RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

I did it because I like music and wanted to appreciate it on a deeper level.

Music is an art and with art 50% is emotional and subjective and expressive. It can't be quantified or analyzed and can only be vaguely theorized.

Some songs are remarkably simple in composition and structure, but they became "great works" through the emoting of the performer or the significance of their lyrics as emotional expression. Likewise, a piece can be technically brilliant but still utter dreck because it doesn't do anything. It has nothing to say. Also, as I've repeatedly said, with music, film, art, etc. A good 50% of viewers/listeners, do so to experience the emotions of the character/artist. They rate the work on how powerful or fulfilling that emotional experience was. Not on the technical aspect of its composition.

I don't really get BTS, but they're obviously speaking something to some people. I think before we totally trash it, maybe we should listen and understand why the people who like it, like it.

That's like, the definition of insecure.

The definition of insecure is to keep on posting on a thread about music and about how you're right and we're all wrong. 

 

Music is an art and with art 50% is emotional and subjective and expressive. It can't be quantified or analyzed and can only be vaguely theorized.

Are you saying music as a whole can't be quantified or analyzed, or that the part of music that is subjective can't be? If the latter, I'm with you. If the former... not so much.

Music can absolutely by quantified or analyzed, which is really all music theory comes down to. Much like linguistics, music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. Even simple songs can be broken down and described using music theory. Doing so won't tell anyone whether or not a song is "good," obviously, it will just tell them whether or not it conforms to the "rules" of a particular style of music (which often differ wildly, eg. jazz vs polka, or baroque vs mumble rap).

That's not saying that songs that don't conform to standard Western musical practice are "bad" or "wrong," of course, much like African American English isn't "wrong" just because it doesn't follow the same grammatical rules as Standard English.

Well thank god for that!  Please teach us poor, uneducated laymen riff raff more about music so we can enjoy it properly!

The only rule of music- If you like it, listen to it.

Why anyone takes it beyond that and starts judging people and getting all upset that people like different stuff is beyond me.

So the only rule of music is to like,listen to it and shut up about it. Unless you're Demartino who's allowed to write pages slagging off different genres and the people who like them, with impunity

So the only rule of music is to like,listen to it and shut up about it. Unless you're Demartino who's allowed to write pages slagging off different genres and the people who like them, with impunity

I'm not slagging anyone off. I'm simply pointing out how if someone is going to make a bunch of disparaging remarks about Kpopstans, that one could do the same thing about the people slagging them off and that maybe, just maybe, it might cause someone to realize "Hey, bashing people for their taste in music is a crappy thing to do. Maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe there are some gaps in my taste. Maybe I'm doing the same thing that I think they're doing."

Again, if Kpop fans are so bad, how come they're not always on these threads talking about how much other kinds of music suck? Why do you feel the need to do that? They don't. For a bunch of alleged 16 year olds, they sure seem to be more mature about this than some.

I also notice that a lot of the music trash talking almost exclusively begins whenever a boy band is the subject. Doesn't seem to come up as often when girl groups are mentioned. 

Anyway: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/the-science-of-snobbery-how-were-duped-into-thinking-fancy-things-are-better/279571/

I actually, sincerely, without looking at the tiny shorts and midriff tops, think the girl bands are much better. I'm not a fan of pop music in general, and the musicians in the current US or UK Top 10 (if that's still a thing) would be completely mysterious to me. BUT, after months of hardcore resistance and clinging to the belief that Westerners who claimed to like K-Pop were using it as a substitute for personality, some of the girl groups grew on me. In terms of the music simply being catchy, fun and flaunting some genuinely quite interesting production techniques, as well as bonkers music videos, they massively outperform the boy bands. There is no boy band equivalent to BlackPink's "Whistle", for instance. I've yet to see a boy band video as fantastically stoopid as Red Velvet's "Dumb Dumb", or, okay, as sexy as Hyuna's "Red". As someone else said, the boy bands have never left the era of N*Sync and NKOTB. I understand there's a market for that and has been for decades, so fair enough... But I will credit the producers of the girl bands with making music that at least sounds fresh and 21st century, even if it is largely a mishmash of pre-existing genres. For what it is, I think it's done more successfully than most western pop. I'll take Hyuna and Blackpink over Shawn Mendes, Ed Sheeran, Arianna Grande, Maroon 5 or Lady Gaga any day.

Again, if Kpop fans are so bad, how come they're not always on these threads talking about how much other kinds of music suck? Why do you feel the need to do that? They don't. For a bunch of alleged 16 year olds, they sure seem to be more mature about this than some.

