My first post, and a bit of a meta-post. Navel gazing, and probably not even worthy of the term manifesto, though it leans in that direction:
In my two seminars this semester–”Rock Studies,” and “Jazz and the World”–I asked on the first day, “why study this?” An innocuous quesiton, and one that has plenty of mundane answers, but one worth asking at the beginning of a seminar. Seminars are, after all, though enjoyable in their way, frankly, difficult and occasionally unpleasant. One of the answers I got in both classes was, “because there’s some great rock/jazz music out there and we should know about it/spend time thinking about it.” I’m absolutely sympathetic to that answer (musicologists occasionally forget to let their audiences know that we genuinely love music, but most of us do); but I had to follow up with the question, “what if the music sucks?” Should bad music, lame music, music I/we do not love/like/respect get a portion of our time?
Musicologists have largely come to an answer to this question. Between th so-called “new” musicology and ethnomusicology, the cultural studies bent of much contemporary musicology has agreed that it is our job to study cultural phenomena, artifacts, and so forth, and thus, all music (because it is made and used by people) is worth our time. Beethoven is no more inherently deserving of our study than is Mariah Carey, The work of Imrat Khan no more deserving than that of Lata Mangeshkar. This is a position that, though salutary, for the work it has done in combating the basic hegemony of white supremacy, ethnocentrism and elitism, is nonetheless problematic in a variety of ways.
The most obvious problems with this answer are that, first, it is pretty much incomprehensible to musicians and audiences alike, who would no doubt like to see the things they like given due respect, but can see no reason to pretend that bad music is a worthwhile object of study, and second, that it is a position we hold in theory, but I think almost never really put into action in practice. On the first of these, Milan Kundera–who I appreciate as an essayist for being unapologetically modernist, even if I often disagree with his positions–has written eloquently in his most recent essay, The Curtain. He says, in essence, the history of an art is the history of its great works, of those works that have lived and influenced others. We postmodernists may scoff at this, but his point is unassailable: most musicians, etc., don’t want to make bad music, etc., and mostly don’t model themselves on prior examples that suck.
In the first of what may become a series of posts on this topic, I would like to take a minute to think about this second problem. What I mean when I say we hold it in theory but not in practice, is that I think very few of us–definitely not I–write at length about or include discussion of in our teaching music we dislike/don’t respect. Chris Washburn’s collection, Bad Music is a notable exception, though it is more focused on getting beyond the dialectic of good and bad than the title might suggest. In graduate school my answer to this was something like, “It’s not my job to judge, and any music is potentially worth study; but life is short and I don’t want to spend my time with music I dislike.” This is fair, and has largely been true over the years since then, but it seems like a cop-out. Moreover, I wonder, what is the point of having a theoretical position like this if we don’t, generally, put it into practice?
For me the prime example of music that I think sucks, but that I am certain is absolutely central to an understanding of popular music, is Madonna’s work. I genuinely dislike all of it, from “Material Girl” to “Vogue,” “Papa Don’t Preach” to Ray of Light, Bedtime Stories to lord knows what else. Now, I’m willing to concede that at least part of my discomfort with Madonna is that she scared me when I first started hearing her. As a thirteen-year-old boy, her strength and power as a post-feminist female performer freaked me out. But I also think a lot of it is cheap and uninteresting, and I see some real truth in bell hooks’s critique of the singer’s fascination with the black male body, not to mention John Hutnyk’s critique of exoticism in Ray of Light. It hasn’t yet come up, but I don’t see how I would teach a class on popular music without talking about Madonna.
I’m convinced that we shouldn’t, as music scholars, forget that we, and pretty much everyone else, evaluate music all the time, and truly love some of it. Our delight in the greatness of music we love should inform the work we do. But for me, at least, it is a goal to think more about how to integrate music I dislike into my teaching and writing, if only because I may find that there is something of value where I had not seen it.
That is a tough question. It is probably worthwhile to consider why we would say that a certain music sucks. Are we talking about the music as a specific performance (or as performed by a specific performer) or as a discrete “piece of music” (or collection of similar pieces)?
