Having a voice and knowing how to use it counts for craftsmanship in my book
That is a different kind of craftsmanship that is equally valid [2]

The Beatles and Dylan have created works which have woven themselves into modern culture to a point where upon initial release they directed the path where pop culture was headed and were not dictated to by what was ‘trendy’ they were the pioneers and trendsetters.

They did this as a result of what was being said and relayed on their records.
Visions of Johanna, Strawberry Fields, It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding), A Day In The Life, Masters of War are timeless.

That takes skill.

Album Rating: 4.5

@Scheumke: "There is a very clear distinction between 'requiring skill and craftsmanship' and 'being complex' though... Something can be quite simple yet require a lot of skill to even conceive.

@JohnnyoftheWell: "I think the (admittedly unclear) implication of zak's point is that part of craftsmanship is putting complex means to appropriate ends"

OK, but then I'm not sure how we're judging "skill and craftsmanship" to begin with, then. The very nature of "skill" and "craft" is something that's learned and mastered by only a few people. That's (somewhat) discernible in terms of instrumental talent and the employment of certain musical ideas that one can only do if they've properly studied them (like, say, counterpoint, or sonata form, or different rhythms/meters). But I'm not sure I'm seeing the "skill" and "craft" required to write a verse/chorus/verse song that only uses a few chords with a common progression, but contains a memorable melody, or catchy rhythm, or some other feature that nonetheless makes people like it.

Yesterday by The Beatles isn't a song that required any high degree of learned skill or craft to write. Hell, the main melody came to Paul in a dream. Supposedly, the lyrics were more troublesome to write than the music (the famous "scrambled eggs" story). Yet it's one of the most recorded/covered and iconic songs of the century. Would anyone dispute that something like Dream Theater's Dance of Eternity required more "craft" and "skill" on most every conceivable level, yet (as good as it is) is nowhere near as revered? My fear is that "craft" and "skill" just becomes synonymous with "whatever I/we like," and I don't think that should be the case.

Album Rating: 4.5

"Would anyone dispute that something like Dream Theater's Dance of Eternity required more "craft" and "skill" on most every conceivable level, yet (as good as it is) is nowhere near as revered? My fear is that "craft" and "skill" just becomes synonymous with "whatever I/we like," and I don't think that should be the case. "



I think you might be staring to blindly at craft and skill when it comes to what makes a song work or excellent. It's much more than that. It's zeitgeist, it's immediacy, it's depth, it's luck, it's finding that itch people didn't know they had. It's making something that is timeless (which is mostly luck, because who knows what the future masses like).

Album Rating: 4.5

@Scheumke: "I think being a 'visionary' or 'pioneer' is a skill all in itself."

@JohnnyoftheWell: "Having a voice and knowing how to use it counts for craftsmanship in my book"

@zakalwe: "...That takes skill."

All I'm seeing from this is precisely what I alluded to above, that "skill" and "craft" are being conflated with "stuff people consider good," which basically makes both concepts wholly subjective and not tied to the actual practice and learning that's generally required to say one possesses a skill or has mastered a craft. If success is all that matters, then one can just as easily call the "poop on canvass" guy a "visionary" and say that required a lot of craft and skill to succeed. After all, nobody had ever done it, and it certainly made a cultural impact! The argument people usually make against considering such a thing "skillful" or "masterfully crafted" is that anyone could've done it; but anyone could've written Yesterday, but just anyone didn't. If anything, I think you guys are confusing inspiration and vision with "skill" and "craft." These things shouldn't be synonymous. Inspiration and vision can make up for a lot of what someone lacks in skill and craft.

"The very nature of "skill" and "craft" is something that's learned and mastered by only a few people"
Developing your own style and voice as a songwriter tends toward individual specificity, so this seems a little redundant as an objection. Individual songwriters are discrete; it's all very well to look at music as a set of continuous variables and claim that, say, Dylan didn't innovate with chord structures, but this doesn't touch on what makes his work so unmistakably his. Not all artists have mastered their own voices to the same degree, so it's quite straightforward to see this as a skill.
"Yesterday by The Beatles isn't a song that required any high degree of learned skill or craft to write. Hell, the main melody came to Paul in a dream."
Perfect example. If you break that song down to the sum of its parts, it's nothing particularly remarkable - and yet it's totally inconceivable that anyone else could ever have written it. They literally made a movie satirising (albeit ham-fistedly) the notion that the Beatles were arbitrary songwriters hiding behind songs that just so happened to be popular.
"My fear is that "craft" and "skill" just becomes synonymous with "whatever I/we like," and I don't think that should be the case."
As Memento would doubtless say, sussing out what makes an artist's voice specifically theirs, and the degree to which their songwriting is best appropriate for it, takes a subjective approach - so yes you're right that this is a risk, but also this skirts the fact that subjective takes can be substantiated well beyond bottom-line personal preference with a little thoughtfulness, digging and unpacking. See my review for Sawayama for more on what where I'm trying to come from here.

Album Rating: 4.5

@Scheumke: "I think you might be staring to blindly at craft and skill when it comes to what makes a song work or excellent..."

