Is this for real?!

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

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   Re: Is this for real?!
« Reply #142 on: Today at 09:11:33 PM »
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Or put it another way -- when trying to make a convert to Brian Wilson's music, are you going to just play someone the hits from 1963 or 1964?  Or are you going to offer up Pet Sounds and Smile?  Or in my case, will you make a comp of 1967-73 music to REALLY wow them?  I won't limit myself or my attempts to make new fans by only doing the hit records. 

And again, THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE MEASURE TO THE QUALITY OF A RECORD!  Sales is not a measure of quality in any stretch, it is purely a measure of popularity.  On American Idol there are often talentless singers making it to the top 5 or even top 3 simply because they are cute or perky or have good personality.  People vote for them for non-musical reasons.  Just because they made the top 5 didn't mean that they were the best singers, it meant that they were most popular.

I do not accept sales as an objective measure.  You either feel the music or you don't.  Ian would probably love for me to love the Velvet Underground.  Can't do it.  Doesn't move me in the slightest.  Listening to it for me is like musical broccoli -- you know some people think it's "good" for you but I still don't enjoy it.  How many casual fans who buy a record still feel it deeply and keep spinning the record 10 years later?  Or how many sell it at a garage sale?  Ever try to find a copy of 15 Big Ones at a used store?  It went Top 10 but it seems to have had the staying power of milk on a hot summer day.

Great points as usual.

In my experience, when playing Brian's music to the non-converted, it is the 67-72 period that they seem to enjoy the most. I was doing a session for someone a few years back, and she went outside to go have a smoke. Her and the band were gone for quite a while (what the hell WERE they smoking ) so I put some music to listen to on. They came back in while "Busy Doin' Nothing" was on. They REALLY really liked it; I ended up teaching them the song, and the next week I recorded them doing a ska version of that song. So, you never know.

So I'm not the only one who doesn't "get" the 'Underground. I don't feel so bad then.

Music really is subjective. I think the crap that gets played on the radio these days is exactly that, but you never know how it will sound, say, 10 years from now. I hated the music in the early 90s at the time, but now I really like it. I used to think Nirvana was nothing but noise, but I can really hear the craft behind all the bombast. Interestingly, I find myself liking Incesticide as my favorite Nirvana album (besides the Unplugged in NY), despite it being their  least commercial stuff. So you gotta take in the fact that a song/album may sound completely different to you in later years. Sales are just one thing. You may find yourself liking something you used to hate; sometimes it's as simple as nostalgia, other times it's a case of listenng with "different" ears.

[Cam Mott]

would you buy a historical summary by a committee of knowledgeable rock fans and critics?
 

Personally I quit paying attention to such just out of college mumbo-jumbo years ago.

Just out of college? Who the foda you talkin' about, bud? Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs, Peter Guralnick, Nick Tosches?
You should thank the critics and historians. They're the only reason you are on a message board getting people to read you. The critics, historians and musicians talking about PS and SMiLE are the only reason the BBs are considered more than an oldies act today.
And, I'm a rock writer, so please shut yer mouth. I ain't out of college.

"Mumbo-jumbo" is the number of years ago I got out of college and I'm not here because of any critic or taste arbiter.  The Beach Boys didn't and don't need any critics, historians or musicians [except those who buy their records] to establish their creds, it's a done deal.

By all means rock write away but I won't be shutting my mouth, sorry.

[I. Spaceman]

The Beach Boys didn't and don't need any critics, historians or musicians [except those who buy their records] to establish their creds, it's a done deal.

Bull. I lived through the 80's. I had to argue my way through the entire decade defending my love of The Beach Boys. Because of critical and musical reappreciation en masse, I don't have to do that any more. They had cred, of course, but they had no stret cred whatsoever, for many years. You're no historian.

[Cam Mott]

And again, THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE MEASURE TO THE QUALITY OF A RECORD!  

And again, there is an objective measure to the subjective quality of a record, you and I may not always personally agree with its measure but that doesn't make it invalid.

We will just disagree.

[Cam Mott]

Bull. I lived through the 80's. I had to argue my way through the entire decade defending my love of The Beach Boys. Because of critical and musical reappreciation en masse, I don't have to do that any more. They had cred, of course, but they had no stret cred whatsoever, for many years. You're no historian.

Well, "street cred" is no necessary or noble goal to me, so I guess the BBs are lucky you were there in the 80s. And you're right, I'm no historian but I guess you are?

[Jeff Mason]

And again, THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE MEASURE TO THE QUALITY OF A RECORD!  

And again, there is an objective measure to the subjective quality of a record, you and I may not always personally agree with its measure but that doesn't make it invalid.

We will just disagree.