I think how we use a music and the context of our experience definitely affects the perception and tolerance of suckage. I’m willing to tolerate sucky performances in some situations – kids’ piano recitals and school productions, for instance. If I pay to see a performance, however, I don’t want to endure much sucking. Usually, I’m using the music for entertainment/enjoyment/technical-education and if I am feeling anxious or, worse yet, embarrassed for the performer, it gets in the way of how I am using the music. If the performance sucks, I generally (but not always) take it out on the performer (as in, “that band sucks”) and not the repertoire.
How can we judge if a “piece of music” sucks? The judging is both unlike and like that of a livestock show. There’s nothing like a breed standard, of course, to which a listener can compare the piece. On the other hand, animals are judged by how well they fulfill a certain human need – Merinos for wool production, Suffolks for carcass, Corriedales as a dual-purpose animal. Does the music do what it is supposed to do? This criteria can be problematic though, especially if the music has a known composer. The composer, performer, and listener may be three different people, each requiring something different from the music.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are a lot of factors that influence our opinion about what sucks or does not suck. An individual’s circumstances affects musical needs; the infinite variety of personal circumstance in the world means that it is probably nearly impossible to find a music that everyone thinks sucks. Banishing a music from scholarship just because one person/group thinks it sucks seems like a snobby thing to do. Considering why a music fulfills the needs of another individual/group – even if we think the music sucks – seems like a better idea. I’m open to learning about music that I think sucks and finding out why others don’t think it sucks, but don’t expect me to spend my life studying it. I’ve only got so much time here.
Yeah, I totally hear what you’re saying. A couple of things come to mind:
First, I think I’m being purposefully lazy here by saying “the music sucks.” One of the great ironies about music is it’s easy in theory to recognize that suckiness is esentially a personal reaction to music. That is, music doesn’t suck. It fails in some way or another to meet your personal expectations, needs, desires; but we don’t experience it in this abstract, detached way. Or at least I don’t. I think it’s pretty common to have a emotional/physical reaction of boredom or disgust, saying not “I don’t care for that,” but rather, “that sucks.” We see the fault not with the interface between us and the music, but rather as inherent to the music.
Also, I’ve started wondering why I’m wondering this. I know–even more ridiculously meta. But there it is. I think I had come to a fairly settled position on this, but now I’m considering it again. I think it may partly have to do with reading a lot of music criticism right now, which, rightly perhaps, is all about whether the music is good or bad; it is about judging. Partly a result of asking the question, “what is music history a history of?” The reference in the post to Kundera is not incidental. He’s incredibly conservative, but he is a, a really great novelist, and b, really smart about lots of things in the arts–check out “Testaments Betrayed.” His position on “great works” is not really that different than Bloom’s, which I feel comfortable ignoring; but because it comes from someone whose work I respect so much, I feel I have to wrestle with it at least a little bit. Finally, I think it comes, oddly enough, from my orientation as an ethnographer. The fact that in general the musicians I’ve worked with see the postmodern position on this–the notion of greatness as a matter of relationality and the interface between music and person–as basically false is compelling to me. It doesn’t mean that I have to take their position, but I think it does mean that I have to think about it and relate it to my own position.
I hope this doesn’t come off as overly simplistic, but I abhor unnecessary complication.
If a music is significant for a person’s life, then it is worth study. Period. How long ago did Merriam shove our noses in the dirt and scream, “It’s not about the sounds!” and how long will it take us to hear him? If music is about life, about everything else connected in some way with the sounds, then it deserves respect and, further, almost definitely could provide access to a realm of human understanding worth time and attention.
So whether music ’sucks’ or not; whether it is pleasing to our ears or not; whether I personally get off on it is irrelevant. If others like it, then there must be something to it, and that something is worthy of our respect.
(See, my point was so simple I had to say it three times to even fill out the structure.)
You have to study it, even if/though it sucks, and maybe even MORESO when it sucks, to ensure that future generations will have documentary evidence that we weren’t deaf to the screeching of her music itself but instead victims of the undertow of youth culture at its peak: in the early 80s, the most powerful force in the known universe – young teenage girls – needed an expression just trashy enough that their parents would not immediately coopt it and fetching enough to risk little with their male peers; Madonna’s edge over Cyndi Lauper was that most young girls singing Madonna’s hits sounded better than she did. If Madonna hadn’t started here – with the billions of Madonnawannabes – no one would have cared a fig about her later variations on alternative sexuality.
