[Killer Whale Tank]

andrew sharpe, I do care about lyrics, but not to the extent of approaching them as abstract intellectual problems. That's to say, when I evaluate a song, I am ultimately interested in its emotional and aesthetic effect. It has to make me feel something, to move me somehow.

But I *would* make two suggestions about this. One is that, ideally, we'd try as much as possible to hive off arbitrary personal associations from the song as such, because we might feel really strongly about a song, for reasons quite external to its merits as a song. Say LTR was playing on the radio the first time you got laid. You're probably going to have really powerful emotional associations with that song. But in itself this doesn't make it a good song. So if we really want to be fair to the songs (and if we don't, no biggie - we're just doing this for fun, after all) we should try to approach them as songs rather than as triggers to particular sets of memories and feelings associated with those memories, or with other arbitrary criteria - e.g., song X is 'overplayed', which is no fault of the song's.

The other, much trickier distinction is - to put it bluntly - between cruder and more richly-developed responses. For example, a lot of people LOVE AC-DC music. They love how it cranks them up, how visceral it is. But it doesn't change the fact that AC-DC is *basically* making music for 12-year-old boys and that their songs are the musical equivalent of WWE wrestling. They don't speak to any aspect of ourselves except the part that wants to bang its head and jump around. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but anyone who thinks AC-DC is "as good" as the Hip because their music rocks as hard or harder than the Hip is just not playing with a full deck as far as I'm concerned. The Hip are so superior to AC-DC on so many levels, they're barely even in the same category, and the reason is that the Hip's music activates many other parts of ourselves - a richer, more complex and deeper emotional landscape, opening up images and vistas, sometimes even making us think or stopping us up short with some arresting formulation - besides just the RAWK RAWK RAWK!!! part.

This is why I'm not totally keen on the idea that "I'm voting for song X because of visceral connection." On this AC-DC scale, a good Hip rocker will ALWAYS beat a great Hip ballad, just because it's a rocker. That can't be right. So I think we do need to think about the song beyond whatever our gut reaction to it may be...or so I'd suggest.

EDIT: damn, Three Pistols is still runner-up loser in this round! That song is just not doing it for a significant chunk of us, I guess

[chagrinfalls]

This is why I'm not totally keen on the idea that "I'm voting for song X because of visceral connection." On this AC-DC scale, a good Hip rocker will ALWAYS beat a great Hip ballad, just because it's a rocker. That can't be right. So I think we do need to think about the song beyond whatever our gut reaction to it may be...or so I'd suggest.

This is a great reminder. I feel like on a scale where volume/rawk is always considered a plus, the quieter Hip moments are getting lost a bit. I can't imagine the Hip with just quiet songs, but by the same token, they're not the Hip without their quiet moments, either. It's not like those quiet moments happens accidentally--the Hip created them to be the way they are. It's that range, & the quality within the range, that makes them such a great band.

Maybe part of the issue is that we're all so invested in the songs that it's hard to not sorta find yourself becoming invested in the ranking system of the songs, & the outcome of the ranking process, especially once you've invested some time & energy on posting etc. I think our ranking is interesting but not definitive by any means--it's more a reflection of us than a reflection of anything definitive about the hip. Especially as we become more invested in the outcome. But then, I'm an appreciator of all those echo-y spare quiet moments. I'm one of those people that thinks one of the greatest Hip albums is actually a Gord Downie album (Coke Machine Glow), but that's a conversation for another day, lol

[potsie]

I have no hard criteria for evaluating music but what I've been trying to do in these pools is to strike a balance between the visceral and the intellectual. You can't discount either and come at this with complete objectivity. Music is nothing if it doesn't elicit some feeling in you, whether you find it uplifting, provoking, compelling, or something that makes you want to rattle your brain around inside your skull. If the music doesn't stir something inside me, I won't care what the writer has to say. I joked about this earlier, but I don't truly believe that enjoying the heavier moments from a band speaks to more baser instincts. It's simply a preference for a loud vs. quiet aesthetic. The "loud" songs don't have any less depth than the quieter moments.

