"Favourite" = "Best"?

tamijo_II wrote: ... Your ears are listening with subjections based on the cultural upbringing and as such can’t be objective. Some people put effort into breaking the barriers, but still would have a top 10/20 even 100 "best" with only western music often/mostly in eng, But I bet if you ask even highly music educated people in Morocco Egypt Japan or China that would be very different. ...

I have been saying this for years, but the average "fan" and person that posts in this board still thinks/believes that the top ten is the only indicator, otherwise some other music would be listed there.

Ask Guy Guden (Space Pirate Radio) about this sometime. If no one else hears anything, how do you know they are not good, impressive, or crap? .... ohhh wait ... it's because they are not on the list of top ten! 

And it continues here over and over in many of these threads ... even the Admins are no longer able to stop it, or make a statement, that this is hurting the very music that we are supposed to be supporting ... but does it really matter to all of them? 

As far as I'm aware, I've never used the word "best" in any of my ten album reviews.

tamijo_II wrote: Logan wrote: 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 Shaggs' Philosophy of the World, but I will not put the Shaggs 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. I do of course in essence accept what you are saying and also the fact that some are at least on a technical level measurable better than others. A for so many years I would have agreed, but today I will respectfully disagree. Why? First of all from a social/ethnical point of view, people around the world are brought up with very different music/art, in music with very different scales and instruments and art with different tools and also completely different art history. As an example you can mention Muslim traditions of abstract art, something that first reached Christian culture centuries later. The Japanese/Asian concept of MA or the cartoonish (woodblocks) style that inspired Impressionism, but it the time was seen as naive and bad art. A PA example of this is Cheikha Rimitti Featuring Robert Fripp And Flea ‎: Cheikha, a beautiful Fripp album, but one of his only not at PA, why ? Because this album is sounding too Arab and PA is a western site and see things from a western point of view. Not bashing PA just a note that you ears are different based on where we live/were brought up.. Your ears are listening with subjections based on the cultural upbringing and as such can’t be objective. Some people put effort into breaking the barriers, but still would have a top 10/20 even 100 "best" with only western music often/mostly in eng, But I bet if you ask even highly music educated people in Morocco Egypt Japan or China that would be very different. Could make more analyse of reasons why an objective criteria to pick the best art is impossible, Abstract better than Figurative ?, How to value ground breaking against how complex is the work ?. But I guess it would make this post unbearable long.

But I wouldn't disagree with any of that., so not sure where your disagreement lies. It depends on the context, and one's framework of analysis and reference points.

Musical appreciation is highly subjective. We all bring our own cultural baggage and expectations, intellects, life experiences, associations and psychology to the music experience. No two people experience music in an identical way as it must be translated and interpreted by our brains.

I'm not saying that one could say what is best objectively, or better if too dissimilar, it works better when one is comparing very similar things, and according to particular criteria (the criteria themselves show bias). It works best with limited parameters (which is why I use the example of two people attempting to perform the same piece of music, one is experienced and the other is not).

I love much Western art music, jazz, raga, traditional Japanese music, Gamelan, chants of various kinds etc. and I wouldn't claim that one style is better than the other. If comparing music (in the sense of not looking for contrast), I would be more likely to compare very similar styles. I've always argued that one cannot even try to fairly judge the merits of music if it's outside of one's range of experience. I don't like it when people bash music of a style/form that they clearly have little experience with, and have often spoken out against that.

I've seen claims at that "all music is subjective" not just musical appreciation, but music itself. Well, what is music? It can be seen as the relationship between the sound waves and the mind of the listener, and that is a subjective relationship. That said, one can also make objective statements about music (say, which note is being played, structure/form, timbre etc.).

I'm mentioning this in part because others have made claims about the total subjectivity of music when it comes to determining what is better than another, to which I have said that one can determine forms of "better" within a defined set according to specific criteria from a non-individualistic subject-specific perspective, only a little less clunkily written. I have often argued against those who makes claims about "best music" and those who treat such as far more objective than it is. Which is better, Baroque music or modal jazz, apples or oranges? Each duo is different (while having some similarities), each can serve different needs and can be better-suited to an individual's "diet".

An evaluation of music that exhibits a deep understanding of the music and culture is better (and I mean better objectively) than one that does not. The results of music where the composer's purpose was to emulate something, but failed to due to a lack of knowledge or ability, might well be considered worse than the opposite.

EDIT: Your post came out full of formatting code, hope when removing it I didn't mess it up.

Edited by Logan - October 29 2019 at 12:31

Psychedelic Paul wrote: I've heard one or two people here complain about album reviews being too subjective instead of being objective, but how can an album review possibly NOT be subjective when it's reviewed from one's own personal perspective with our own ears!?? An album review is a listener's own personal point of view where they give their valued opinion of an album, and that's just how it should be, although that's only my personal opinion, for what it's worth.

essexboyinwales wrote: I know what I like, and I like what I know....

M27Barney wrote: Is this a five minute argument? Or a full half hour?

I know what I like, and I like what I know....

Psychologically and statistically, 8 out of 10 people will irrationally argue subjective preference as being an objective standard.

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?