Disagree we will then.  But I have at least shown evidence as to why I disagree, whereas I see no evidence in your assertions.  There is no way on earth, no matter how well they chart in the Top 50 of the 70's, that "Tonight's the NIght" or "Do You Think I'm Sexy" are all time classics.  Yes, people bought them.  I don't know why.  There is no way humans should be able to listen to anything by Lionel Richie without spontaneous vomiting destroying their system.  And somehow a duet with Diana Ross (as if that were any better) manages to top what I assume is a "best of the first half of the 80's" chart.  I can't explain it.  I also know that those songs don't get heard anymore, while I hear less popular Beach Boys music everywhere I go.  It's not about initial sales which can mean anything, it's about what people want to listen to years after the fact.  And that sort of can be measured by sales (certainly the BB back catalog is a big seller relative to other artists) to SOME extent.  But I rest my case with Sunflower.  It's my favorite Beach Boys album.  It rivals Pet Sounds in my mind for their best, certainly better than any of the pre-66 albums in my book.  It was one of the worst sellers that they ever had, and not for lack of promotion.  I am not going to let some arbitrary notion that music has to sell well to be legit ruin my pleasure in listening to that album nor will it cause me to back down from my assessment of its quality.  Sales tell me nothing truthful about Sunflower.

[Dan Lega]

Didn't Salieri make more money than Mozart did?  Yet, whose music do we listen more to today?

Van Gogh barely sold a painting in his life, yet today they sell for millions.  If you only judge Van Gogh's paintings by how much they were worth in his lifetime you're missing the whole story.

What about the story that, I believe, Mo Ostin tells about a disc jockey who says he really likes one of the Beach Boys' new 70's songs.  Mo then asks him if he's going to play it on the radio, and the disc jockey tells him no way, because the Beach Boys aren't hip anymore.  Where is the qualitative musical decision in this?  There is none.  He won't play a Beach Boy record he thinks is great because he thinks as soon as people hear that it's a song written The Beach Boys that they automatically won't like it.


Again, it's as easy as pie to see there is absolutely no way that sales accumulated soon after the completion of a piece of art can be the best and ultimate judge of its worth.


Love and merci,   Dan Lega

[Wilsonista]

That was actually Fred Vail, not Mo Ostin.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

Bull. I lived through the 80's. I had to argue my way through the entire decade defending my love of The Beach Boys. Because of critical and musical reappreciation en masse, I don't have to do that any more. They had cred, of course, but they had no stret cred whatsoever, for many years.

Truth.

I, sad to say, was one of those people.It wasn't until I heard Brian's 88 album, and then Smiley Smile, that I became a fan. Interestingly, this was in 1995, when Brian started his  real comeback.

I remember having to constantly defend my love of the music. Of course, it was funny as hell when I went to my first Brian show in 2004 and met up with some of the same people that used to give me such hell back in high school about it...

[Rerun]

SLC is in my top 10 favourite Beach Boys songs.

That's pretty interesting.  I'd kinda like to see what else you have on that list if that's on there...

[Cam Mott]

Disagree we will then.  But I have at least shown evidence as to why I disagree, whereas I see no evidence in your assertions. 

The charts are self-evident unlike personal opinion.

I'm not discrediting personal opinions or analysis or critical commentary, it is inherent in the charts, but at the personal level is not as objective as charts. Some seem to think that their personal opinion trumps the validity or inherent critical discernment of the charts, maybe I misunderstand them.

In the case of the BBs, after decades of critical analysis, the top charters [mainly in the form of comps] are still judged best and are flying off the shelves and carving a presence in the charts while the two-fers and rarity comps aren't. 

[Jeff Mason]

Disagree we will then.  But I have at least shown evidence as to why I disagree, whereas I see no evidence in your assertions. 

The charts are self-evident unlike personal opinion.

I'm not discrediting personal opinions or analysis or critical commentary, it is inherent in the charts, but at the personal level is not as objective as charts. Some seem to think that their personal opinion trumps the validity or inherent critical discernment of the charts, maybe I misunderstand them.

In the case of the BBs, after decades of critical analysis, the top charters [mainly in the form of comps] are still judged best and are flying off the shelves and carving a presence in the charts while the two-fers and rarity comps aren't. 

So this tells us two things:

1) It is self-evident that "Endless Love" was one of the greatest songs of the 80's.

2) Those of us who prefer the direction of the Beach Boys from 1966-1973 are deluding ourselves and we need to wake up and smell the coffee -- if Sounds of Summer is still selling, it MUST be better than Sunflower or Wild Honey.  The preference of the audience for the hits must mean that it is better.  We are just stupid for not seeing that obvious fact (as if assessment of music quality could EVER be fact).

