I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
In Vienna during the early 19th century, Beethoven's 5th was the popular music of the day. And Beethoven was very popular -- over 20,000 Viennese attended his funeral, bourgeoisie and barons alike. It wasn't just the lords and ladies rattling their jewelry.
I find it interesting you make a call for respecting the original post. Based on your prior posting history I would suggest your ability to show such respect is hit and miss to put it mildly. You made the statement:
"A "musical masterpiece?" Rock music as a genre isn't responsible for any. That's not a knock against it, it's simply not what popular music is there for."
I asked what you specifically believe is a masterpiece, as it seems to me to be germane to the topic overall, particularly since you have a belief that a masterpiece cannot be categorized as "popular music". I offered Kind of Blue, which is by all accounts a jazz masterpiece, was a hit album, and jazz was certainly considered "popular music" in the 1950s. In fact, for the first half of the 20th century, jazz was frowned on as "the devil's music" by classical purists and the tea-totaling gentry.
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
Hurtleturtled Out of Heaven - an electronic music composition, on CD and vinyl
https://michaelpdawson.bandcamp.com
http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Pr...MCD-spc-7.aspx
In the case of Kind of Blue, I will defer to the analyses of musicologists and critics who hale it as a masterpiece, and a best selling popular masterpiece at that. And jazz for a good part of the 20th century was considered popular music, continuously in the charts, played on the radio, played at dances, listened to by teenagers.
Again, what specifically do you consider to be a masterpiece? I've asked several times and it seems you are incapable of answering a simple question. Is it because perhaps you haven't the slightest idea what you are talking about, and answering the question opens you up to deserved derision?
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
Beethoven's fifth was most certainly *not* popular music, in the sense that the term is understood today.
According to Wikipedia:
Popular music is music with wide appeal[1][2][3] that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.[1] It stands in contrast to both art music[4][5][6] and traditional or "folk" music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of written music, although since the beginning of the recording industry, it is also disseminated through recordings. Traditional music forms such as early blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences.[4][5][6]
Anyway, the burden isn't on me to either define popular music or say why a particular item isn't a musical masterpiece. The burden is on anyone who claims that an album of popular music *is* a musical masterpiece, to make the argument for it.
Have it, LOL!!!
It's not pertinent to the discussion. If you want to argue that an album in a popular music style is a masterpiece, then the burden is on you to do it. My stance that only musical masterpieces come from western art music is one accepted by music scholars. You're the philistine wallowing in the mire. Want to make an argument for the mire? Then do so. But stop the sophistry.
I want to argue no such thing. I want to know what you mean when you say "Popular Music" is a style of music. Some examples would be nice, so we understand what style all "Popular Music" is in, since it's only one style. Feel free to answer in the new thread I've started just so you can answer this question.
BTW, about your comments on "musical mastepieces" above, it's a shame that there never has been and never will be such a thing as a "musical masterpiece" from anywhere other than the Western world, and there never has been and never can possibly be another one after some cutoff date you're apparently aware of. This must sadden the rest of the world, especially since it makes up a majority of the planet.
It's interesting that all "musical scholars" that ever existed are in agreement on this, as you've stated. I'll bet this comes as a surprise to some of the young, new music scholars.
First, you don't set what's pertinent in a discussion; in fact, your original post in this thread is what I am replying to. If you don't like that people reply to your posts, then I suggest you don't post, which I am sure will be a relief to most of the forum.
I suppose if this were 1910 and one was wanting to separate high and low art as a means to maintain class distinctions in a rapidly homogenizing, urbanized, classless world where peerages could be simply purchased by any self-made man, then yes, musical masterpieces come only from western art music. This has been largely rejected as elitist. If I am, as you say, a "philistine wallowing in the mire", then you are a moldering corpse writing with a dead hand. But we don't use coal to heat our houses, and we don't ride a surrey to work at the wainwright shoppe.
The exclusive, class-conscious construct you describe has been largely abandoned by musicologists over the last 40 years (at least since 1980). I am not quite sure where all the "music scholars" are that claim in one chorus your antiquated and unnaturally restrictive belief. My initial reaction is that they too are already dead. To imply that a non-Western composition cannot be a masterpiece is as bigoted as the colonialism it is based on. You may as well post with a "Only white folks need apply" sign around your neck.
Your insistence that masterpieces only come from western art music basically died in the 20th century with Copland, Gershwin, Bartók, Duke Ellington and Ralph Vaughan Williams, who heavily incorporated folk, blues, jazz and Asian influences into classical music. It was then beaten into the ground with the ascendancy of minimalists like Stockhausen and Boulez, and then the remaining particles were vaporized by Philip Glass, John Cage and Terry Riley. But I am sure if you were in the audience at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, you would have been among those who booed The Rite of Spring.
I do find it amusing that you painted yourself into a corner regarding Jazz. It is popular music. Your Wikipedia says so.
P.S. You do realize also that the term "masterpiece" was defined for 500 years as a journeyman craftsman who produced a "master piece" that was judged to be of sufficient quality in order to be elected into a guild as a master craftsman. But word meanings seldom remain the same over centuries. Look up the word "masterpiece" in any dictionary (I chose the Oxford version) and the first definition is: A work of outstanding artistry, skill, or workmanship. Time for you to jump into a new century.
"And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."
Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/
Just showing off my new sig. There were so many new choice quotations to use, it was difficult to choose one!
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