Red Mosquito

stip wrote:

digster wrote:As an aside, thinking back to some of the PJ debates that have gone on, you've made a fair point that critical consensus doesn't really parallel the 'sky is falling' feel that a lot of fans have about the band's recent output. The fact that critical consensus seems to put The Beatles up there as one of the, if not the, best band ever, doesn't seem to point towards it being due more to their strength as artists more than anything else?

well probably. the artistic strength is what brings you to the dance. But I think the critical reception of the beatles, the degree to which they are revered, the hushed tones in which they are spoken about, the way in which any opinion OTHER than the beatles would need to be carefully justified--the baseline assumption that 'of course it is the beatles, who else would it be' ties into what I'm talking about.


This is not something that I think only exists with the beatles. Look at the response to the pearl jam/led zeppelin thread the other day. Look at the way nirvana is talked about. Look at the way best songs lists are dominated by the 60s and 70s, as if the last several decades have failed to produce a fraction of the same quality music. It's all part of the same phenomena--the way in which the context influences how we think about what we hear.

I think it's also about how much a single quality artist/band can actually make an impact in this day and age to society as a whole. Of course there's always going to be amazing music being produced though.

stip wrote:

Sarah. wrote:Anyone else really curious on stips opinion of Nirvana? Just me? Ok.

I loved nirvana.

For a guy who seems to have such a preference for more traditional male singing voices I find it unusual that you'd love Nirvana which relied so heavily on Cobain's non-traditional singing style. Especially if you don't like Neil Young's voice which would have to be much less harsh on the ears.

Fuzzcharger wrote:

stip wrote:

Sarah. wrote:Anyone else really curious on stips opinion of Nirvana? Just me? Ok.

I loved nirvana.

For a guy who seems to have such a preference for more traditional male singing voices I find it unusual that you'd love Nirvana which relied so heavily on Cobain's non-traditional singing style. Especially if you don't like Neil Young's voice which would have to be much less harsh on the ears.

Stip is a big Tom Waits fan, so I don't think the "traditional male singing voices" thing applies.

I couldn't stand Neil Young's voice for years, but I always liked Nirvana.

stip wrote:

bada wrote:

stip wrote:

digster wrote:

stip wrote:
you keep implying my point is that people are brainwashed into liking the beatles. There has to be something there people will want to listen to. And taste and personal preference is the lion's share of this. But I don't think it's the entire story.

I didn't mean to imply that you think people are brainwashed into liking The Beatles, but it seems clear that the 'mythology' for lack of a better term must do a lot of the lifting if we're going from here...

If the Beatles just broke today they'd be remembered as just another pretty good band. Everyone would talk about how much more talented arcade fire is. and they'd be right.

...to most celebrated rock band ever, right? I think that's a pretty large gulf.

it is, and in fairness my comment about arcade fire may just reflect my personal disinterest in the beatles

If George Washington was born today he'd be just another red neck with bad teeth. The timeline is pretty important. There would be no Arcade Fire without the Beatles.

sure. the historical importance and cultural significance of the beatles cant really be challenged. My argument is that this historical and cultural significance predisposes us to continue to like them more than the music might warrant in a vacuum.

That's kind of hard to do since you can listen to an incredibility high percentage of songs today and pick out the Beatles influence. They are more than a spoke on the wheel as Harmless contends. They are the wheel and everyone afterwards is the treads.

being first is really just of historical importance. they are not the whole wheel.

bada wrote:They are the wheel and everyone afterwards is the treads.

This sentence sums up everything that is wrong with a lot of people's perception of the Beatles.

bada wrote:

stip wrote:

bada wrote:

stip wrote:

digster wrote:

stip wrote:
you keep implying my point is that people are brainwashed into liking the beatles. There has to be something there people will want to listen to. And taste and personal preference is the lion's share of this. But I don't think it's the entire story.

I didn't mean to imply that you think people are brainwashed into liking The Beatles, but it seems clear that the 'mythology' for lack of a better term must do a lot of the lifting if we're going from here...

