/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19635456]

Any books that argue against popular music?


>Young people know that rock has the beat of sexual intercourse. That is why Ravel's Bolero is the one piece of classical music that is commonly known and liked by them. In alliance with some real art and a lot of pseudo-art, an enormous industry cultivates the taste for the orgiastic state of feeling connected with sex, providing a constant flood of fresh material for voracious appetites. Never was there an art form directed so exclusively to children.
>Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.

[Anonymous No.19635497]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd7Fhaji8ow

[Anonymous No.19635726]

This is one of the most retarded things I have ever read.
Non-musicians should not be allowed to give opinions on the philosophy of music or at the very least their opinion should never be published.
Why? They make a valiant effort but have no understanding of the medium and how it works. It’s like a toddler expecting their opinion on sex to be respected. Utterly laughable.
I play multiple instruments. I play everything from Chopin, to Count Basie, to Elton John and these pseuds trying to impress their philosophy on things they know nothing about never ceases to piss me off.
On phone. Will type full pissed of rant momentarily.

[Anonymous No.19635755]

Adorno obvious answer

[Anonymous No.19636474]

>>19635456
>steady rhythmic pulse = sex
>sex = bad
genius take
>He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs
So, all of those liberties that have been won are fine, except sexual liberty? If you want to go full antimodernist, anti-enlightenment, that's great, just do it properly, not halfway like this.
>hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music
What the absolute fuck is this even about?

Anyway, Adorno wrote about jazz basically being the devil, which is sort of interesting because he was in fact a leftist (Marxist in early 20th century, to be more precise, not a modern leftist). Keep in mind that the jazz from back then was not the refined, cultured sort that we have today.
I guess Roger Scruton must've been quite negative towards it as well, but then again when he listened to some heavy metal he said it's actually pretty decent.
In practice, does one even need criticism of pop music as such? If you have ears you'll hear how dull and shitty most of it is.

[Anonymous No.19637695]

>>19635726
this is an excellent take.

as a guitarist, if you’re playing anything from bach cello etudes transcribed for the instrument, to flamenco, to mississippi john hurt, to chet atkins or to sabbath, you can always find a way to appreciate it. music is great like that. nine times out of ten pseudo-reactionary takes on music are just made by people who can only get off on their own senses of superiority.

[Anonymous No.19637729]

>>19636474
Most of these philosophers miss the actual problem with modern music. Namely, that's it a sensationalized product made by an industry. Namely, it's totally devoid of authentic creativity. All genres have their musical tenacity, even rock, rap, jazz, or hip hop. They all have their talents. Making it only commercial and the antithesis thereof (often equally banal and derivative junk) destroys creativity. Even the most nigger music imaginable was the product of true creative drive. In a word: soul. Perhaps something the anti-jazz reactionaries miss.
Which is a product of love. People who loved what they made, and did out of love.
Music production once involved talent scouting. Now it involves inventing the "talent" into a brand. A corporation can't love music, because it only loves money, and music is a means to make money.

[Anonymous No.19637738]

>>19635726
how the medium 'works' has nothing to do with its status as art
>muh music theory

[Anonymous No.19637745]

>>19637729
nah all the industry did was expose how pointless music is in the first place

[Anonymous No.19637757]

>>19635456
>has the beat of sexual intercourse.
Stopped reading here, nasty prick.

[Anonymous No.19637962]

>>19635456
holy based

[Anonymous No.19637972]

Allan Bloom was gay and died of AIDS btw

[Anonymous No.19637993]

>>19635456
Cavalcare la tigre

[Anonymous No.19638043]

I do and will always believe that music is not art. In fact, music is anti-art, the inverse of what makes great art work, namely the exultation of a constructive human genius. Music exults only in the animal, in the primal. Music is the echo of the most ancient human impulses, the things that make music work are the murmur of the night that made caveman wary, the thunderbolt which drove him running to hide in his cave, the roar of a feral, the reassuring chime of a running brook. Frankly, these things are probably more ancient than humans, coded in the DNA of the earliest proto-hominids, those capable of storing memories and projecting the future at all. Thus, to enjoy music is an act of sheer personal debasement, wallowing in the form of oppressed humanity, giving control to the neurotic quasi-emotions of the time when humans were mere slaves to nature, before using the true arts of Literacy, Science, Architecture, Philosophy and such, to bring nature to heel and see ourselves as rightful masters of this world.

[Anonymous No.19638050]

>>19636474
>>hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents
>What the absolute fuck is this even about?
https://youtu.be/wv-34w8kGPM
https://youtu.be/HBhi-3vmejc

at a guess

[Anonymous No.19638052]

>>19636474
>>19638050
>hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents
the doors - the end?

