Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mit-eddie.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!harvard!think!mit-eddie!nessus 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)