The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I went to Goodwill for the first time in a long time yesterday, and I found a crapload (okay, service for 6) of dishes that match a pattern I'm collecting. For like $9. Wooot. I love the random pricing of Goodwill. Tonight, I'm going to my friend Jennifer's birthday celebration. It should be good.

QOTD: Is it an important question whether some works of art are better than others? Explain.

I'm not as sick as I have been this week. I think I'm ok to go out tonight.

qotd: Not on a personal level. I hate many classic works of a literature, but I still recognize their impact. I hate reading Chaucer, but I understand the importance of reading Chaucer. All art builds on past art or reacts to past art in one way or another. Art is simply communication. There is no good or bad communication. All communication is a little fucked. But there is some communication that lingers, I suppose. Am I making sense?

edit: I am going to use the word communication in place of art.

So some communication may resonate longer and deeper than other communication. Sometimes, I don't want anyone to communicate. I just want to laugh or something. Or feel something.

I will use the word art again.

I don't turn to art for the answers or for some revelation. Sometimes those things present themselves. It doesn't always have to be this way. I have different moods. Sometimes it's better to feel something from the art and learn nothing new about life. There is a time for all art (except that art which is poorly communicated). Donnie Darko is bad art. It says, "I am communicating something." But it communicates nothing. It wants to say, "I hate the world. I hate parents and teachers. I hate being a teenager. I want something." It is incomplete communication.

I think my pre and post-edit words say completely different things. Maybe there's a connection.

Working. Tonight I'm setting up for a Saturday afternoon show. Then I'm in for the night. Homemade pizza.


QotD: Hmm. Knowing what you like and what you don't is of personal benefit. Knowing what groups of people like and what they don't is of societal benefit. But like any information, the results of these analyses are as likely to be misinterpreted and misused as they are to serve a constructive purpose.

I might go out myself tonight... I need a hair cut and I'm seriously considering dying my hair black...like tomorrow. The Funeral Dazies have like 7 shows in two months and I want to dumb down my part of the gimmick a little. I think dying my hair, while hard... in the long run will be easier.

qotd: Of course there is better art than other art? Explain? Easy, my tastes are better than yours. (because obviously poop smeared on a white canvas is just about as artsy as light silver balloons floating around under a fan)

qotd:

There's a fine line between "determining" whether a work of art is important and "observing" it as so. One has to do with evaluation of its merits, the other with evaluating society's response. I think this is the difficulty people have with folk art or primitive art. Or Jackson Pollock, for that matter. But often one is dependent on the other.

Just thought I'd muddy the waters again...

roymond wrote:qotd:

There's a fine line between "determining" whether a work of art is important and "observing" it as so. One has to do with evaluation of its merits, the other with evaluating society's response. I think this is the difficulty people have with folk art or primitive art. Or Jackson Pollock, for that matter. But often one is dependent on the other.

Just thought I'd muddy the waters again...

Yeah... as to chunk music into into the art discussion ..right? Beethoven was way better artwork than the sex pistols!

NO WAY DO0D... Pistols are responsible for modern punk sounds
NO WAY DO0D... There'd be no Pistols if it wasn't for Bethoven

Then somebody inevitably brings up Mozart...

Lesson learned? ITS ALL RELATIVE.

Hoblit wrote:NO WAY DO0D... There'd be no Pistols if it wasn't for Bethoven

Yeah. See, when people say things like that I'm just like uh.....

I fail to see the connection between Sex Pistols and Beethoven except for punk being a response to formalism.

I don't know how useful it is to answer the question unless we know what "better" means.
-bill

HeuristicsInc wrote:I don't know how useful it is to answer the question unless we know what "better" means.
-bill

Look at the last line of my last post.

No, that doesn't help. Better how? In what way? Of course it's relative. But what is it?
-bill

Use whatever generally-accepted definition of the adjective "better" you like.

Yes, some art is better than other art.

For one to appreciate a piece of art on anything other than a totally visceral knee-jerk level, one has to understand the context and forces at play at the time and place the art was created. That is to say that you can't recognize good art just by looking at it. Whoa.

Hanging a urinal on a wall and calling it art would only work in Duchamp's time, within the context of the then-current nature of the art world and art community.

It is different when you are evaluating say, paintings on velvet. In that case, the most important question is whether or not it goes with your sofa. But then we were talking about art, right?