You'd have to be deaf to hear that.

Why aren't 16-year-old Korean K-pop fans posting on threads on Waygook?  A website predominantly for foreign native teachers working in Korea?  Is that what you asking as a way to show their maturity about music?  Seriously?  You're asking this?  In bold?   

I did it because I like music and wanted to appreciate it on a deeper level.

Music is an art and with art 50% is emotional and subjective and expressive. It can't be quantified or analyzed and can only be vaguely theorized.

Some songs are remarkably simple in composition and structure, but they became "great works" through the emoting of the performer or the significance of their lyrics as emotional expression. Likewise, a piece can be technically brilliant but still utter dreck because it doesn't do anything. It has nothing to say. Also, as I've repeatedly said, with music, film, art, etc. A good 50% of viewers/listeners, do so to experience the emotions of the character/artist. They rate the work on how powerful or fulfilling that emotional experience was. Not on the technical aspect of its composition.

I don't really get BTS, but they're obviously speaking something to some people. I think before we totally trash it, maybe we should listen and understand why the people who like it, like it.

My students like it because: BTS is handsome and I love them! <- their exact words.

I did it because I like music and wanted to appreciate it on a deeper level.

Music is an art and with art 50% is emotional and subjective and expressive. It can't be quantified or analyzed and can only be vaguely theorized.

Pretty much every professional musician will disagree with you. You get a call from a client, "Hi, we need a track for our laxative commercial by 5pm" You look at the storyboard and it's a guy in discomfort, followed by him being given the product and finally relief. You've got 3hrs to compose, record and mix the track.
From your training, you know exactly how to convey these emotions through sound. Discomfort has a sound and it's very tense and dissonant, ok, so maybe starting with some dominant or augmented chords to give that jaring and uncomfortable feel, the tension builds up to say the min/Maj 7th chord, which you use as a bridge and to convey the idea of discovering a clue, finally it resolves to a basic triad tonic, or a sus2 if you want to add a bit of extra openness. The resolution creates a feeling of relief  and release. If you wanted extra campiness, you could arpeggiate the final chord with a harp to give it that stereotypical light and airy feel. 

Done, you record, mix and send off your work. You get a call back, client loves it, but the melody is to similar to a popular song and the client is afraid of a copyright issues. No problem, you quickly reharmonize the entire track, modulate it a bit and boom, similar thing but somehow different. "How did you do that?" client asks, "magic" you reply, remembering the time your parents thought you were a computer whizz when you turned the router on and off to get the internet back online.

Not just corporate work, you think Vivaldi didn't know exactly what he was doing when he composed the 4-seasons? He knew exactly which emotion and feel he wanted his listener to experience and when. It's no lucky accident that each movement sounds like it's respective season.

Want something to sound contemporary and urban? 7th and 9th chords played on the appropriate timbre
Want something to sound badass? power chords and a well-timed  flat-5 (blue note)
Want to dial up the emotion? Lock the melody right onto the harmony, particularly on the changes and play vertically.

Musicians know all the tricks in the book. They've trained how to make you feel exactly which emotion they want and when.

Movies like to push the idea that composers get their inspiration through dreams, pentagrams painted on the ground, muses, tooth-fairies or whatever, because that's more interesting for the audience to watch. While a story is a very useful starting point, the true creative process of composition is actually rather dull, frustrating, logical and mechanical. 

I never said there was ANYTHING wrong with simple music. Getting the listener to experience what is appropriate, be that the theme for Frozen, which is actually pretty well done, or supremely sour, reharmonized Amazing Grace to a bunch of jazz nerds, that's the TECHNICAL ABILITY of a musician; being able to accurately make the listener feel exactly what they want. You think I'm going to expect people to be impressed at my "technique" by showing off my guitar chops and doing a 200bpm 4-octave sweep during  the wedding march? A musician can use their skills to get the listener to tap their feet to a simple folk song or float away on a dream, whatever is appropriate to the story.

BTS is a product, but still, a pop act. Pop acts like MJ, Madonna, Blondie, The Beatles etc. can rely on a lot more than music to make themselves popular, famous and great. Popular music itself has broad appeal because, from a musical point, it utilizes pretty safe choices. MJ could dance, The Beatles created youth culture, Bowie built on that culture and set trends, so did Madonna. BTS is a carefully formulated act that's incredibly successful. Perhaps it's a cultural difference between East and West. All the Western artists I mentioned innovated on dance, fashion or  cultural scene. BTS is simply carrying the torch.

Again, BTS is extremely popular and they're good at what they do (dominate a market). The worst adjectives I can use to describe them is bland and dull.