Sorry, Cam, that is NOT an artistic judgment -- it is a POPULARITY judgment.  It is NOT a critical judgment.  Most people who buy SoS are completely unaware of albums like Sunflower which never got a fair chance to win an audience.  The charts don't reflect people's critical analysis -- it reflects how often someone buys something.  How popular it is.  It is one thing to use this to argue that the BB as a band still have an impact on the national consciousness.  I will not argue that point; it is self-evident.  But I will argue with you all night long if you jump from that to "Sunflower" is not as good an album as a hits comp because it doesn't sell like the regular BB albums do.

And don't get me started about great music that DOESN'T sell.  Ever hear of the Free Design?  A GREAT band that NEVER got the sales they deserved because their label didn't know how to market pop records.  Today no one has heard of them, yet play them for people who love the BB and quite likely they will be fans pretty quickly.  Do I say that their music is worthless today because no one knows who they are?  Is THAT a fair judgment?  Is it fair to judge the relatively poor sales of Kinks music and say that their music is worse than someone else's who sells better (say, Creedence Clearwater Revival)?  The Kinks will win most of those battles in my book according to quality (including a trouncing of CCR) but because of their history in the US and the lack of knowledge of them, according to you they must be considered second rate today because they don't sell as well.

It's about saturation, Cam.  Everyone knows who the BB are and so their music lives.  The Kinks never got that saturation because they were BANNED from the US during the best part of their career.  So do we hold that against them since no one seems to know their music?  And thank God in one case for commercials: because of those the Kinks' lesser known great works are finally being heard by the masses (i.e. Picture Book as an example).

Sorry Cam, sales alone would condemn half of the music I love and relegate us all to being fans of only the biggest acts of all, and the Beatles and the Stones alone would get dull very quickly.  I will leave you to Billboard's catalog charts to decide what music to buy.  Me?  I will continue to revel in some of the great discoveries I am finding by being on the Smile Shop and recognize that using sales alone caused many GREAT albums to be overlooked by dreck that DID sell.

[rb]

All I'm getting out of this thread is that art is art, and commerce is commerce. Sometimes, the two meet. Perhaps Big Macs are the  best food ever ingested by mankind, but it could also be that they are cheap, marketable, easy to obtain and immediate-need-satisfying. Doesn't necessarily mean they're any good. Also doesn't mean that I won't eat the occasional one of 'em, though I tell myself I know better.

I don't think there is ANY objective way to assign artistic quality to anything - except maybe the qualities that others tell me about (and sometimes discuss endlessly.) 

[the captain]

Some seem to think that their personal opinion trumps the validity or inherent critical discernment of the charts...

Of course, for themselves, they're right.

[Jeff Mason]

All I'm getting out of this thread is that art is art, and commerce is commerce. Sometimes, the two meet. Perhaps Big Macs are the  best food ever ingested by mankind, but it could also be that they are cheap, marketable, easy to obtain and immediate-need-satisfying. Doesn't necessarily mean they're any good. Also doesn't mean that I won't eat the occasional one of 'em, though I tell myself I know better.

I don't think there is ANY objective way to assign artistic quality to anything - except maybe the qualities that others tell me about (and sometimes discuss endlessly.) 

Now THAT is a good analogy.  Works for me.

[Cam Mott]

I don't think there is ANY objective way to assign artistic quality to anything - except maybe the qualities that others tell me about (and sometimes discuss endlessly.) 

I think the individuals assign their subjective artistic quality and the charts are an objective measurement of the consensus of those individual assignments.

BWPS wasn't that great imo but I understand by the chart that lots of people disagree and they discerned its artistic merit to a #10 ranking and I feel it deserves the honor and stature that confers, as one of the all-time great albums, regardless of my opinion. My personal opinion [or a consensus of opinion of a miniscule group of the fanbase comprised of us buds on a message board, or historians, or critics, or musicians] does not trump that consensus.

[Jeff Mason]

Cam, that's one way to look at it (though it was #13 actually, #7 in England). 

Here's how I see it:

Did you see the 12 albums that were ranked ABOVE it?  By your reasoning, and this is the killer blow IMO, those 12 albums were all more classic than BWPS.

FWIW I wanted BWPS to chart high.  I wanted it to hit number one.  Not because that would prove anything to anyone, though it probably would (at least to Mike Love) but because of what that would have meant personally to Brian.

[Cam Mott]

Did you see the 12 albums that were ranked ABOVE it?  By your reasoning, and this is the killer blow IMO, those 12 albums were all more classic than BWPS.

I don't remember what they were and you or I might have "voted" no with our non-purchase but yes they were judged better regardless of our individual personal opinions.

[Jeff Mason]

Cam, you are just weird.  I give.  I will leave you with your copies of Eagles Greatest Vol.1 and Ropin the Wind, which you must have - and consider some of the greatest pop music ever - since they are 2 of the top 10 selling albums of all time, and continue to ignore the charts and like what I want to like and take the advice of people who feel the same.  And I suspect that in 50 years the chart sales of the Eagles will mean nothing and they will be a historical footnote, while the Beach Boys will still be adored and studied (and that includes their "esoteric" music).