You need to study the phenom of Madonna so it doesn’t go down in history all by itself, free of caveats and apologies, and make us look really stupid. There’s not much reason to study the music though, because then you’d have to listen to it!!
P.S. While you’re at it, I’d like an explanation of Britney Spears.
I think it’s important to recognize that there are (at least) two questions here:
1) Is “bad music” worthy of study?
2) Who should study it?
I agree with the last poster (basmith3) that all music is worthy of respect, but it begs the question #2.
Is there anything wrong with the statement “If YOU like that music, than YOU go study it?” It seems like a pretty neat little philosophy, especially in the case where lots of people enjoy a certain artist (ie Madonna in Gabriel’s original post). If so many people like Madonna, shouldn’t there be lots of people who want to study her music?
So then it becomes OUR (those who study music in depth on a daily basis) decision as to what we include in our study. It seems to me that we do have a certain responsibility to give a fair shake to ALL music that appears on our radar in a significant way. (Ie listen to it, maybe read a little about it, etc.) But, it is then our right to move on and leave it behind for someone else to study.
One thing I like to remember is that music that I’ve thought sucked previously has resurfaced in my life as my favorite music. Maybe sometimes there are aspects of a type of music that rub us the wrong way, but then that “rub” becomes the thing that entices us?
Perhaps, but I suppose it’s also good to remember that sometimes music sucks and it will continue to suck for eternity. Someone else can go study that stuff.
It does seem reasonable that contextual shifts make the music not suck so much. Even if you hated Madonna in the mid80s or as recently as, say, last night, you could be standing in line for a latte listening to Like a Virgin on your iPhone (because the incredible sound quality is revealing to you for the first time an interesting electronic drum sound on the bridge – hmm where could I download THAT?) you probably won’t be mistaken for a 12 year old girl (unless you are one.) So the suck apparently shifts over time and space, varying with attitude, intent, position in line, tempered to infinity and beyond. I must know your thoughts on Wham.
One distinction that we should probably draw is that between declarations that specific works “suck” and that certain genres “suck”. I maintain that on an absolute sense there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” music, but we can still do a more precise job of identifying, anthropologically speaking, what we mean when we say that such-and-such “sucks.” We need to parse the notion that “sucks” means “fails in some way or another to meet your personal expectations, needs, desires” a bit further.
For any given person there are whole genres of music which fail to meet personal needs, and it’s often tempting to label those genres as sucky. A given artist working within that genre is most likely going to seem sucky as well, although for most people there are artists who serve as exceptions to that rule. Madonna makes a great example here — for devotees of American Pop, Madonna is one of the high points, i.e. her music meets the needs of people who love pop music better than a lot of other pop musicians do. Of course if you think Pop music sucks, you’re probably not going to like Madonna and you might even hold her up as a prime example of how pop music sucks and how pop music fans have bad taste to think she’s good. In other words, to one group Madonna rocks, and to another group she sucks.
At the same time, you have artists working in a particular genre who are considered to suck by people who are fans of that genre. This is a fundamentally different kind of sucking — the artist is failing to appeal to his or her target audience.
Let’s make an analogy to evolution. A fish is great at living in the water but sucks at living on land. That doesn’t mean that fish are inherenly sucky or great, but the statements about what they suck and are great at are objectively true–stick a fish on land and he’ll die within minutes. Madonna is a fish. Now take a fish with a genetic mutation that gives it thick, shaggy fur. This fish isn’t going to last long–it sucks at doing basic things that fish have to do to survive. This doesn’t mean the fish is inherently sucky, just that it sucks at surviving, the point being that having a preference for survival over, say, softness, is a personal preference.
So if you want to say that a piece of music sucks, it’s a good idea to figure out which type of sucking you mean and what exactly you’re saying the music sucks AT, because there’s no other kind.
Don’t bother studying “music that sucks” because it gets
enough exposure already.
There’s tons of music you will never hear in mainstream
US because the big labels keep it out and promote
crappy American Idol and bands that appeal to 12 year
old girls.
In Europe there’s plenty of rock and metal and other
genre music you will never hear on US radio or MTV.
Do not waste time on junk..people will buy it like sheep anyway because they only hear junk on radio and tv.