If the Beatles just broke today they'd be remembered as just another pretty good band. Everyone would talk about how much more talented arcade fire is. and they'd be right.

...to most celebrated rock band ever, right? I think that's a pretty large gulf.

it is, and in fairness my comment about arcade fire may just reflect my personal disinterest in the beatles

If George Washington was born today he'd be just another red neck with bad teeth. The timeline is pretty important. There would be no Arcade Fire without the Beatles.

sure. the historical importance and cultural significance of the beatles cant really be challenged. My argument is that this historical and cultural significance predisposes us to continue to like them more than the music might warrant in a vacuum.

That's kind of hard to do since you can listen to an incredibility high percentage of songs today and pick out the Beatles influence. They are more than a spoke on the wheel as Harmless contends. They are the wheel and everyone afterwards is the treads.

What about everyone before? You think The Beatles redefined everything about previous rock music? Because I sure as hell don't, and I don't think it's disingenuous to point that out. They put a few pretty spectacular spokes in the wheel of the rock music tradition. But the wheel was not square before they came along. It was always round.

This is all going to be vastly oversimplified but basically my point is this (and I hope this is clear. Mia is being fussy and it's hard for me to think when she's like that):

We have a tendency to assume that people develop preferences and make decisions in an acontextual vacuum. This assumption goes back hundreds of years. Most of our political assumptions are built around this fact. All of modern economics was built upon this assumption. Most of modern philosophy was built upon this assumption.

Unfortunately, we now know that this is wrong. Neuropsychology has been pretty thorough on this score. But society hasn't really caught up to this, despite some of these people winning nobel prizes and having massively high scientific metacritic scores. Why is complicated, but probably because people don't like having to rebuild all their epistemic foundations, let alone all the social institutions that are built upon them.

What we do know (for now, anyway) is that before we ever make a choice in important ways that choice was premade for us, by the subconscious assumptions we are bringing to bear whenever we absorb information. I don't want to overdetermine this. People still make choices and develop preferences. But the preferences developed and choices made are HEAVILY influenced by the hidden assumptions that surround that existing information.

So in the case of the Beatles, knowing that they are the great untouchable rock band, the founders of modern rock, the greatest band of all time, the finest melodies of all time, the greatest song writers, the one unquestioned assumption in rock music--knowing all this before you listen will prime you to like them OR like them even more. Even beyond that, there is a psychological compulsion everyone has (to greater or lesser degrees) to want to confirm the existing biases and prejudices of the group.

This won't make you like the beatles independent of the music. But it quite possibly could make you like the more, and because this is all subconscious you will experience it as an authentic preference. And it is. Given the context it reflects your genuine preference. BUT, your genuine preference is still nevertheless influenced by that context. If that context changed a beatles fan would still probably like the Beatles. But the fact that they would be just another band would mean they wouldn't be enhanced by the beatles mythology. They become just another band, evaluated solely on their merits, independent of all those other variables.

Again, this is EVERYTHING, not just music, and not just the beatles. But if you want, look at how a pearl jam fan (like myself) will respond to lightning bolt in a way that is totally disproportionate to how someone who is not invested in pearl jam's mythology like I am might react to the album. I HAVE to like it for this to be relevant at all, but if I do I am in all probability going to be liking it at least slightly out of proportion to its merits (assuming that's something you can measure--but we all seem to think it at least kind of is)

It is much easier to observe this phenomena from the outside then from the inside, because they aren't necessarily your assumptions. You can see the mythology as mythology

Stip's schtick used to be "Metacritic says I'm right". Now it's "neuropsychology says I'm right". Not sure which I prefer.

Fuzzcharger wrote:

stip wrote:

Sarah. wrote:Anyone else really curious on stips opinion of Nirvana? Just me? Ok.

I loved nirvana.

For a guy who seems to have such a preference for more traditional male singing voices I find it unusual that you'd love Nirvana which relied so heavily on Cobain's non-traditional singing style. Especially if you don't like Neil Young's voice which would have to be much less harsh on the ears.

