"Favourite" = "Best"?

This is a question that has been debated here before concerning reviews. I've heard people go both ways with it. Some will say favorite and best are two different animals, while some say they should be the same...ie...if you like it best, that is the best album to you. Embrace subjectivity. There is no such thing as an objective reaction to art if one is being honest. That kind of thing. Should you write an appreciative review of something you don't like, looking for the aspects of the recording you do admire and rate up based on those things. Or should you say, no, overall, I think this fails....2 stars? 

My favorite football team has nothing to do with whether they are the best or not, it's borne of a long history of support not a one year sample size. When I'm judging the best albums of the year I am judging my favorites of that year independent of who made it. 

I have no idea how I pick an album that is objectively better rather than something I like better? What criteria am I meant to use? I'm not that objective when it comes to music.

Edited by Grumpyprogfan - October 28 2019 at 07:06

If you base your list of the Best on your personal taste, then yes. If you consider orchestration, instrumentation, composition, etc, then no. 

For years music fans have been subjected to a seemingly endless series of albums called "Best Of..." Of course what they almost always mean is "Greatest Hits of..." Thus, we have been conditioned to equate the best with the most popular. Given metrics such as our administrators use, the connection to "Favorite" is easy to make. But a little thought shows us they are not the same thing. The question lies in what we mean by "best." The term requires some objectivity, which not everybody is fully capable of, even those of us who consider themselves musicians, like me. An analogy would be with movies. Both Scorsese and Coppola have spoken against comic book movies, especially Marvel. These are fantastically popular movies and are effective as entertainment. From a technical perspective, they are good, but does that mean the best? As said before, favorite is a subjective term. So, no, they are not both the same, but equating the two has been institutionalized so much that it is easy for us to equate them. Personally, I tend to avoid the word "best" because I know there is always a subjective element to it. It implies competition in a place where there isn't any. Was classic Yes a better band than classic Genesis, or Jethro Tull? How can you say so? Each had their own unique qualities that equal each other. Now, of course you can say you prefer one over the other, but to say one is better than the other in an objective sense is fanboy hyperbole.

And the sport of music contests. I do believe that you can talk about best in music and the art generally (especially when using a smaller set), for instance when talking performance (and some performances may be considered more artistic than others). Some are clearly more accomplished artists, musicians, and writers than others, just as some engineers, surgeons etc, are more accomplished than others.

Let's say that you asked an acclaimed concert pianist to perform Liszt's Piano sonata in B minor, then asked a three year old beginning student to perform it. I would warrant that of the two, certainly technically, the accomplished musician would be considered the best of the two performances. If I asked several people to create and perform a new piece that could pass for Bach, one could be better in that context. But is replication/ duplication art? It goes beyond that. Some art does take more skill to perform and compose, and I would say is more the product of "genius" than others. That doesn't mean that one should appreciate the more complex, more skilled work, but one can use given frameworks to judge merit and quality. One can be both objective and subjective when it comes to art.

Art is rather in the ears and eyes of the beholder itself; there is disagreement on what truly is art.

I love Ed Wood, but will his art, his films, be considered as great as those of Fellini, Bergman or Kubrick? Would any think he was the best overall filmmaker of those three who have really studied film (or has their studying biased their expectations and conditions of "greatness" too much)?

I genuinely love The Shagg's Philosophy of the World, but I will not put the Shagg's on the same pedestal of musical greats that I place Bach and Beethoven, or a great many musicians. Not all art is created equal, one might say.

If I thrashed out on my piano, I wouldn't call it art. Heck, I;d barely call it art with any of my compositions (a reason why I don't share such stuff, play for others, and it's for my entertainment, is because I know I am neither a good musician, nor composer). Nor, despite all of the time writing at this forum, do I think that I would ever be considered a great writer. There are writers and thinkers that are better than I. I wouldn't claim that there is a best author, but that some are better than others, and so in a group of authors, one might very well be the best according to many well-accepted metrics.

Edited by Logan - October 28 2019 at 14:03

Finnforest wrote: richardh wrote: This is possibly the worst discussion ever on PA. I mean how the hell can you decide objectively what is the best?    The worst ever or your least-favorite ever?