog 6 months ago would it have been Issac Hayes or myself chosen rather than black lace as your easy target?
No, because I have always respected whilst remaining for a long time unfamiliar with that music.
To conclude, I definitely do share your democratic principles of music, but I still think you can say one piece is better than another, although I confess that my Black Lace / Stravinsky dichotomy is rather silly. Isn’t this actually simpler than we’re making out: if you can say that one painting or table or novel is better than another, then why can’t you do the same with music?
That’s the old dichotomy empirical vs theoretical.
I used to be that arsehole elitist who shopped her must-have rather than her want-to. But like you I have gotten lazy. I would call that being realistic, or maybe just being kinder to myself.
Let’s go for a cheap metaphore (come on, ya like those!): You could just feed yourself with caviar, escargots, blue cheese and Beaupre Napoleon, but would you really enjoy yourself, deep down? Wouldn’t you be missing out by forbidding yourself the simple delights of a good old Whopper?
Looking back, I think the main reasons why I was so arsey about my taste was that 1)I liked to hear myself talking, 2) It confered me some kind of superiority which I needed, being a low self esteem late teen/young adult, 3) It made me special, part of a small tribe of pinched lips, name dropping skinnies… I don’t say I didn’t find amazing crap down that path. You mention Xenakis, I can mention back Arvo Part, Reich, Riley, Varech and that’s for modern composition alone (see I namedrop again, fuck me) But for those I need to make an effort. Like smoking a fat Cuban. Always a treat but I need to be in the mood. 99% of the time, I’d rather go for my council Mayfair. Might not be subtle but god does it make me feel good. Plus it works great with Nescafe!
Now older, I have found my perfect balance: Listening to pop to feed my flimsy brain but reassuring my ego with a huge collection of mostly unlistenable (and to be honest still mostly unlistened to)highbrow fineries. So I can get back at whoever disses me for blasting some Depeche Mode on the HiFi.
Getting older, you get less time and less momentum as well. No more am I this tortured poet I was when I was 19, no more have I got the budget, the time nor the energy to chase the Art with a big A. Life has become much less lyrical and much more efficient since. I need straight to the point entertainment I can cram in my busy domestic routine. It’s sad but true. Young me would probably yawn and ignore me if we’d meet at a party. But there’s no time to feel bad about it.
Plus as you point, there’s the old debate: does something deserve less credit because it’s popular?
For some it’s absolutely true, there’s no redeeming feature to Crazy Frog and I’d rather die at the gallows than finding a single excuse for that kind of product. But for most of the popular single, there is definitely something about universality and simplicity. There’s probably more humanity in Outkast’s Hey Ya than in the whole of John Zorn’s back catalogue. It’s just more efficient at conveying the real thing, the palpable, the one you relate to. Not the one that makes you build those little essays inside your head. Not the one that need justification at every step. The one that just makes you smile.
Shed the guilt my friend and enjoy the cheap tricks if it’s what makes you feel good. The rest hasn’t gone, it’s just waiting for you to be in the mood again. And I bet ya it’s going to be even easier to be a proper snob after having had a real chance at common people’s way. To compare you need to dig both side. At least now you know what you’re talking about….
Aud
[...] September, I had a debate with Brian Rowan in the comments of one of my blog posts. The debate was about music: whether you can say, for example, that Stravinsky is better than James [...]
Bravo, la frase è venuto solo a proposito