You'd have to be deaf to hear that.

Why aren't 16-year-old Korean K-pop fans posting on threads on Waygook?  A website predominantly for foreign native teachers working in Korea?  Is that what you asking as a way to show their maturity about music?  Seriously?  You're asking this?  In bold?   

Fair point, but there are Kpop fans on here amongst ESL teachers. Why aren't they on these threads? And yeah, Just out and about or on twitter I don't see Kpopstans going on other musicians fan pages or twitter accounts and just trashing their music and telling everyone to listen to BTS or whatever.

Regardless, that still doesn't address why some feel the need to do it here. I think Chinguetti was getting towards it when she pointed out how none of the girl groups get ragged on and why, psychologically, people here might get the urge to rant about it. It's similar to the anti-Disco angst.

I'm not slagging anyone off. I'm simply pointing out how if someone is going to make a bunch of disparaging remarks about Kpopstans, that one could do the same thing about the people slagging them off and that maybe, just maybe, it might cause someone to realize "Hey, bashing people for their taste in music is a crappy thing to do. Maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe there are some gaps in my taste. Maybe I'm doing the same thing that I think they're doing."

Yes you are slagging people off. You said people who still bang on about Nirvana should get over it and age gracefully. What's the difference between saying that and saying something like people who still like k pop into their twenties need to grow up a bit, for example. I don't think anyone's saying k pop fans are bad people or anything like that.

Pretty much every professional musician will disagree with you. You get a call from a client, "Hi, we need a track for our laxative commercial by 5pm" You look at the storyboard and it's a guy in discomfort, followed by him being given the product and finally relief. You've got 3hrs to compose, record and mix the track.
From your training, you know exactly how to convey these emotions through sound. Discomfort has a sound and it's very tense and dissonant, ok, so maybe starting with some dominant or augmented chords to give that jaring and uncomfortable feel, the tension builds up to say the min/Maj 7th chord, which you use as a bridge and to convey the idea of discovering a clue, finally it resolves to a basic triad tonic, or a sus2 if you want to add a bit of extra openness. The resolution creates a feeling of relief  and release. If you wanted extra campiness, you could arpeggiate the final chord with a harp to give it that stereotypical light and airy feel. 

Done, you record, mix and send off your work. You get a call back, client loves it, but the melody is to similar to a popular song and the client is afraid of a copyright issues. No problem, you quickly reharmonize the entire track, modulate it a bit and boom, similar thing but somehow different. "How did you do that?" client asks, "magic" you reply, remembering the time your parents thought you were a computer whizz when you turned the router on and off to get the internet back online.

That emotion, feeling, and subjectivism is what separates a forgotten advertising jingle from a successful one. And what separates an advertising jingle from a Top-10 hit. It's not simply structure. There's something beyond it.

He knew exactly which emotion and feel he wanted his listener to experience and when. It's no lucky accident that each movement sounds like it's respective season.

I'd agree and also say that with someone like Vivaldi, he doesn't just "force" or show one emotion. It offers something that allows the listener to project their emotions and also reflect those of the artist. It's why someone may listen to one of the movements for the 4 seasons and have different but equally strong emotional experiences.

While a story is a very useful starting point, the true creative process of composition is actually rather dull, frustrating, logical and mechanical.

While there is certainly an element of this, given the massive amounts of drugs many were on, or the lack of formal music education many musicians have had, you can't discount raw inspiration, experimentation and just jamming. There's certainly a technical foundation, but the creative process for artists and musicians, while it CAN take on a more technical form, does not always do so.

Much of the music of the world has been created by people, often repressed or illiterate, in rough conditions. They didn't have formal theoretical training. They just had their voice and their hands. Or maybe a harmonica or a fiddle or a banjo. And they made music.

I'm not slagging anyone off. I'm simply pointing out how if someone is going to make a bunch of disparaging remarks about Kpopstans, that one could do the same thing about the people slagging them off and that maybe, just maybe, it might cause someone to realize "Hey, bashing people for their taste in music is a crappy thing to do. Maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe there are some gaps in my taste. Maybe I'm doing the same thing that I think they're doing."

Yes you are slagging people off. You said people who still bang on about Nirvana should get over it and age gracefully. What's the difference between saying that and saying something like people who still like k pop into their twenties need to grow up a bit, for example. I don't think anyone's saying k pop fans are bad people or anything like that.