As for lyrical analysis, well, these came from the mind of Gord Downie. If his lyrics aren't worth looking at, then nothing out there is. It doesn't need to be an exercise in academia, totally dissociated from the feeling of the song. But a song with great lyrics full of rich metaphor should elevate it above a musically equivalent counterpart.

[andrew sharpe]

The other, much trickier distinction is - to put it bluntly - between cruder and more richly-developed responses. For example, a lot of people LOVE AC-DC music. They love how it cranks them up, how visceral it is. But it doesn't change the fact that AC-DC is *basically* making music for 12-year-old boys and that their songs are the musical equivalent of WWE wrestling. They don't speak to any aspect of ourselves except the part that wants to bang its head and jump around. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but anyone who thinks AC-DC is "as good" as the Hip because their music rocks as hard or harder than the Hip is just not playing with a full deck as far as I'm concerned. The Hip are so superior to AC-DC on so many levels, they're barely even in the same category, and the reason is that the Hip's music activates many other parts of ourselves - a richer, more complex and deeper emotional landscape, opening up images and vistas, sometimes even making us think or stopping us up short with some arresting formulation - besides just the RAWK RAWK RAWK!!! part.

This is a larger discussion but I struggle with defining how and why some art is better than others. There's no mathematical proof that holds up, so I have trouble accepting it. Take a more extreme example: I know when I look at a painting I did VS the Sistine Chapel, that the latter is much better. But why? Because it took longer? Because the artist was more practiced? Because it more accurately reflects reality? Because others like it more? Because it evokes a deeper feeling? Well, yeah, all of those, but when you take that list and apply to another art VS art, the proof doesn't hold. ACDC are a much more successful band than the Hip, and if you surveyed a broad percentage of the world's population, they would tell you that ACDC make better music. But the suggestion is offensive to you and I.

We could extend this much further to morality, religion, politics. But the fact is that people are very, very different, and each have their own reasons why what they like/believe is better. And each is as improvable as our own.

So because there is no way to prove why some art is better than others, I've given up on it. One of my daughters loves Blue Rodeo, the other, Imagine Dragons. I've accepted it.
Hey, some people truly do love The Eagles (and some people really do think 38 is better written than LTR )

So I vote for the songs I like the most.

[Killer Whale Tank]

Obviously, a lot of this is subjective, and there is room for a wide range of variation in tastes and judgement.

I don't agree with the premise that 'anything is as good as anything else,' however. People make a mistake in thinking that because something is a matter of judgement (rather than mathematical proof), there can be no such thing as better or worse judgement. Also, just saying "I like it" should not preclude us from asking WHY we like it. Which then should not preclude us asking to what extent our reasons stand up to thoughtful scrutiny.

If someone wants to argue that AC-DC music kicks harder than the Hip's, then I think they've got a case to make. If they then admit that the ONLY thing they care about is how hard music kicks, then they just do have a more shallow view of music than people who are open to further musical values. They're entitled to like whatever they want. But they lose the argument with anyone who isn't tone-deaf to a wider and deeper range of musical concerns.

I recognize that this sort of argument makes people uneasy, though, because we live in a very heavily egalitarian culture where it's often felt to be bad manners to state the obvious, e.g., Tolstoy's work is generally superior to your average Harlequin romance, or Yeats's poetry superior to what you get at your average teenage poetry slam. The denial of this is caused by confusing two ideas. One idea is that all human being have a baseline equality of moral worth. The other is that every person is as good as every other person at everything (including, say, aesthetic judgement). The latter is pretty plainly wrong, but our commitment to moral equality often causes us to lose sight of that.

[andrew sharpe]

My issue is that "better" is not strictly defined or agreed upon. Any proof without defined success will be inconclusive. We know Usain Bolt runs faster than me, because he arrives at the finish line before I do. "Better" in this case is defined as who gets there first. But we can't prove that Little Bones is better than LTR, we can only list the reasons why you prefer it.

Of course if you agree to vote for Escape on the PP poll then I will toss all of this out the window and happily join your merry band of taste masters.