I didn't realize I had a preference for traditional male singing voices. My four favorite singers are Eddie Vedder, Michael Stipe, Tom Waits, and Mark Lanegan. I actually really loved listtening to Bill Corgan for at least a couple of albums.

theplatypus wrote:Stip's schtick used to be "Metacritic says I'm right". Now it's "neuropsychology says I'm right". Not sure which I prefer.

Can I point out how disingenuous this post is?

harmless wrote:

theplatypus wrote:Stip's schtick used to be "Metacritic says I'm right". Now it's "neuropsychology says I'm right". Not sure which I prefer.

Can I point out how disingenuous this post is?

If you do, I won't throw a tantrum.

theplatypus wrote:Stip's schtick used to be "Metacritic says I'm right". Now it's "neuropsychology says I'm right". Not sure which I prefer.

all I ever said about metacritic was that it was maybe an external check to the mass psychology of the pearl jam community.

besides, I obviously need to back off metacritic after they ranked lightning bolt as equal to fucking riot act

(brief thoughts here as I'm on my phone)

stip wrote:Look at the way best songs lists are dominated by the 60s and 70s, as if the last several decades have failed to produce a fraction of the same quality music.

If we're talking pop and rock music generally, I think that's largely because bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin got there first and, in a lot cases, did it better.

You're never going to see a band like Pearl Jam revered in the same way; they do what they do very well but there's nothing truly innovative happening, it's just a synthesis of things other bands have already done.

My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, for example, is cited more frequently as an important album than Ten or Vs are (and for good reason).

theplatypus wrote:

harmless wrote:

theplatypus wrote:Stip's schtick used to be "Metacritic says I'm right". Now it's "neuropsychology says I'm right". Not sure which I prefer.

Can I point out how disingenuous this post is?

If you do, I won't throw a tantrum.

I'm not sure which version of this post I prefer.

theplatypus wrote:

harmless wrote:

theplatypus wrote:Stip's schtick used to be "Metacritic says I'm right". Now it's "neuropsychology says I'm right". Not sure which I prefer.

Can I point out how disingenuous this post is?

If you do, I won't throw a tantrum.

Um, OK?

Birds in Hell wrote:(brief thoughts here as I'm on my phone)

stip wrote:Look at the way best songs lists are dominated by the 60s and 70s, as if the last several decades have failed to produce a fraction of the same quality music.

If we're talking pop and rock music generally, I think that's largely because bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin got there first and, in a lot cases, did it better.

You're never going to see a band like Pearl Jam revered in the same way; they do what they do very well but there's nothing truly innovative happening, it's just a synthesis of things other bands have already done.

My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, for example, is cited more frequently as an important album than Ten or Vs are (and for good reason).

this is equating innovation and quality, and the two may go together often, but they're not identical. I think we tend to assume that they are far too often, which is why we revere the past.

Aristotle was a far more innovative physicist than probably anyone working today. But I wouldn't want to ride in a car he designed.

I wonder how close I am in this thread to redeeming myself in KD's eyes.

stip wrote:

Birds in Hell wrote:(brief thoughts here as I'm on my phone)

stip wrote:Look at the way best songs lists are dominated by the 60s and 70s, as if the last several decades have failed to produce a fraction of the same quality music.

If we're talking pop and rock music generally, I think that's largely because bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin got there first and, in a lot cases, did it better.

You're never going to see a band like Pearl Jam revered in the same way; they do what they do very well but there's nothing truly innovative happening, it's just a synthesis of things other bands have already done.

My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, for example, is cited more frequently as an important album than Ten or Vs are (and for good reason).

this is equating innovation and quality, and the two may go together often, but they're not identical. I think we tend to assume that they are far too often, which is why we revere the past.

Aristotle was a far more innovative physicist than probably anyone working today. But I wouldn't want to ride in a car he designed.

"Quality" in this context is entirely subjective, however.