[Anonymous No.19638064]

>>19637972
Nobody's perfect

[Anonymous No.19638302]

>>19638050
The Divinyls clip is full masonic
>>19638043
You think Bach's music is not art?

[Anonymous No.19638317]

looked at his face and knew immediately he was a
jew

[Anonymous No.19638331]

>>19638043
>the inverse of what makes great art work, namely the exultation of a constructive human genius.
You must have sex at least once in your life before giving any opinions on art.

[Anonymous No.19638341]

>>19635456
>>19636474
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=outEDNp7BfY
Sir Roger
I'm sure he wrote about it somewhere, but I'm only 3 books in to his 300 book oeuvre and haven't come across it yet

[Anonymous No.19638345]

just read thomas mann

[Anonymous No.19638730]

>>19635456
> Listening to NBA Youngboy and other rappers while reading Tolstoy
I think it's utterly retarded to say classical > rest. Peoples' ears get tickled by different things.

[Anonymous No.19638747]

>>19638730
I do not recall asking nigger worshippers

[Anonymous No.19638805]

>>19635456
>That is why Ravel's Bolero is the one piece of classical music that is commonly known and liked by them.
Is this true? Were kids in the mid eighties really running off to the record store to buy Ravel?

[Anonymous No.19638814]

>>19635497
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls5xq2EqjeI

[Anonymous No.19638852]

>>19637729
Nah, there's endless amounts of music out there and most of it never turned a profit - it was made out of passion or fun. Music is one of the best creative mediums today because anyone has resources to make it now, with a few thousand bucks you can make a home studio and make any kind of music you want. I don't know what kind of music you listen to that gives you such a bad impression but most music is not tainted by that.

[Anonymous No.19638853]

>>19635726
Retarded take, philosophers can talk about anything without being experts in those fields because philosophy is above virtuosity or execution.

[Anonymous No.19638862]

>>19635726
Musicians give the worst takes on music. They're attitudes are usually so reductive and formalistic that it seems they forget that music is supposed to be a listened experience. Very rarely do musicians today have anything interesting to say about music.

[Anonymous No.19638863]

>>19638805
I didn't know 'commonly known and liked by them' meant the same as 'running off to the record store to buy'.

[Anonymous No.19638870]

>>19638862
>Musicians give the worst takes on music
This lol. A musician has NEVER said anything interesting or worthwhile, unless they're also philosophers or polemicists (like Wagner)

[Anonymous No.19638892]

>>19638853
This. Philosophy is arguably the only weapon left to the common man to defend himself against the regiment of experts and professionals. Bourgeois technocrats fear philosophy precisely because of its democratic and egalitarian quality as it allows the common folk to talk meaningfully about things like music, art and culture without getting stuck in petty issues and minutiae and flaunting degrees at each other

[Anonymous No.19638932]

>>19637729
>In a word: soul. Perhaps something the anti-jazz reactionaries miss.
The concept of "soul" as your using it is nothing more than the projection of a listener who has been conditioned by an industrial marketing apparatus into feeling it. Obsessing over the intentions or motives of the players is a massive waste of time. What really matters in music is experience of the listener and its immediate impact on them, and from there, it's impact on broader society. Just because someone is passionate and creative about what they produce means very little if that product is detrimental to themselves and us all.
>>19638870
And they all give the dullest takes too. It's honestly like they get so caught up in playing music that they forget that the point is to listen to it. It's why they're always so eager to defend pieces for being complex and difficult to play as if that's where the value of a piece comes from.

[Anonymous No.19638949]

>noooooo stop having fun

[Anonymous No.19638958]

>>19638949
>he thinks it's fun to live in a world where all enjoyment and social activity is sexualized.
You're not a good person.

[Anonymous No.19638965]

>>19638730
》listening to lyric based music while reading
Retard. Retard. Retard.

[Anonymous No.19638973]

>>19635456
I will not stop listening to rock music. I will not stop touching my penis. I will not stop cooming dangerously close to my gf's uterus without a condom.