2) Related to the first, if you're going to go down the "their fans are awful and have issues" route, do the rock fans bashing on Kpop really want to go down that route?
3) We're almost at the 30th anniversary of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. Get over it. Time passes you by. Learn to age gracefully.
4) Also, music in the 90s does not stop and start with Nirvana. Just as music in the 60s does not stop and start with the Beatles. Sorry, but Kurt Cobain's death was not the biggest music death of the 90s. That was 2Pac. A figure far bigger and more significant than Cobain and whose genre of music still persists to this day. And Motown was bigger AND better than the Beatles+The Beach Boys+The Rolling Stones. Yeah, I said it.

If no one's saying Kpop fans are bad people, then what is people's beef? Who cares what they listen to? Why does it bother you so much?

Also, not on this thread, but on others people have said that they actually do judge people based on what music they listen to and their character. I know because I've specifically brought up this point and people have said that yes they would judge someone.

Why does it bother you so much?

I'm only seeing one person bothered so much in this thread.

I'm not slagging anyone off. I'm simply pointing out how if someone is going to make a bunch of disparaging remarks about Kpopstans, that one could do the same thing about the people slagging them off and that maybe, just maybe, it might cause someone to realize "Hey, bashing people for their taste in music is a crappy thing to do. Maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe there are some gaps in my taste. Maybe I'm doing the same thing that I think they're doing."

Yes you are slagging people off. You said people who still bang on about Nirvana should get over it and age gracefully. What's the difference between saying that and saying something like people who still like k pop into their twenties need to grow up a bit, for example. I don't think anyone's saying k pop fans are bad people or anything like that.

2) Related to the first, if you're going to go down the "their fans are awful and have issues" route, do the rock fans bashing on Kpop really want to go down that route?
3) We're almost at the 30th anniversary of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. Get over it. Time passes you by. Learn to age gracefully.
4) Also, music in the 90s does not stop and start with Nirvana. Just as music in the 60s does not stop and start with the Beatles. Sorry, but Kurt Cobain's death was not the biggest music death of the 90s. That was 2Pac. A figure far bigger and more significant than Cobain and whose genre of music still persists to this day. And Motown was bigger AND better than the Beatles+The Beach Boys+The Rolling Stones. Yeah, I said it.

If no one's saying Kpop fans are bad people, then what is people's beef? Who cares what they listen to? Why does it bother you so much?

Also, not on this thread, but on others people have said that they actually do judge people based on what music they listen to and their character. I know because I've specifically brought up this point and people have said that yes they would judge someone.

Mate, as with most of these things, it's a little discussion on an online forum. Like stoat says, out of all the replies, yours  appears to be the most annoyed/angry.

Edit: You know, at this stage I would much prefer someone come in here and actually defend Kpop properly. It would be more interesting than this repeat argument you present every 3 months.

IT'S OK TO THINK SOMETHINGS ARE SHITE AND OTHER THINGS AREN'T. Of course kids can like what they want. As if they could ever begin to give 2 shits what me, some mid 30s **** thinks about their musical taste. About the same amount of fukcs I give about their opinions on the new Opeth that came out yesterday. And that's fine.

Edit: You know, at this stage I would much prefer someone come in here and actually defend Kpop properly. It would be more interesting than this repeat argument you present every 3 months.

I already gave a proper defense: If you like it, listen to it.

Nothing more needs to be said when it comes to music.

Why does it bother you so much?

I'm only seeing one person bothered so much in this thread.

"These people's taste in music sucks."
"No it doesn't, why are you so bothered about it?"
"I'm not bothered. You're the one that's bothered."
 

Edit: You know, at this stage I would much prefer someone come in here and actually defend Kpop properly. It would be more interesting than this repeat argument you present every 3 months.

I already gave a proper defense: If you like it, listen to it.

Nothing more needs to be said when it comes to music.

Millennia of art criticism disagrees.

Why does it bother you so much?

I'm only seeing one person bothered so much in this thread.

"These people's taste in music sucks."
"No it doesn't, why are you so bothered about it?"
"I'm not bothered. You're the one that's bothered."
 

Except that the conversation spread over several pages and you wrote by far the most and were most vociferous in defence of your points. Nothing wrong with being passionate about something but don't then claim the person you are arguing against is more angry/passionate as a point scoring manoeuvre. 

Edit: You know, at this stage I would much prefer someone come in here and actually defend Kpop properly. It would be more interesting than this repeat argument you present every 3 months.

I already gave a proper defense: If you like it, listen to it.

Nothing more needs to be said when it comes to music.

Millenniums of art criticism disagrees.

Millennia of art criticism disagree?

I recall from my Philosophy of Music class that music as an art form emerged in the 1600's. The Ancient philosophers treated music as akin to science, education and morality.