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From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Avant-garde pop?  (A question on importance)
Message-ID: <319@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 08:41:55 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.319
Posted: Tue Nov  5 08:41:55 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 06:38:51 EST
References: <249@mit-eddie.UUCP> <5811@tekecs.UUCP>
Distribution: net.music
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 69

> From: jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow)

> Of course, if Hockney's painting becomes even more popular in 50 years
> than Madonna is today, that sort of changes things, doesn't it?

I agree.

> Defining "importance" (phew, give me unimportant music any day) as a
> function of the number of people you reach TODAY strikes me as
> artificial.

Well it depends on whether you mean important now, or important 100
years from now.  I guess you could say "ultimate importance" is a
function of how many people you reach over all of time.  Since I'm
living now and since it doesn't seem very easy to predict who will be
remembered 100 years from now, that doesn't seem quite as... um...
important... to me, now.

Also, Vermorel claimed, I think, that for the most part, what will be
remembered in the future is not art that was designed to be "eternal",
but art that was caught up in the passion of the time (not necessarily
what was popular at the time, though).  He claims that most of the
"avant-garde" is not caught up in the passion of the times, but strives
to be "eternal".  And thus won't be remembered.  I'm not much of a
historian, so don't really know how valid his claim is.

> You *do* believe that importance should be related to quality, don't
> you?

It should be!  But it seems like most often it isn't.  For instance,
Reagan is an important dude, right.  But does he have one desirable
quality in him?  I don't see any.

It really depends on what one means when one is using the word
"important".  If I say Madonna is "important", I mean that she
(unfortunately) has a lot of effect on the world.  When I said
"avant-garde pop" is the most "important" art today, I didn't mean that
it would necessarily have the most effect on the world of any area of
art, but that it is the art that best combines quality and being able to
reach many people.  In either case, it's a function of the number of
people that are reached.

> I'll even go further and suggest that popularity of any given art is
> pure chance. Just a thought.

Well, pure chance is an important force in the world.

>> 	Hardly art at all, since it no longer moves, surprises or alerts
>> 	us.  Merely mystifies, bores or impresses. 

> Of course, this attitude is indistinguishable from that of someone who
> is simply too dull or ignorant to respond.

I think what Vermorel was getting at, is that most of the "avant-garde"
doesn't care about making art that is emotionally powerful.  That they
are not really interested in communication, but in making something that
is *theoretically* interesting.  I agree with that, but only to a point
since often the results are emotionally powerful.  It seems to be they'd
do a better job, though, if their purpose was to make communicative
music, rather than theoretically interesting music.  If I were
interested in theories, I'd go off an read a book on General Relativity,
rather than contemplate what makes theoretically interesting music.

			"I want to be lawyer.  I want to be a scholar
			 But I really can't be bothered
			 Ooh, just gimme gimme gimme it quick"

			 Doug Alan
			  nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)