Red Mosquito

Farmer John wrote:Leatherman is one of my favourites, but is it one of their best songs? No.

Why not?

Dig down on this line of thinking enough and you'll see how it doesn't actually make a ton of sense

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:Leatherman is one of my favourites, but is it one of their best songs? No.

Why not?

Dig down on this line of thinking enough and you'll see how it doesn't actually make a ton of sense

Ok, but then dig down even deeper from there and it will once again make perfect sense.

Farmer John wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:Leatherman is one of my favourites, but is it one of their best songs? No.

Why not?

Dig down on this line of thinking enough and you'll see how it doesn't actually make a ton of sense

Ok, but then dig down even deeper from there and it will once again make perfect sense.

Why don't you consider "Leatherman" one of their best songs if it's one of your favorites?

theplatypus wrote:There is no good way to objectively determine "best".

This is the obvious answer. I bet we all understand the thinking (feeling) behind the "I love this song but it's not their best." But there really is never a "best."

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:Leatherman is one of my favourites, but is it one of their best songs? No.

Why not?

Dig down on this line of thinking enough and you'll see how it doesn't actually make a ton of sense

Ok, but then dig down even deeper from there and it will once again make perfect sense.

Why don't you consider "Leatherman" one of their best songs if it's one of your favorites?

I'm struggling to come up with a good answer to that, so you might be right.

I would probably have it in my top 20 personal "favourite" Pearl Jam songs, but it just doesn't feel like a song that should be on a list of the very best Pearl Jam songs.

Farmer John wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:Leatherman is one of my favourites, but is it one of their best songs? No.

Why not?

Dig down on this line of thinking enough and you'll see how it doesn't actually make a ton of sense

Ok, but then dig down even deeper from there and it will once again make perfect sense.

Why don't you consider "Leatherman" one of their best songs if it's one of your favorites?

I'm struggling to come up with a good answer to that, so you might be right.

I would probably have it in my top 20 personal "favourite" Pearl Jam songs, but it just doesn't feel like a song that should be on a list of the very best Pearl Jam songs.

The word best is the problem. It actually paints to broad of a stroke and be used multiple ways. Craft as Stip said is a part of it no doubt. In fact it may be said or need to be said in more of a descriptive sentence.
Pearl Jam songs that I enjoy the most, because they move me in some way.
Pearl Jam songsthat I feel reach the highest levels of the bands collective abilities as artists.

I wholeheartedly embrace the inclusion of Leatherman in a list of the very best Pearl Jam songs.

Rob wrote:

theplatypus wrote:There is no good way to objectively determine "best".

This is the obvious answer. I bet we all understand the thinking (feeling) behind the "I love this song but it's not their best." But there really is never a "best."

"Best" might be a bit extreme, but surely we all have guilty pleasures...be it movies, books, music, stuff that we kinda know is shit, but still manages to entertain.

Tj wrote:

Farmer John wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Farmer John wrote:Leatherman is one of my favourites, but is it one of their best songs? No.

Why not?

Dig down on this line of thinking enough and you'll see how it doesn't actually make a ton of sense

Ok, but then dig down even deeper from there and it will once again make perfect sense.

Why don't you consider "Leatherman" one of their best songs if it's one of your favorites?

I'm struggling to come up with a good answer to that, so you might be right.

I would probably have it in my top 20 personal "favourite" Pearl Jam songs, but it just doesn't feel like a song that should be on a list of the very best Pearl Jam songs.

The word best is the problem. It actually paints to broad of a stroke and be used multiple ways. Craft as Stip said is a part of it no doubt. In fact it may be said or need to be said in more of a descriptive sentence.
Pearl Jam songs that I enjoy the most, because they move me in some way.
Pearl Jam songsthat I feel reach the highest levels of the bands collective abilities as artists.

But I would say the measure of the subjective quality of any kind of art is how it moves the individual, and that is going to inevitably vary person to person. What other criteria could you use? Technical prowess? Influence? Commercial success? Like I said, there is no good way to determine this in an objective level, and so this experiment falls apart

Thurman Murman wrote:

Rob wrote:

theplatypus wrote:There is no good way to objectively determine "best".

This is the obvious answer. I bet we all understand the thinking (feeling) behind the "I love this song but it's not their best." But there really is never a "best."

"Best" might be a bit extreme, but surely we all have guilty pleasures...be it movies, books, music, stuff that we kinda know is shit, but still manages to entertain.

I know exactly what you mean but I think what this reflects is a kind of insecurity, deferring to consensus and the popular narratives driven by hegemonic tastemakers and cultural gatekeepers that we've all collectively internalized over decades. It's not actually... real

theplatypus wrote:

Thurman Murman wrote:

Rob wrote:

theplatypus wrote:There is no good way to objectively determine "best".

This is the obvious answer. I bet we all understand the thinking (feeling) behind the "I love this song but it's not their best." But there really is never a "best."

