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I'm convinced that people rate musicians to highly due to their popularity.
because when I listen to Beatles (less so) Wings or PMc Solo tracks, I don't hear anything special that elevates him into the realm of exceptional musician. He plays for the song, but that's it. I don't think he's an exceptional singer, or an exceptional bass player. He does the job. He gets the songs across but I don't think he is doing some of them justice.. for me you can hear it more in his wings / solo work, it's crying out for the diversity of delivery that the Beatles had.
But sure - I'm not going to convince anyone here of my point of view. But for me, commercial success leads people to raise individuals up to the echelons of greatness where perhaps it's not deserved.
Technical garbage doesn't connect with people - it may be very worthy but if other people don't get off on whats being played its just noise. To quote Lemmy - "music should move you - move you to dance, fight or fuck... anything else is just fucking noise." I agree with that to a point. If something doesn't connect with you - it may as well be white noise.
I think most discussions about who is better than person 'x' comes down to preference and what you define as 'better'. Frankly, a bunch of histrionics played on guitar sounds about as good as listening to next door's cat fucking - I can't bear that smug, wanky fret shredding, likewise a lot of jazz is just twaddle (just play the fucking melody asshole) and the vast majority of modern blues playing just sounds like pentatonic lift music (and I've heard it *all* before). But that's just my opinion on those sorts of music - that doesn't mean that what I like is "better" than them or that the musicians involved are "better" or even more competent.
The perfect example of this is the Who. Stage left you have Entwhistle... a master of the instrument. Stage right is Townsend... a master of guitar control, and an incredible rhythm guitarist. In the middle is Moon... a musical mess to some, but somehow he weaved between these two creating some of the most exciting rhythms in rock (often by chance). Take any of those three elements and put them elsewhere and they no longer are so wonderful - if you've ever seen Townsend outside the Who (except his solo stuff where he's totally on his own) he looks out of place and can't express what he is, likewise Moon (the stuff he did with Lord Sutch wasn't very good) and Entwhistle never got the opportunity outside that unit to sound anywhere near as impressive (even with his own band). As a unit... genius. Apart... not great. So are there 'better' musicians? Maybe. But are there 'better' members of the Who? Not a fucking chance.
Are you not contradicting what you previously posted in the thread about the lad playing the blues...?
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/119602/young-player-having-fun/p4
Your post...
And I don’t swallow the first point about cultural relativism either. Some art is objectively better than other art. A Beethoven sonata has more artistic value than a Taylor Swift song full stop. If you disagree you’re wrong, simple as that.
No you are not. Art is 100% subjective. There is no better or worse, only popular or not.
.
And I was holding Blues up to your own yardstick. Blues is essentially an art form that copies itself. The greats, like the 3 Kings stamped thier own style within an extremely limited frame of reference. To use your art analogy, blues is nothing more than painting by numbers, it's just that some people are so good, thier own style comes out. It's how you compared JoBo to Johnson - a mimic to an artist. But look at that genre, cover after cover after cover. It's a folk form, that's how it works. So based on your own argument, where is the true artistry in that?
I don't like Bethoven or Mozart at all. On the other hand I don't mind Taylor Swift and I adore Vivvaldi and Puccini.
Greatness in any art form, is only in the eye of the beholder.
Or am I missing the point you are making now?
I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to
- competence at playing an instrument
- originality as a player of an instrument
- commercial success
- critical success
The first is to do with a physical skill. The second is to do with art. The third is to do with business. The fourth is to do with people who are no good at the first three.but still feel the need to chip in.
By the same logic, is Lukather a better musician than Bach or Mozart? :-D:-D:-D
In a sense I agree with @Teetonetal in that popularity can be achieved these days without being a good musician, or in fact being a musician at all. There are plenty of examples where I think we can all agree a band or artist of limited musical ability has nonetheless become famous solely for their musical output.
The reason we're having this discussion is because there are also plenty of examples of popular artists who may be competent musicians, but their popularity has arguably given them a musical credibility they don't deserve. You might say these artists are great entertainers, but to speak about them in the same vein as say Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Robert Johnson, Django Reinhardt? This is where Quincy Jones is coming from.
But the Fab Four were not Freddie and the Dreamers, they were not Gerry and the Pacemakers. The Beatles used their technical ability to fashion tunes and sounds that changed popular music forever, and so personally I think that to imply the Beatles were not great musicians is by any definition wrong. And I'd repeat that it's a cheap shot to criticise the ability of anyone who manages to succeed in any artistic field. But I appreciate why the point is being made.
Again no chance.
I think my point is simple we rate 20th pop / rock musicians far higher than their actual ability is worth because they are ours and important to us and within that subset it's then defined in part by popularity.
Which kind of proves my point. Quincy Jones has 78 Grammy nominations. He has won 28. Producer of thriller and bad, film score credits, a musician on countless records, his own work in the Jazz field has seen him share stages and release records with miles davis amongst others.
Yet none of that matters because you can only think of one song he wrote and we get a nice pithy comment about it.
This is why all talk of well known pop rock musicians being the greatest is stupid. WhaT they are great at above all else is being popular.
I think I wandered away from my real point over the course of the discussion. But I think people have a hard time seeing past well known and famous figures when it comes to music.
@chrisb50 that was a different conversation and the point being made was accordingly different.
I have my own opinion about who is / what makes a musician great. I have been using Macca as an example purely as it came up in the op.
I think my assertion in that first thread holds. It finally doesn't matter what I think. Other people will hold up Macca as great @ICBM @richardhomer and others clearly believe so. They are not wrong if that's how it moves them. Music is all subjective and personal and that's how it should be.
But when we discusspoke greatness, countless wonderful musicians are just passed over because they are not high visibility. Hence my Lukather example. He is not mainstream so unlikely to be considered a great, but what a career!
What ultimately matters is are you popular enough and in demand enough to make a career from music? The great thing is largely irrelevant.
However if it comes up, as here, why not debate it? This is a forum after all. My original assertion in this thread probably morphed as the posts went by, but I do believe that if you must hold discuss greatness of musicianship... then try to look at the musician without the baggage of their popularity.
How about Picasso? Most of his stuff doesn't look like the woman he's painting.
or Mondrian? lines! what's it even a picture of?
Monet? It's just a load of dots, innit.
Van gogh? swirly nonsense.
Who gives a shit? Technical ability is so fundamentally unimportant to creative arts that to argue otherwise is pretty ridiculous.
(McCartney ftw!)
Hello @Teetonetal.
Having re-read it I kind of worked out you were making a different point, but left it there rather than deleting it.
I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to
If Paul McCartney is "the worse bass player I have ever heard" then Quincy must have led a musically very sheltered life
It’s the raising yourself up by putting others down thing that’s missing the point.
Is Paul McCartney a great musician? Yes.
Is Steve Lukather a great musician? Yes.
Is Quincy Jones a great musician? Yes.
All in very different ways, none of which are mutually exclusive.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Kidding. Carry on.
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones. Your royal highnesses.
I went to a Picasso exhibition in Prague some time ago and they had some early work. It was fantastic, really loved it. Then hit the African period and the foundation of his later work appears. But man his early work is just fab.
This ^ is a Picasso.
Absolutely this.
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