/philosonic/
Images are sometimes not shown due to bandwidth/network limitations. Refreshing the page usually helps.
You are currently reading a thread in /mu/ - Music
You are currently reading a thread in /mu/ - Music
I'm going to start a new segment on /mu/ called 'philosonic' where we discuss/ponder philosophical question thats pertain to music. Keep in mind this will not be a "is music objective or subjective?" kind of thing although that may come up in discussions which is fine so long as it doesnt unnecessarily derail the thread.
Today's question: To what extent does originality matter to you? If there is an album that is, in your opinion, a fantastic album but it suffers from the fact that it lacks any sort of originality in the slightest (tame impala, queens of the stone age, the new kamasi washington album etc...) whats the highest you would rate it? Could you rate an unoriginal album a 9/10 or even a 10/10? Is there anyone here who believes that originality and boundary-pushing is an absolute necessity?
Obviously standards are subjective and this board is filled with inflated ratings but this question pertains to each individual user who decides to answer this question.
Whatever your answer is, please post an original album you hold in high regard as well as a totally unoriginal album that you hold in a high regard and explain whether or not you hold them in the same regard or not. Also what are some albums (not obvious ones) that were forward thinking for the time they were released (could be any decade from the 60s to the 2010s)
tl;dr: Does originality matter at all?
Bonus question: are these types of threads cancerous? should i continue to make them daily or should i fuck off?
i love you so much for trying to make /mu/ a better place.
i'm about to sleep so i'll be brief. orginality should always be encouraged and praised, but it is not enough to make an album great. on the other hand, perfection of an existing style also warrants praise. people should not be afraid to do something that exists if they can bring out the best of it.
however, looking at these following four scenarios we see that it is better to be original:
album is original and is great: 10/10 worthy.
album is original and is bad: i appreciate you trying to explore and reshape the musical landscape. props.
album is derivative and great: very enjoyable thanks i love it man. i can groove to this.
album is derivative and bad: no reason to even talk about it.
so yeah probably in an artist's best interest to be original as ling as they don't force it and it feels fake.
>>55629637
thank you for responding anon. im about to go to sleep too. i'll be making these threads at different times during the subsequent days.
hopefully when i wake up it will be a thread filled with great discussion. also feel free to suggest future topics
>>55629461
>/philosonic/
Cringey
>does originality matter at all?
Yes, as does the context of creation and hearing. Music (as any other art) is medium of self examination in the multiple relations between artist, consumer and society (especially the society of art consumers). In this context artistic merit comes from:
a) reflecting the life/mind of the consumer in a necessary (I feel this HAD to be like this) but unexpected (I couldn't make this) way.
b) homogenizing the life experiences of the society were it is released with a relevant (we are all thinking about this) but novel (we never saw this before) expression.
If you want the source for this shit look for the things Georg Simmel and Pierre Bourdieu have wrote on the subject.
Also >>55629637 if an album perfects its genre it is still introducing novelty to it.
>are these types of threads cancerous?
They can't be worst than ur average thread. Keep going budy.
Doesn't originality bloom through influence/inspiration?
I have a question of my own: Why do /mu/tants give a shit about what any critic thinks instead of making their own opinions and thinking for themselves? Why do they have to then go and flaunt their own ratings/opinions on albums instead of just enjoying the beauty that is music?
I personally think /mu/ is too obsessed with elitism, and not just loving the music. I think music should be a neverending search for more artists with the same inspirations/tones, instead of just saying, "pleb album, go back to reddit."
But I am a supporter of /philosonic/ OP. You have my vote.
>And my axe.
>>55629833
Thank you for actually seeming like you have been educated about/thought about philosophy of art in a meaningful way before posting. If there were more of you when I browsed /tv/ art discussions I would have much lower blood pressure.
Honestly don't feel like discussing this particular topic but I support this idea OP, take a bump
>>55629911
>in a meaningful way
If regurgitating ideas without adding any critical thought is meaningful then okay
>>55629842
>Doesn't originality bloom through influence/inspiration?
Yeah, there is never something completely new, but artists should try to cast more light or see their influences from a different angle each time.
>Why do /mu/tants give a shit about what any critic thinks instead of making their own opinions and thinking for themselves?
I could just say “becuz dey dumb" but honestly, I think it is because they can feel theres something else to the music they are discovering, but they also feel they don't have the words to express this properly. Also, they want some kind of authority to validate what they feel.
>I personally think /mu/ is too obsessed with elitism
Well, I for one think is great to get here and get recomended all this music because people keep looking for new things to talk about, even if just to get others outpatricianed.
We should have a most philosophical album/artist thread
>>55630028
that is a terrible idea.