I will leave it at that and see if anyone cares to debate further. I am ready.

SPUD

Spud wrote:Yes, some art is better than other art.

Is it important to classify art using words like "better" and "worse", as opposed to using words like "I like this" and "I don't like this"?

I'm back from vacation, could have used a few more days.
Got back to see my "How Much" song isn't reviewing well.
Oh well, it moves me in a bowel kind of way.
Ah, whatchya gonna do?...well, besides make better songs.
I'm using this song in a video I'm doing that I think is very fitting.
I'll post it when I'm done.

QOTD:
If I like a work of art, then it's good. If I don't, then it's not. To each his/her own I guess. True art speaks for it's self and will last forever, even if it's forgotten.

Spud wrote:For one to appreciate a piece of art on anything other than a totally visceral knee-jerk level...

But a totally visceral knee-jerk level is an entirely valid level of art appreciation, right alongside academic "trained" appreciation. I don't feel art needs to compete on a level playing field.

I'm going to spit out some not carefully edited thoughts.

I think:

a) some art is better than other art
b) yes it is an important question
c) yes, it is different to say "I like this" I don't like that"

a) It is difficult to evaluate what makes some art better than other art, especially when it is contemporary. but consider longevity - why are we still listening to the likes of mozart, beethoven, the beatles, and the sex pistols in lieu of most of their contemporaries? I believe it is because of their ability to create superior art. Defining art is of course itself a bugaboo, as Duchamp himself may have been trying to point out (or john Cage for that matter). But it seems to me that it has to do with a an ability to create a combination of aesthetic, emotional, and visceral response.

b) Art is essential to humanity, to ignore the question is to deny exploration of that component.

c) I can think of great art I don't like - For instance, I don't think I'd ever like to see the movie 7 again, although I believe it was a great piece of art. On the other hand - if we put up "what do lots of people like?" we get Brittany spears and Austin powers. Occasionally there is a happy marriage as in the case of the beatles, Verdi, and the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

If you disagree with me, I suppose you can just chalk it up to the fact that we like different opinions on this subject.

Yesterday was all about Niveous. I worked on his Wishlist cover song, and did another little thing i am doing for him. Then I had a couple of Rums with Legs and finally got her to have a crack at Guitar Hero 2. She actually picked it up pretty fast, and made it to the Blackout Room in Easy Single Player in about an hour. She was disappointed that there was no Encores in Easy, which meant she couldn't play War Pigs, so single player was abandoned in favour of doing War Pigs and Cherry Pie.

QOTD: I hate the word art. It has so much stigma attached to it nowdays. But I suppose the question whether some art is better than others is an important one. If we couldn't distinguish between the important and unimportant art, then how would the art thieves know what to rip off?

this was a long week

work keeps me very busy

plus side: we get monday off (Columbus day! i haven't gotten Columbus day off since I was like 7!)

i think i'm gonna go sleep now

qotd: importance is multi-axial. it's important to know which axes are important. the importance of the axes depends on the context in which the importance is required, however. so importance is also meta-important.

almost 1am in boston. 2 outs. bottom of the ninth. tie score. runners at first and second. crowd is going nuts. manny ramirez. manny fucking ramirez. crushes the ball completely over the green monster and out of fenway. 90% of the time watching baseball is boring as shit for me and usually is accompanied by a nap on the couch but this game was one for the ages.

sox up 2-0. yanks down 2-0. where's mo?


qotd: if better means "more commercial", or "commercially viable" (able to leap large demographics in a single bound) not very important.

if better is just a matter of opinion and taste, not very important because mine is already better.

if better means my song is better than yours, it's important.

erik wrote:

Spud wrote:Yes, some art is better than other art.

Is it important to classify art using words like "better" and "worse", as opposed to using words like "I like this" and "I don't like this"?

It is not important to use those words, no. But there are absolutes. The quality, relevance, and ultimately the importance of a piece of art has nothing to do with whether you or I like it or not.

roymond wrote:

Spud wrote:For one to appreciate a piece of art on anything other than a totally visceral knee-jerk level...

But a totally visceral knee-jerk level is an entirely valid level of art appreciation, right alongside academic "trained" appreciation. I don't feel art needs to compete on a level playing field.

I was not intending to put down visual appreciation. I was simply pointing out that there is much more to it than that.

that was the worst fucking nap ever