"Best" might be a bit extreme, but surely we all have guilty pleasures...be it movies, books, music, stuff that we kinda know is shit, but still manages to entertain.

I know exactly what you mean but I think what this reflects is a kind of insecurity, deferring to consensus and the popular narratives driven by hegemonic tastemakers and cultural gatekeepers that we've all collectively internalized over decades. It's not actually... real

I am willing to watch The Phantom Menace much more often than i am willing to watch Schindler's List. I get a greater enjoyment out of it. But no way do i think its a better movie.

Does this mean that MacGruber might actually be the best movie of all time?

Thurman Murman wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Thurman Murman wrote:

Rob wrote:

theplatypus wrote:There is no good way to objectively determine "best".

This is the obvious answer. I bet we all understand the thinking (feeling) behind the "I love this song but it's not their best." But there really is never a "best."

"Best" might be a bit extreme, but surely we all have guilty pleasures...be it movies, books, music, stuff that we kinda know is shit, but still manages to entertain.

I know exactly what you mean but I think what this reflects is a kind of insecurity, deferring to consensus and the popular narratives driven by hegemonic tastemakers and cultural gatekeepers that we've all collectively internalized over decades. It's not actually... real

I am willing to watch The Phantom Menace much more often than i am willing to watch Schindler's List. I get a greater enjoyment out of it. But no way do i think its a better movie.

If you enjoy it more, then you like it better and thus it is better to you. I don't understand this need to constantly kowtow to critical consensus. It is silly. Like the movie equivalent to rockism

I don't have anything further to add, but theplatypus is 100% on point here.

I'd agree, I find it very difficult to make that differentiation between 'favorite' and 'best.' I wonder if sometimes people gravitate towards calling something the former and not the latter when it doesn't 'feel' like that song should be the best in a band's catalog.

Leatherman is a perfect example; it's this quick, light and absurd narrative about a guy named Leatherman. In a catalog of Black, Given to Fly, Corduroy, etc., maybe it doesn't "feel" like a song like that should be among the band's best.

theplatypus wrote:

Thurman Murman wrote:I am willing to watch The Phantom Menace much more often than i am willing to watch Schindler's List. I get a greater enjoyment out of it. But no way do i think its a better movie.

If you enjoy it more, then you like it better and thus it is better to you. I don't understand this need to constantly kowtow to critical consensus. It is silly. Like the movie equivalent to rockism

I am generally with theplatypus in this thread, but I get Thurman on this. I think the bottom line is that it's all subjective, and that subjectivity can be broken down into categories. I too would watch The Phantom Menace far more than Schindler's List, a movie I may never watch again but which had a profound effect on my life. The reason for the difference in frequency has to do with being in the right headspace for each. That's a big deal. The Phantom Menace is very good pop media, and thus easy to ingest. Schindler's List is very intense political historical art, and how often are people in the mood for that? I don't know if I could even say which is better at what they are doing.

The closest I can get to agreeing with the concept behind this thread is my attitude toward Sirens, a song that I love but feel is a complete compositional mess. And when I do my numerical rankings of PJ songs, that means there is no way I can give Sirens a 5, because I see something very wrong with it. But at the same time, I know I'm being silly and it's pointless to try to assign numbers anyway. The heart wants what the heart wants.

durdencommatyler wrote:

theplatypus wrote:There is no meaningful distinction between "favorite" and "best". There is no good way to objectively determine "best".

That was my point. Thank you.

I think what the OP is talking about is the difference between enjoyment and admiration of craftsmanship. There is a lot of music that I can appreciate as a construction -- Tool, Eminem, most classical music, etc. -- but which I derive no pleasure from listening to. By the same token, there are other things that I don't think are particularly special in any musical, lyrical, or artistic sense, but have managed to hit a sweet spot with me for one reason or another (lots of music from my childhood/adolescence is this way). So I agree that it's finally all subjective, but I do think it's possible to look at a piece of work and acknowledge virtues or shortfalls it possesses that are separate from the gut response you get from it.

Olympic Platinum is the best PJ song

Kevin Davis wrote:I think what the OP is talking about is the difference between enjoyment and admiration of craftsmanship. There is a lot of music that I can appreciate as a construction -- Tool, Eminem, most classical music, etc. -- but which I derive no pleasure from listening to. By the same token, there are other things that I don't think are particularly special in any musical, lyrical, or artistic sense, but have managed to hit a sweet spot with me for one reason or another (lots of music from my childhood/adolescence is this way). So I agree that it's finally all subjective, but I do think it's possible to look at a piece of work and acknowledge virtues or shortfalls it possesses that are separate from the gut response you get from it.

Definitely. If the "quality" of art is completely subjective, then we start to fall into "anything is art." Some people are okay with "anything is art" and some people are not. Personally, I don't think anything is art. If anything is art, then is art really anything at all? Art seems to become simply anything that can illicit some kind of emotional response from anybody. Is ingesting something that fucks up your chemical balance in your brain, thus creating an emotional response, art? I don't think so.