Is there no Such Thing as Bad Music?

[Trilby]

"There's no such thing as bad music, it's all taste..."
This reminds me of a wonderful phrase the Learning Support department at my old school had: "You're not wrong, you're just different". The thing is that sometimes you are wrong; sometimes, what you've created is bad. But these days it would appear that you don't have bad media, just "underappreciated" media. Everyone's a winner, and all that other bollocks.

There are two types of music: good music and bad music. Where to draw the line is a nigh-impossible task, but the fact remains that such a line does exist. No one can listen to the Bach unaccompanied suites or the Dvorak cello concerto and call it bad music without being a liar or mentally deranged. You may not enjoy it, but it has quality. In a similar fashion, there is some music that is bad; music which fails to innovate in any meaningful sense and instead just adds to the swell of mass-produced swill.

The point being that it is possible to enjoy bad music (or music that is of poor quality without being actively bad), either because you have very poor taste or because you are able to ignore the flaws in the music and enjoy a particular aspect of it, or just be able to enjoy it ironically (if that's really possible). This is where the It's-so-bad-it's-good thing comes in.

Likewise, not everyone enjoys all music of quality. There is much high-calibre opera that I cannot listen to for any length of time, but I can recognise it as good regardless of my personal distaste for it.

Everyone has their own opinion of the varying quality of music, but just because everyone disagrees doesn't mean that there isn't a right answer.

 

[iron codpiece]

I take it you've never been to an elementary school band concert.

Or worse. An elementary school Recorder "concerto"

Oh goodness.
My eyes are bleeding already.

Don't get me started. I had to listen 75+ 4th graders try and play the National Anthem at my school once. One is bad enough, but can you imagine over 75 of those shit sticks playing at once?

The horror......the horror.

I went on a road trip with some buddies years ago and the CD Play broke so I brought out my recorder which we used for one song. (keep in mind this was in 2000 before Mp3 players ruled the world.) I began playing them glorious epics of battle, love, and spirits of the land but mostly they were songs about things I saw on the side of the road. (Oh dead armadillo *tweet* you?re children will say where did daddy go? *tweet toot too-tweet* and then oh hey here?s another dead armadillo *ta-ta-tweet* you?re probably cousins! *toot*)
Sadly my colleagues didn?t truly comprehend the complexity of my improvised musical styling and took my $9 recorder and chucked it into a Louisiana swamp. Where I?m sure right now some alligator is serenading his true love with the beautiful sound of a 2nd hand recorder that is translucent pink.

Holy shit. I remember that! You're lucky we didn't shove it up your butt. Although, some of those songs were pretty funny. I recall the one about "this *****! she cut us off! RECORDER SOLO"

 

[Zombie_Fish]

1-So, the question... reviewers who hate bands, are they just wrong?
2-Is the fact that you're making money off preteens who hate their parents for not letting them get a nose ring enough to say your music good by default?
3-I don't think so, the old phrase "Three men make a tiger" applies here, if 10,000 people love a band, that means their music is good?
4-They deserve their money?
5-They deserve to get paid more than people who actually do something important (or bands that not many people hate instead of the split in the middle).

1-They're both right and wrong. Reviewers are basically giving their opinion on something, which will vary from person to person and therefore you can't really say that they're right or wrong. Whilst some people may agree with them, other will disagree, and that is how it works. Simple as that.
2-No, that just shows that their music is popular. Whether or not it's good is another question which, as I have already stated, comes down to personal opinion and no other form of measurement in the world of music. There is no way of finding rules in stone that something is a good piece of art in comparison with another piece of art, as what is good varies from person to person.
3-No, that just means that it's popular. Saying that it's good is argumentum ad populum.
4-Do they deserve money? Yes, as it's how they work. Do they deserve the money their getting? No, as they're earning millions for what is a very basic and not necessary task.
5-Above statement. They don't deserve the money the get in comparison with people who earn much less for a much more necessary occupation.

 

[FLSH_BNG]

There is no such thing as 'bad' music.

It either sounds good, making it music, or it sounds like shit and is just noise... like rap, or hip-hop, country. Just background noise on the festering plane called life.

 

[Kiutu]

Yes. Any music made by someone who does not care for it, is bad in my view. If they atleast care, and I am aware, I may atleast respect it even if I hate it.
Music is passion.

 

[Aptspire]

It's all an opinion
on that note, I despise all pop from 1995 to 2000

 

[Ancientgamer]

strictly speaking, in a measurable sense only, there is such a thing as bad music, however, there is no such thing as bad tastes.


For instance, lets say I love Linkin Park or Lady Gaga. That's perfectly fine, I can love listening to them and still realize they're musically unsophisticated and re-trodden derivitive works that have little real musical value.

One could of course argue that enjoyment is the end goal of music, and thus music should only be judged by that, but I disagree. Since that is such a subjective qualifier all discussion immediantly goes to hell. I find it best to judge from a point of musical design.

 

[Gaiacarra]

I deal with the issue by reminding people that "good" and "bad" have no concrete meaning and basically just mean "desirable" and "undesirable".

So basically my position is that you can call music talented/talentless, complex/simplistic, original/generic, sincere/hypocritical, whatever you like, but "good" and "bad" doesn't mean anything.

 

[ohellynot]

I dont care what anyone says, Jonas Brothers are, and will forever be doomed to badness. infact anything band/music related Disney does is terribad.

Be this a reference to incredibad (Lonely Island's 1st album)

 

[Ancientgamer]

Yeah, there is bad music. Just listen to brokeNCYDE, 3OH3, attack attack, etc.

those bands are awfull and everyone in them should die.

prove it.

 

[Ammadessi]

Similarly, what's a good piece of art and what's a bad piece of art? Does Van Gogh make good or bad art? How about Jackson Pollock, or Andy Warhol?

It all boils down to this. Some people like things that other people don't. Take a look at the thread here titled "games everyone loves that you hate" or something similar.

Calling something good or bad depending on whether or not you enjoy it doesn't really work when you're talking about an artistic medium. I think Jackson Pollock did nothing with a paintbrush that was innovative, creative or worth looking at, however that doesn't make him any less of an artist or his work any less revered.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I only listen to the Boredoms so I wouldn't know if there is any bad music in the world or not.

 

[Ancientgamer]

Yeah, there is bad music. Just listen to brokeNCYDE, 3OH3, attack attack, etc.

those bands are awfull and everyone in them should die.

prove it.

I shouldnt have to, just listen to them.

I'm not disagreeing with you, far from it I hate those bands. But they have millions of fans, so obviously it's not a self-evident truth. I'm asking you to prove it because I get the feeling you're condemming them for all the wrong reasons, and that sets my teeth on edge.

 

[silent-treatment]

So ive never heard brokenCYDE before this thread do i was why not check it out. So i google and and i got was treated to an ominous wave when i saw a picture of them on google (if youve seen them before then you know what i mean. So i click on youtube video of theirs and I immediately am disturbed by their shameless uses of Autotune and screaming. After a couple of minutes of this i decided to listen to ISMFOF cause they do it better.

To answer the OP no there is no such thing as "bad music" there just bands you dig and bands you dont.

 

[DanDeFool]

I don't think there's any such thing as 'bad' music, at least not among the stuff that's sold in stores. Genuinely bad music would have problems like missed notes, poor mixing quality, vocals where the singer's voice cracks every line or two, etc.

It's a big pet peeve of mine when people say "Band XYZ sucks", which reads as an accusation that Band XYZ are poor performing artists, when what they mean to say is "I don't like Band XYZ". It's all based on personal taste.