[Anonymous No.19638997]

you people should really listen to more music before coming up with all of these idiot takes

[Anonymous No.19639013]

>>19635456
Part of what he say is undoubtedly true, but
1. What is the problem with sex? Wasn't Bloom himself a raging homosexual with a whole entourage of opera-watching twinks and who supposedly died of AIDS, to judge from Bellow's Ravelstein at least? Well, wasn't he?
2. As usual, the person criticizing popular music has little knowledge of the good stuff. Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Popol Vuh, Robert Wyatt are genuinely very talented artists, overall, while others like McCartney, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Hendrix, the French chansonieurs (Brassens, Aznavour etc.) had many genuine talents, such as melodic ability (McCartney), lyrical ability (Cohen/Dylan), guitar-playing (Hendrix), singing (Aznavour) etc. Of course, these artists were never on the mainstream, with few exceptions, which is why I said Bloom's judgement was "partially true".
Still, I'd argue that during its best epoch (~1967) the quality of rock and roll was better than that of popular classical music (basically Caruso singing arias and the moonlight sonata played over and over, which is all very good, but like all art has its limitations) during the 1910's. Of course, it was never comparable to actual classical music, but neither was popular music of any other epoch. Classical music will always be listened to by only a few more educated people, and this is natural, so there's no point in wishing otherwise. Whenever it becomes popular, it's for entirely wrong reasons, such as happens to Mozart's Little Night music ('it sounds so pretty!') or to Beethoven's For Elise ('oh, my heart-aching soul!'), reasons which would never enable one to distinguish between the quality of Wagner and that of Offenbach.

>>19635726
Musicians also know very little about extra-musical (cultural, aesthetic) aspects of music, though.
Musicians often focus on 'complexity', which is a nonsense criterion (minimalism even explicitly dislikes it), and some other merely technical aspects, which is a very important part, but they often have little taste or knowledge of aesthetics. They might listen to a Tchaikovsky piece and not recognize it's extremely kitschy and superficial, which it often is, because these aren't musical, but aesthetic concepts. They might listen to a piece of music and not recognize other elements such as cheap commercialism, derivativeness, being a mere period-piece. You need a wider culture to know that. You need to have read on Modern, Romanticist, Classical and Baroque aesthetics, you need to have read on the philosophy of music and more.
That is why you get musicians like Andre Rieu who, having being a violinist and conductor for so many decades, evidently knows more about music theory than both of us, but spends his whole life playing kitsch and having success by making it sound even kitschier.

Would Bloom prefer people listening to Dylan or to Rieu?
I'd prefer them listening to Dylan, it's way more healthy aesthetically, in fact it's a whole level above Rieu.

[Anonymous No.19639029]

>>19635456
>alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind
And those philosophic geniuses, political heroes and economy workers typically had sex. Especially the workers. Many of them even enjoyed sex. Especially the workers. And most of them liked music that their parents didn't like. Especially the workers.

[Anonymous No.19639031]

>>19638965
Rap is not lyric based though - it's lyric cringe.

[Anonymous No.19639140]

>>19637738
>>19638853
Completely missing the point and outed as non-musical. How music functions has nothing to do with theory. That is not what I implied. Ironically, it is often these shit reactionary takes which couch themselves in theory to try to make their trash opinion seen more correct to the lay reader. I can not tell you how many times I have seen bullshit like this point to specific tempos or polyphonic voicing or the use of modal and alt chords as the evidence of “barbaric music” in comparison to what was good and pure beforehand. They did this with Gregorian chant, then Mozart, then the romantics, then jazz, then rap and hip hop, and on and on.

The way music functions is so much beyond that. Music functions as a language, is is a form of communication which requires both the listener and the maker to share a similar dictionary of terms. That is why some people like some music, others do not. It is about exposure. Secondarily, music is about an intimacy in this language, understanding what the musician(s) are expressing and the listeners internalization of that. This requires no lyrics, only that shared zeitgeist of harmony, melody, and rhythm. This dictionary of terms however changes with time and with the instruments on which they are played. Modern classical music would sound pretty rough to baroque listeners whose ears were accustomed to a different tuning system. Is that because it’s worse? No, the language has changed and evolved. A Middle English speaker would have a very difficult time in NYC for the exact same reason. Again, neither is better than the other, the language has just changed. If you think I’m lying to you, literally read any music history book. So then your argument must become why this modern change in the language is better or worse. This has been done hundreds of time throughout history and has literally never once been right.

Additionally, and importantly, music is not like any other art medium. Ask any good player or very advanced listener and they can tell you music is a nearly transcendental form of communication. There is nothing like it. What these philosophers miss is that the point of music isn’t “the nearness of the tempo to the beat of sex,” It is the nearness of the other — The intimacy and beauty of the music is the point, the experience one has within it, which many people sadly never get to experience.

In short: learn an instrument to a professional level than try again.

>>19639013
I don’t think we disagree. I don’t think beauty in music is found in complexity. It is found in how the music is expressed and plays off the existing language and iterates it, pushes it, or takes it back to something simpler. The people who try to make complex music for the sake of complexity and consider that good aren’t actually musicians, they are insecure automata.

