So what makes one kind of music/band better than another?

[Fab Foodie]

As there are Best Band/Worst Band type threads going-on at the moment, maybe we should ponder what makes some music or bands better than others?
Are there essential or common characteristics of bands/music that's accepted as 'good'?
What about musical snobbery?
Are we all in agreement as to why Coldplay seem universally vilified here?

Let's discuss the nature of music and it's appeal ( or lack thereof) rather than saying XYZ are great and ASD are crap.

Anyone wan't to kick the debate off?

 

[Crackle]

Hmmmm, pretty simple for me, I have to like it. I'm not into music history or detailed analysis of influences. I've never read any kind of music press and of the bands I like, some are excellent musicians, some aren't. I also pretty much rely on the recommendations of others, plus some occasional random buying based on a track I heard to find things I like.

 

[Mr Pig]

I don't think that one type of music is better than another. Pop, classical, country or jazz all have their audience and merits.

You can't even grade music on technical quality. Often the passion counts for more.

For me music succeeds by simply connecting with the target listener and moving them in some way, whether that is the beauty of a ballad of the anger of The Sex Pistols. Saying that one is better than the other is like saying a poem is better than a biography. You can't compare them, they both have their place.

It's worth noting that most geuinely gifted musicians do not look down on musical genres other than their own. Talent is talent, wherever it finds its voice.

 

[Noodley]

All that stuff what he said....

What he said.

 

[Smokin Joe]

A best band thread mostly contains the same bands as a worst bands thread.

 

[srw]

Most popular music is inherently shoot. It's designed to appeal only to the emotions and not to the intellect. Its melodic and harmonic structure is derivative and about 500 years old - and 500 years ago, when that structure was new, they treated it interestingly. Despite this, a very small amount of popular music appeals to the emotions enough to over-ride its shittiness, and a microscopically small amount of popular music appeals to the intellect and has an interesting enough melodic and/or harmonic structure to be worth listening to.

Tchaikowsky is also shoot. As is Rachmaninov. And Chopin.

 

[Lardyboy]

Just like everyone else, if it takes you somewhere that other tunes don't then it's good.

This one is a fav at the moment, with a good sample of Candi Staton thrown in too.

One Eskimo.

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFVIl1LPePI


Candi's original.

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cri481xXtlU

 

[HLaB]

Are we all in agreement as to why Coldplay seem universally vilified here?

Nope I quite like Coldplay sometimes. I guess its all down to personal preference and mood.

 

[Night Train]

Dixie Chicks.
Here also.

 

[derall]

What he said.

What he said

There's a direct link between the hearing mechanism and the region of the brain dealing with fight or flight, an evolutionary development. When you're head down, grazing in the long grass, it's hearing that's giving you an awareness of the environment around you, and the predator creeping up behind you. Hearing connects directly with this area of the brain, driving the fear response, but all the other emotions are associated within this area too. Anything we hear connects directly with our emotions. Harsh music, beautiful music, fingernails on the blackboard. Anything and everything we listen to has the ability to generate a powerful emotional response, one way or another

But beyond that? I've read 'Physiology of Hearing', 'Psychology of Hearing', 'Hearing: Handbook of Perception and Cognition' amongst other texts. I still wouldn't like to even begin to debate what makes one thing sound dreadful to one person and wondrous to another.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

for me, it's whether there is any real passion behind the music. originality helps too. for example, i find old school hip hop that speaks of urban deprivation etc as a great listen, modern gasta rap with it's emphasis on mysogeny and gun culture leaves me cold even though musically speaking there are similarities.

coldplay are disliked my me for being a bland pseudo-indie band that would be nowhere had the likes of nirvana (whom i do rate) not opened up the crossover gates to chart success.

it's rare that a band's first album is bettered, hence some bands go on far too long and ruin their legacy (u2 spring to mind), which nirvana may have done had cobain lived, but as it is they left a small but fairly flawless back catalogue.

anything with even a whiff of 'put together to make someone else money' is, imo, utterly repugnant and an insult to music.

 

[mondobongo]

A sort of genuine vibe and attitude is the only way I can describe it.

 

[Dave5N]

What they said, apart from srsomebody who said something different and probably wrong.

Does it change your emotional temperature in the right direction? if it does, it's good.

 

[Dave5N]

Anything that doesn't have a drum solo in it.

you need a bit of this.

 

[Wolf04]

All music is good, to someone at least! I don't claim any great knowledge of music. I know I don't like jazz as a rule too intellectual and not emotional enough for me. Classical music much the same while I enjoy some of the melodies the rest leaves me cold. Brought up in the sixties and the three minute pop song and some of the best rock ever recorded that strongly colours my musical tastes. I love blues, alt. country, americana as well as more mainstream acts like Springsteen,though I dislike the pigeon holing of bands into genres.
Best band threads are I guess a way of flagging up your favorite band to others but I don't really get worst band threads, if you don't like them don't listen to them. Discussing whether a band is overrated is fair enough. The Beatles seem to be heavily featured in these but the Beatles were real and earned their reputation good or bad. Compared to the hype machine which exists around some modern acts now I would suggest they should be a long way down the list.
This week I've been to two gigs, John Dee Graham a seasoned singer songwriter almost unknown outside of his hometown of Austin Texas. The second James McMurtry also from Austin, both were superb but the highlight was James' support act Matt Anderson from Canada who blew everyone away with some of the best high intensity acoustic blues I've ever heard.
To finish on a well worn cliché
Whatever rocks your boat, just about sums it up.