xfer said:i don't think you should cite the number of opeth fans as evidence against toby's argument, though.
yeah but i would wonder about the significance of his argument, valid or not, if it's indeed true that a mass of people are loving Opeth music. we can grant that Opeth music is "cut and paste" (i disagree) but that still wouldn't say much about the value of their music other than the idea that some song is "cut and paste" on some relative scale. i'm mostly arguing that the "cut and paste" criticism is a meaningless one; i'm not so much arguing over whether it's accurate or not.
btw, on another note, Leonard Berstein basically said the same thing of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. in that you can take any segment of the composition, rearrange it, and it wouldn't make much difference. it's sort of true (sort of not true also) but does it matter?
i'll leave that part in.