Does "greatness" in music exist, and if so what defines it?

[Lotus-Eater]

Greatness in music is a very difficult thing to distinguish.

A large portion is without question the listener and what they like.

Longevity is absolutely another factor. And so is impact on the industry itself.

But to single out one or two exact things and say "this is what distinguishes musical greatness" is not fair to the musicians or the listeners.

I've gotten in to many debates with my friends and family over the years on this issue and the bottom line is "to each his own"

I've had people as I'm sure some of you have heard people as well make silly comments like "Led Zeppelin sucks" or "Pink Floyd sucks" or this band or that band is over rated.

Many different things make music "great" some we all agree on some we don't.

For instance, to me Country and Hip Hop music are horrible. My opinion. I don't like either genre.

But some people love it. It really boils down to a matter of opinion.

And opinions are like assholes, everybody got one.

 

[Lotus-Eater]

What makes music great?

If it gets your blood flowing......That's all I need.....

 

[waif]

Mattson...you voted wrong.
This whole thing is relative and they're all valid choices...except that one.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Relativity - this is what I voted for because, while the other factors certainly play a role, none of them can fully dictate that any person will absolutely enjoy a certain band. There are plenty of people who hate The Beatles. That fact alone discredits the factors of Influence, Popularity and Dedication. One cannot truly enjoy a band because of any of the above factors, rather it is all up to their subjective experience. Each person's appreciation for those factors vary exclusively from each other.

If anyone says they enjoy bands for any other reason more than that the music causes them pleasure, then they are fooling themselves.

Is it really necessary that every last person enjoy a band in order for it to be great? It's still possible to respect a band without liking it - and if you happen to not like any bands similar to the band in question, I think intellectual honesty dictates that you admit that there are great bands you don't like.

Those who think so are wrong. If we compare it to a lemon, we can say a lemon definitely has more c-vitamins than a potatoe, that's how it is. For us to be objective there can't exist anything between 0-100%, in Picasso's case some people like his work and some don't so 0% or 100% can't be established, thus excluding the chance of Picasso being universally good.

Again, you're not considering the reasons people have for disliking a band. If someone is pre-disposed to hate anything even close to what a certain artist produces, that person isn't really in a position to meaningfully evaluate the artist's work.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

people don't seem to realise 'greatness' is just a word defined by the way people apply it in communication. 'greatness' derives its definition from common usage of the word 'greatness'. i suggest that if you want to know what 'greatness' in music is, you must look at beethoven and mozart, i doubt any other artist has been labelled as great so widely and unanimously. there's simply no other way of understanding the word in this context. the idea of some objective contextless absolute greatness is ridiculous because it necessitates the possibility of stepping outside the self.

I think you could objectively say that Einstein was a great scientist, if for no other reason than that he had far more talent for scientific thought than most people do. People can have talent in all sorts of things, and I believe some of those talents exist within the scope of music.

 

[Black Friday]

I am offended that I can't put both talent and passion. Talent makes you good, but passion w/ talent makes you great.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

The poll is for the single greatest factor. I made it that way because allowing multiple options would turn the poll into a giant clusterfuck, and would probably be less informative than it is in its current format.

Regardless, the poll doesn't have to cover every nuance of people's opinions on the matter. That's what posting in the thread is for.

 

[CAIRATH]

I think you could objectively say that Einstein was a great scientist, if for no other reason than that he had far more talent for scientific thought than most people do. People can have talent in all sorts of things, and I believe some of those talents exist within the scope of music.

I don't think the Einstein analogy really works.

Science is by its very definition a quantifiable and objective discipline. Scientific theories can be objectively established to be correct (tentatively atleast, as all scientific theories ultimately are) and it is also not that difficult to measure how important or influential a given theory or discovery is within its field. Mainly because scientific advancement largely relies on working off previous discoveries made by others. So in that context you can pretty objectively state who is a great scientist and who isn't based on the correctness and importance of their work. "Greatness" has a defined meaning within the context of science because the definition of science itself provides that meaning.

Art on the other hand barely even has a workable definition (certainly not a universally agreed upon definition), let alone one that actually implies a way to quantify or measure "greatness". So ultimately I don't see how "greatness" in art can ever be anything but subjective.

 

[Demonic viscera]

The more i listen to bands i find that they get better with age. If a band is able to survive over five years then they are definetly on to something. Although many a bands have put out one album thta rocked and then disapeared.

 

[Lotus-Eater]

Timing has a lot to do with it as well.

 

[cookiecutter]

I don't think the Einstein analogy really works.

I agree. If for example you said that you preferred Aristotelian physics to Relativity, you would be a retard, but that would not be the case for two bands.

