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Beethoven sucks at #
music - quite a title and not really what this video is about. But he sure does have point in asking (and explaining!) who decides what's good music and what's not.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=z-ehoBvAepoMy dad is very picky in what he likes, but I suspect that a lot of what he likes is because of the status among the elite. He can't bear to listen to anything that has an electric guitar or -the horror- drums in it, let alone a singer that doesn't have an official diploma of some highly reputed conservatory.
I'm glad I forgot some things from my upbringing, such as "there's only classical music". So glad I did open up for other (completely other) styles too. I remember when my mother bought two #
ABBA albums in the early eighties, that was an act of rebellion, but I loved it. Still do, I don't think there are more than a handful of ABBA songs I can't sing along with.
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Nirvana bad? According to my dad: most certainly, that's utter crap. He wouldn't even call it music. And I admit I didn't immediately fall for it either, but what I did do, was listen to what played, trying to feel what happened. And -surprise surprise- that music started to get "better'.
Sure, if you compare Polly to, say, Bach's Matthäus Passion, the former is shockingly simple: chorus, refrain, chorus, refrain, and at most some 5 different chords. But, and that's what people sometimes forget, complexity doesn't make music good. Not automatically, at least.
Barber's Adagio for Strings (
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=WAoLJ8GbA4Y ) isn't particulary complex either, but it did make it to one of the most recognisable musical themes of the 20th century. Lloyd Webber has composed some complex music, but most people don't like it, possibly because they don't know it and certainly don't "feel" it.
I remember when my parents were in the choir for the Dutch premiere of Lloyd Webber's #
Requiem, it was the most horrible music I'd ever heard. For those who are adventurous: here's the entire requiem that I heard over and over again when my parents were studying their parts:
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=QjVK1d-l12kBut, exactly as what happened years later when I heard Nirvana over and over again (one of my room mates kept playing it), eventually I started to recognise things and the music became beautiful. So, when I first heard it, it was terrible music. But after hearing it a number of times, it became really good.
Was I wrong the first time, or am I wrong now? When is music good or not good?
For me good music is just like good whisky: if you like it, it's good.
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