>>55629987
That's why I had to clarify between being educated or having though about philosophy of art in a meaningful way. One could've come to a similar conclusion on their own by thinking about it beyond surface level drivel that you tend to see in these types of threads. I suppose the suggestions of Bourdieu and Simmel should've been a giveaway though :^)
>>55629987
Well, I share those points of view, but w/e. Maybe I'll change my opinions soon.
>>55629911
I'm not that educated. Just readed some introductory stuff in Sociology of art 101 (maybe sounds fancy, but it was very basic). The thing that is so atractive to me in these theories is that the researches try to study the value of art by observing the impact in the people, and not just in themselves.
>>55630004
I'm with you on that last bit. Even just browsing the archive for mega links, I got some great new shit.
Like most recently: Pity Sex and Ovlov and the Laurels.
I wouldn't have found them otherwise, so I thank /mu/ for those gems.
And to them veer into what OP was saying, looking at Pity Sex/Ovlov, both bands are majorly influenced by Dinosaur Jr.
Pity Sex is like a combo of Dino Jr and The Pixies, while Ovlov is like mbv meets Dino, yet i think in their own sense, theyre still both great, even if a bit unoriginal. Maybe the influence is just too prevalent with the slacker style of singing. But still, I'll love those bands for a long time. Also cuz I just love Dino Jr
And I think finding new music through influence is fantastic. But if I then had to go into making my own music (I'm a songwriter) I'd instead of looking just at Dino, I'd look at what theyd spawned and pick out what I liked and disliked out of the various styles, but I dunno if I'm personally confident to be completely original since what I like has already been tried and tested. Maybe musicians just need more balls in general to delve into new territory?
>>55629461
>avatar pic
man I remember that video, gave me a good shock
anyways
>originality
An original album (ie: new ideas, new sound, new message) will definitely fare better than an album using elements that has already been used many times
That is not to say that reusing older elements mean that it's a bad album, expanding on what is already done before is sometimes better
It's impossible to create an album with no influences at all and 100% originality, since everything influences another thing in another way. It's what you make out of those influences and break yourself out of usual constraints that make originality shine
An album I hold in high regard: it's not 100% original; sound collages are nothing new and neither is erratic arrangement, but the juxtaposition of everything and the added context of the album subject in contrast to the source material of many samples makes it one of my favorite albums, despite not being a fan of most noise music (I don't really consider the album noise anyways)
>>55629951
[2]
actually it's not that i don't feel like it it's just that i have nothing to add
>>55630277
>checkem
test yourself, anon. step outside the box.
we defo need something a bit more polarising next time.
Sonic originality is (usually) paramount. Art is that which awakes our souls from their stasis. Novelty can accomplish this, and is a good start. Following this initial shock, a new metaphysical state is reached and must be explored.
A great artist guides us through this state with attention detail and humanity, harmonized by a detectable but ineffable vision that serves to mend something within us all.
It's hard to pick one Magnetic Field album but why not 69 Love Songs to crystallize my idea.
are dubs objectively or subjectively the best
If you truly respect pop music as art then you won't rate it with numbers. The purity of artistic motivation is already diluted in pop by the capitalistic tradition of it. I think possibly the practice of assigning contrived scores to rank art comes from billboard chart rankings. Commodities being sold belong in that format but that's a shallow way of thinking of art.
>>55630422
i disagree with your definition of art and what a great artist is.
i don't think our soul or what we feel needs to be taken into consideration. this is a narrow view.
>>55629461
Yes originality does mean q great deal. If a band doesn't seem to be pushing themselves by much or developing then it will just get bland after a while. See Foo Fighters, and imo Royal Blood. Whilst their music isn't that bad, they don't really offer anything new to the table. It ends up feeling 'generic' to me, with no hints to the personalities of the artists at all.
Great idea by the way op but not sure about the name.
>>55630732
Elaborate. Disregarding soul and feeling leaves little else.
I prefer to describe music with adjectives, thoughts and theories, not other artists. An example that comes to mind was when Wolfmother was particularly in my peer groups attention. The most common reason people would say that they liked them was "finally contemporary music that sounds like led zepplin and other dadrock". Which I guess is alright if you missed out on being able to see a zepplin concert and wanted to hear that kind of music live. Other than that many of my friends and I couldn't find anything particularly interesting besides their obvious influence by dad and psychedelic rock.
>>55629833
>reflecting the life/mind of the consumer in a necessary (I feel this HAD to be like this) but unexpected (I couldn't make this) way.
Music has to be about specific things?
>>55631311
so you like bands that you can't describe by using other bands names?
Is this album unoriginal? I think so but I can't prove it exactly. I do like it a lot.