 

[Death Aflame]

I think it all comes back to a relationship of genre (style, form, etc.) and the work in question. For instance, The Faceless is shitty death metal, it fails at doing anything significant within or without the generic conventions to which it ascribes, whereas something like The Red in the Sky is Ours literally extends the constraints of generic form through nuanced vertical (layering, tracks upon tracks) and horizontal (structural significance and coherence) composition.

This does not mean that The Faceless is worthless in its entirety, it could still be deemed worthy to those unfamiliar with (or those who choose to ignore) the genre to which the band belongs. It is therefore, not objectively shitty within a wider cultural context, but within a narrowed light its value is wholly relative to the works that exist alongside it.

This I think is why--at least in part--it is impossible to simply come up with the best metal albums of all time (for example), but much easier to determine within a more narrowed context (i.e. Gothenburg, 2nd Wave Black Metal, etc.).

I also think Bordieu's theories of cultural capital and the gatekeepers of taste has relevance here in the construction (structuralism) of a perceived objective canon of sorts across an entire art form.

 

[Zephyrus]

Is it really necessary that every last person enjoy a band in order for it to be great? It's still possible to respect a band without liking it - and if you happen to not like any bands similar to the band in question, I think intellectual honesty dictates that you admit that there are great bands you don't like.

Respect must pass a test of time just a does popularity. People who don't like The Beatles respect them because the decades of musical history thenceforth owes its very significance to their craft. That example can apply to Black Sabbath and any classic band who influenced genres and subgenres of music.

 

[Black Friday]

The poll is for the single greatest factor. I made it that way because allowing multiple options would turn the poll into a giant clusterfuck, and would probably be less informative than it is in its current format.

Regardless, the poll doesn't have to cover every nuance of people's opinions on the matter. That's what posting in the thread is for.

Haha, I was really kinda kidding around. Need to learn to use that damn smiley more often.

 

[Black Friday]

The poll is for the single greatest factor. I made it that way because allowing multiple options would turn the poll into a giant clusterfuck, and would probably be less informative than it is in its current format.

Regardless, the poll doesn't have to cover every nuance of people's opinions on the matter. That's what posting in the thread is for.

Haha, I was really kinda kidding around. Need to learn to use that damn smiley more often.

Also, I agree with what Zeph said. I don't like the Beatles and only like a certain era of Black Sabbath, but I still respect both bands.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Respect must pass a test of time just a does popularity. People who don't like The Beatles respect them because the decades of musical history thenceforth owes its very significance to their craft. That example can apply to Black Sabbath and any classic band who influenced genres and subgenres of music.

Yeah, it's usually not too controversial to call highly influential bands great. Of course, not all great bands are highly influential, so there's still something missing from the equation.

If we assume that the reputation of a band relative to its contemporaries levels out over time (which seems very plausible considering how much exposure many older or more obscure bands get through the Internet), you could simply query people who listen to bands from a certain time period which has outlived the fads of its time, and then find out which bands of that time period people tend to prefer listening to. I think this would give a pretty good indication of the quality of a band.

Of course, it would only give a pretty good indication for bands of a certain age. Such a survey technique would not paint as accurate a picture for recent bands, since many/most of them are subject to contemporary cultural trends. It has yet to be determined whether people will remain interested in many currently-novel forms of music once their novelty wears off and they become replaced with other styles. For all we know, even the most brutal and intense of today's extreme metal will sound incredibly dated in 40 or 50 years.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't agree that "greatness" in music is relative. That's bullshit. People can dislike a band all they want, but that doesn't necessarily change the fact that the band possesses "greatness."

Pink Floyd; people can hate them all they want, that doesn't change the fact that there's something innately remarkable about their art. There are certain things that you can't argue. A large number of people you talk to will say they love Floyd and that somehow the band changed their life. Just because some people hate the band and see nothing special about them doesn't diminish their greatness.

I really don't like that whole "art is relative" argument. Some art is clearly "great."

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Finally, someone who understands.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I simply can't agree.

 

[AchrisK]

I picked talent, the most important of which I feel is songwriting. I do not think a talentless band can generate great music, but I do think a talented band can produce ungreat music.

So how important is popularity in defining the level of greatness in a band? I think it is clearly not an automatic indicator, but is it more indicative than metalheads tend to think of it as? Why was quality music popular in the mid-late 60's and 70's? Was that not the "top 40" of the day? So is there a level of popularity just below "pop" that indicates greatness? Has all the music that is popular always been great?

IMO "pop" has typically not been great. Some probably has, but most is just simple enough to be the background sound of choice for the tweens/teens/young adults of the age.