[Anonymous No.19639153]

>>19635456

[Anonymous No.19639272]

>>19639140
>This has been done hundreds of time throughout history and has literally never once been right.
Can you be so sure about that? I'd wager that it's probably been correct at least a few times.
>There is nothing like it. What these philosophers miss is that the point of music isn’t “the nearness of the tempo to the beat of sex,” It is the nearness of the other — The intimacy and beauty of the music is the point, the experience one has within it, which many people sadly never get to experience.
The "nearness being expressed is definitely sexual in nature. Is being an "advanced" listener about sanitizing facts that you find inconvenient or unpleasant?

[Anonymous No.19639349]

>>19639029
Where does Bloom say having sex is bad? There's a chasm between saying that music is currently used for wallowing in and saying that sex itself is bad.

[Anonymous No.19639372]

>>19639140
>Additionally, and importantly, music is not like any other art medium. Ask any good player or very advanced listener and they can tell you music is a nearly transcendental form of communication. There is nothing like it. What these philosophers miss is that the point of music isn’t “the nearness of the tempo to the beat of sex,” It is the nearness of the other — The intimacy and beauty of the music is the point, the experience one has within it, which many people sadly never get to experience.
Lol, really? Disco and early rock and club hip hop aren't at bottom about getting your dick wet? Punk and metal aren't about exercising the desire to hirt at a basic level?

What's funny is that you actually *agree* with Bloom (who himself is following Plato and Rousseau) about the power of music, but he takes it more seriously than you; if it's powerful, then it doesn't just have a power to affect us with higher feelings, but lower ones as well.

[Anonymous No.19639402]

>>19639031
no it's based ON what, not based on WHAT.

[Anonymous No.19639407]

Adorno

Colin Wilson, Brandy of the Damned

[Anonymous No.19639434]

>>19637972
also a jew
but oddly i agree with his sentiment
it's quite similar to that picture of a fat black in the hospital with the text describing a major output of "modernity"/"capitalism" is to feed fried chicken to blacks in such quantities that they become obese and ill and require medical treatments
every day we further squander the once great promise of humanity

[Anonymous No.19639441]

>>19639434
good morning sir I believe you mean the spic nig cycle

[Anonymous No.19639474]

>>19639441
that's the one thank you friend
i think the point made here is similar to the one made by bloom, which is basically something like, "the impressive sum of all human effort is expended in the most shameful of ways"

[Anonymous No.19639499]

>>19639441
This explains so much about the state of things right now. We have to manufacture victims so that we can be saviors. I'm reminded of the hadith where Muhammad claims that if humans did not sin, Allah would destroy them, and then create new people who did sin, just so he could forgive them.
Altruism is so selfish.

[Anonymous No.19639620]

>>19639372
>if it's powerful, then it doesn't just have a power to affect us with higher feelings, but lower ones as well.
His stance, and the descriptivist linguistic stance he compared it to is so cowardly; it's as if they're s afraid of being judged by history that they refuse to either take stance or have their chosen by someone else.

[Anonymous No.19639643]

>>19639140
I am a better pianist than you will ever be at anything in your life and you're the retard. All chimp-brained shit like rock and rap should be banned, thankfully there is one place in the world where heavy restrictions on garbage media consumption are the norm.

[Anonymous No.19639657]

>>19639643

X doubt lol

I get paid to play

[Anonymous No.19639669]

>>19639657
And my family has several wikipedia articles related to music. You said
>dude you don't get it, ask any professional musician, they'll tell you it's transcendental and le superior artform

lol suck my dick nerd, not even going to dignify the rest of this embarrassing screed with a response. Read more.

[Anonymous No.19639681]

>>19639372
I would agree with the latter part of your statement. I agree It does have power over higher and lower emotions. what I disagree with is how he uses that to make absolutist value judgments about what music is high or low based on sweeping generalizations of genre. Just as a intent behind a sentence can change over time or with different pronunciation, what may seem to be crass and low in one generation becomes that which is respectable in another. The interpretation is relative and the declaration that rock is always sex-based eminently untrue, and if it’s indicative of the rest of his thinking then it’s just boomer-tier prattle. This low->high is true of literally every movement in music from Bach to jazz.

[Anonymous No.19639692]

>>19639669
“Do you know who my dad is.” - your retarded ass.

[Anonymous No.19639885]

>>19635456
Yes. See pic related.

[Anonymous No.19639933]

>>19639681
>The interpretation is relative and the declaration that rock is always sex-based eminently untrue, and if it’s indicative of the rest of his thinking then it’s just boomer-tier prattle.
What do you think the term "Rock & roll" even means. It was fundamentally designed to be sexual and the libidinal elements are understood by anyone who enjoys it. Those elements are the core and defining features of that music that have remained with it from its inception.

[Anonymous No.19639951]

Have Sex.