It seems to me it's the opposite: you guys are trying to label everything that's artistically successful as being displays of craft and skill, while I'm trying to say that inspiration/vision is just as (if not more) important, and that inspiration/vision is different than skill/craft.

tl;dr the realisation in music of inspiration/vision/personality/whatever is a skill, i don't get what the controversy is here

The ‘poop on canvas guy’ is saying nothing. As a piece it means absolutely nothing. The ‘cultural impact’ is a 5 second discussion that’s forgotten about within 10mins, it’s influence is only within the esoteric nonsense world of ‘modern art’

It’s only statement is that somebody is fool enough to pay a ridiculous sum for it.

Album Rating: 4.5

@JohnnyoftheWell

I disagree that songwriters are discrete. By their very nature they're all mostly making use of a lot of the same concepts in terms of musical language. Yes, they all have their distinctive qualities as well. The question is how much of those distinctive qualities is down to skill/craft and how much down to inspiraction/vision or even, as you allude to, the development of personality/style/voice.

Really, that's my only objection, the notion that inspiration/vision and personality/style/voice should be conflated with skill and craft. The latter two concepts are, to me, what's intellectually practiced and learned. It's Bach making use of rich counterpoint, it's Beethoven making use of motivic development, it's Miles Davis emphasizing modes over chord progressions, it's Parker and Gillespie playing with blinding speed, it's Dream Theater incorporating hundreds of metrical changes within the span of 6 minutes, etc. These are all things that are only doable via practice, learning, and mastery, not merely by inspiration, vision, or the development of voice/style/personality.

Don't mistake me, I'm not trying to minimize the importance of the latter--there's a reason Bob Dylan is my favorite popular music artist of all time, and it's not because of his technical skill/craft--I'm just trying to make objective, rational distinctions between what we're talking about. Go back to Zak's initial comment and my initial objection to perhaps understand precisely what I was objecting to and why.

Album Rating: 4.5

@zakalwe

Your claims about the "poop on canvass guy" is just your subjective judgment, and the notion that its "cultural impact" was only a 5 second forgotten discussion ignores the fact that it happened in the 90s and we're still talking about it 3 decades later! And how is the "esoteric... world of art" any more "nonsense" or "esoteric" than that of extreme metal?

Album Rating: 4.5

I think it's become quite vague what the discussion is about. Are we talking about the definition of artistic value here, or more 'what is considered art and what is not'?

"the notion that inspiration/vision and personality/style/voice should be conflated with skill and craft."
^this is the crux of the discussion - I've said my piece and have little more to add to it, but that's the boi

@ sol.
I honestly thought you initially made it up for a point of context.
The world of extreme metal is made up of individuals who are absolute Goliaths at instruments, vocals etc it’s just understandably so not to some people’s taste.

There is objective beauty and objective rubbish the idea that absolutely everything is subjective is used as a mechanism to deconstruct the idea that functioning societies do not require hierarchies and that cohesive society does not need imposed rules regulations or the abolishment of some cultural practices for it to function.

Album Rating: 4.5

@Scheumke: "I think it's become quite vague what the discussion is about."

The original post I objected to was Zak saying "It’s about the craft that goes in and the appreciation of being able to create something that not anybody can whip up in about 5mins. It’s why modern ‘art’ is nothing but a lie that people happily buy into..." My objection was that much art that's appreciated didn't require a lot of craft/skill and a lot of modern art DID require a lot of craft/skill, and then the debate became about defining craft/skill and how/if it was distinct from inspiration/vision etc. So, basically what JohnnyoftheWell said above.

Album Rating: 4.5

@zak

Not sure what you're referring to with "you initially made it (what?) up for a point of context." Yeah, I agree that the world of extreme metal is full of people with immense instrumental skills, but skill alone doesn't make great art. I could link you to Shawn Lane doing nigh-inhuman runs on guitar in the context of pretty awful music (IMO, at least).

I agree that not everything is subjective, but beauty/rubbish is among the things that very much are. Functioning societies do (so far as we can tell) require hierarchies, rules, and regulations; but I have no idea what you think that has to do with beauty/rubbish being objective. The idea that a "functioning society" is even a good thing worth maintaining is, in itself, a subjective notion. Of course, like the rules of sports, once it's subjectively established we can (at least, theoretically) objectively determine whether or not something (a play in sports, hierarchies in society) work or not towards achieving that goal.

1. The poop on canvas guy
2. I’m saying that subjectivity for absolutely everything is used as a mechanism to deconstruct.

Album Rating: 4.5

1. Ah, gotcha.

2. Well, that's just not true. The subjective/objective distinction is a philosophical subject going back millennia. Thinkers have always pondered how to distinguish between things that only exist in the mind VS things that exist external to the mind. Not all people claiming subjectivity on various subjects are trying to destroy society and culture; many, like myself, are just rationalists trying to get to the truth of how things are and are trying to avoid biases while doing so, like mistaking strongly held beliefs/values for being objectively true. I can strongly believe that "murder is wrong" without believing that it's objectively true.

Album Rating: 4.0

impressive rec

Album Rating: 3.5

y'all really having this discussion in an ulcerate thread huh