Some Potentially Poptimist Statements

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Agree? Disagree? Modify?

It's interesting to think about why high-selling music is high-selling.

Your own circumstances of consumption affect how much you like music more than its circumstances of production.

You don't need much expertise or knowledge to have interesting and useful opinions on music.

There is no significant relationship in either direction between music's level of mass appeal and its quality.

I'm sure you can do better - list a possible 'poptimist' tenet in the box and I'll run them as future threads.

[Poll #936204]

I will also take this opportunity to remind players in the League Of Pop to start playing.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

TOyNBEE IDEA
IN KUbricK's 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPiTER.

[(Anonymous)]

Ideas and ideals but not of outdated ideology. What counts is what works. The objectives are radical. The means will be modern.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of these statements.

[koganbot]

Well, I disagree with number three, in that I'm sure there's some correlation between mass appeal and (good) quality. (I know it's hard to say something like this when Bush is president, given that he has mass appeal, but you can't get a statistically significant result based on one instance anyway. Also, if you took every citizen over the age of 35 [age at which you're eligible to be president], it might well turn out that Bush is in the upper 50 percentile. Like 51 or something.) But I wouldn't know in particular what to do with the idea that there is some correlation; e.g., how to apply it to particular songs.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Well in a sense #4 follows on from #3 - I feel very strongly that music really really isn't a terribly difficult thing to 'get'.

I think your last sentence is probably true of all of these (one reason this post hasn't exactly generated many comments - we'll see if the more interesting "Thoughts Of The Day" hidden by the poll do better).

[koganbot]

Actually, I miscounted and it's number four I disagree with (and what I was commenting on). I quite agree with number three.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Yes, but a lot of poptimists are still fans of 'experts music' like microhouse, where every track is defined in the context of subtle variations and influences from storied traditions going back 5 months, and until you learn to hear with expert ears, it's all a bit the same. Folk rather than pop music, to use a binary I'm still quite fond of.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

Dude that doesn't make sense even before bringing the folk/pop argument.

[awesomewells.livejournal.com]

I'm not actually interested particularly in why something is high selling, music or otherwise.

I agree with #3, and #2 even more so (aka the Where's Me Jumper Theorem).

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

1) Agree, but this interest doesn't pertain much to my actual enjoyment of music in general or particular.

2) Agree, but the story of its production (which may be at least as important as the actual circumstance) is in no way irrelevant to my enjoyment. There's always some story, and sometimes other people's stories are better than mine, even though I've only personally experienced my own.

3) Agree. That said, I do share the longing of some ilmers (e.g. Perry and Nabisco I think) for written opinion which is not afraid to get technical when needed or wanted.

4) Red herring question due to word "quality" rather than e.g. "personal enjoyment". Or was that intentional to bring out the objective quality spectre?

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

All depends on how you define "quality," i.e., the fact that a song succeeds in making many many people like it might be considered as evidence of its quality. It's a statement I have made many times with people, in defense of something that's not particularly "good" in their eyes.