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

...I own the Eagles Greatest Hits, and am glad it has now outsold Thriller.....*runs*....

[rb]

I think the individuals assign their subjective artistic quality and the charts are an objective measurement of the consensus of those individual assignments.

I still see a difference betwenn 'product' and 'art'. Why assign artistic value to something that doesn't want it, or need it? I mean, if it touches your soul, and sets off complex emotions and thoughts in you, by all means call it art. If everything does that for you, you've a more generous spirit than I. But surely you must agree that with some music heard on the radio, people might be responding not to artistic merit, but to a well-crafted product that satisfies a need (that may have been created by marketing.)

Perhaps we can confer 'art' status on a work when a bunch of fuddy-duddies (I'm not pointing fingers) can gather and chaw the fat about feeling created, creator's intent, etc. - much like the legendary group of experts conferrring perceived magnificence upon an abstract painting which, unbeknownst to them, was actually hung upside down.

[Cam Mott]

I think the individuals assign their subjective artistic quality and the charts are an objective measurement of the consensus of those individual assignments.

I still see a difference betwenn 'product' and 'art'. Why assign artistic value to something that doesn't want it, or need it? I mean, if it touches your soul, and sets off complex emotions and thoughts in you, by all means call it art. If everything does that for you, you've a more generous spirit than I. But surely you must agree that with some music heard on the radio, people might be responding not to artistic merit, but to a well-crafted product that satisfies a need (that may have been created by marketing.)

Perhaps we can confer 'art' status on a work when a bunch of fuddy-duddies (I'm not pointing fingers) can gather and chaw the fat about feeling created, creator's intent, etc. - much like the legendary group of experts conferrring perceived magnificence upon an abstract painting which, unbeknownst to them, was actually hung upside down.

All part of the individual subjectivity and I have a lot of faith in people knowing what they like regardless of marketing.  If marketing and promotion were so influential  it seems to me everything ever released could go to the top of the charts and no popular band would ever go out of favor.

[Jeff Mason]

I have a lot of faith in people knowing what they like regardless of marketing. 

Here is the crux and where we differ the most.  Hoping not to sound too elitest, but I don't share your faith.  Looking at the modern charts, and charts since the mid 80's when the industry really began to settle in and change radio and the career path of musicians, I see tons of junk selling.  The average music buyer today I see as sheep passively accepting what is given to them without critical consideration. 

I mean, how could Lionel Richie, the New Kids on the Block, Sting solo, or the Black Eyed Peas, just to name a few of my hates in music, have had any sort of career unless people liked lowest common denominator music?  Big Mac music indeed, rb.

[♩♬🐸 Billy C ♯♫♩🐇]

I mean, how could Lionel Richie, the New Kids on the Block, Sting solo, or the Black Eyed Peas, just to name a few of my hates in music, have had any sort of career unless people liked lowest common denominator music?  Big Mac music indeed, rb.

Whoa...first time I've *ever* disagreed with you. Okay, you're 100% correct on NKOTB- I mean, that was pure marketing...replace a harmony group made up of black teens (New Edition) with white teens and keep the music exactly the same. Lionel Richie, though...dude had a pretty good voice. Yeah, it's pretty sappy, but good background music for...umm..."shagging". Sting... granted, he was the MAN with the Police (one of my all-time favorite groups, esp. the earlier music), but his solo stuff, although leaning a bit too much towards pseudo-elevator music, still is lot more compositionally interesting than 95% of everyone else. Now the Black Eyed Peas...are much MUCH better than radio would lead you to believe. In a way, they're sort of a poor-man's OutKast; not as groundbreaking as that group, but there's a lot more going on production-wise than your standard hip-hop. When they sample a previous hit, they do it in a way that is unexpected...I mean, they sampled DICK DALE for one of their songs. Pretty ingenious, esp. considering most hip-hop groups stick to sampling material that is easier to rap to (i.e. James Brown). Well, their last album *was* IMHO a pop sell-out, but before that they actually were more towards the territory of groups like A Tribe Called Quest (whose Drummer ?uestLove, happens to be a huge fan of Brian's...).

[Jeff Mason]

You can fill in the gap with any number of marketing-driven music by people with minimal talent.  You could add in Britney, or JLo, or any number of studio-concocted divas chosen for their looks who couldn't survive live without lipsynching.  I just picked acts I hated that I think aren't worthy for the sales/accolades that they get.  Sting is more of a personal thing than a marketing thing, and I have only seen BLP on TV performances, and I have hated every one that I have seen.  I don't see why people enjoy that music, though it does sell so someone must like it.  Can't conceive why.