I’ve listened, in fact, to a fair bit of Garth Brooks. I’ve also listened to a lot of Bob Marley. I find them equally grating and unpleasant to hear. But Garth really has nothing going for him—after his death no-one will listen to him. Marley is different—not to my taste any more than Brooks is. Do you really think there is nothing but taste here? Can you really think of no examples of one artist being superior to another regardelss of taste. Gareth Gates and Bob Dylan? The Beatles and the Backstreet Boys? If so, that’s fine, and I don’t have time or energy to argue it further.

I really enjoy many types of music when they are done well, and can at least appreciate any style of music done well (but might not choose to listen to it). I have vastly more experience than the average top-40/hip-hop/C&W/whatever radio station target, am a musician of sorts, and spend a lot more time than average listening, especially listening for its own sake, rather than background. Support for this statment? This year, for example, I bought more music and went to more concerts than many (most?) people do in a decade, if not a lifetime. Hence my conclusions about music both subjectively and objectively are not the same as the average (however meaningful we can make that). I certainly don’t reject music because it is popular (see previous comments) but mere popularity won’t convince me it is any good, either: and I have a lot of material to contrast it with to make sense of this.

A lot of popular music is intentionally derivitive and formulaic, and it is marketed in very particular ways. In this there is a (ok, probably weak) analogy with fast food: the product is cheap, easily available, and you wont have to expend any effort or intelligence on it. However, it is objectively inferior to many other available meals (some of which will require effort on your part).

Come to think of it, there must be reasons why the intersection between major literary prizes and bestsellers lists is small, too, no?

It’s not a very country music sort of place. Wisconsin in general isn’t. What do you expect from a state settled by socialist German refugees?

The people who live here who wear cowboy hats, check shirts and drive pickup trucks don’t think that what they listen to is pap, and who are we from another to continent to say so?

People with taste in music, perhaps?

I can’t objectively define Garths crapiness, and I don’t believe anyone else on this thread can either, which makes me think he’s not actually crap or dull.

Mark – Can you “objectively define” why horse shit stinks? I can’t, but I’m sure as hell not going to eat it. Which I’d sooner do than listen to Garth Brooks.

I’m going to be grossed out all day long now.

My request for a defence of the quality was just that. I think the stuff Bob Harris plays is pretty good; I’d like to see why I ought to think that what seems like pap on corporate C&W radio is pretty good too. I’m willing to be persuaded (it took me a while to appreciate Dolly Parton’s qualities; I hated smoked salmon as a kid, etc).

But the equation of quality with reflecting the lives and values of the consumers won’t do (if that’s what you meant to do). The Sex Pistols were thrilling because they did not reflect my life and values (among other reasons); Mozart, Beethoven, Steve Earle, Loudon Wainwright III, Joni Mitchell; none of them reflect my life or values. Any music that did would be dull as ditchwater. Rather like Garth Brooks, in fact!

Garth Brooks [+BBC CMT 107,000][BBC +CMT 75,300]

So pseudo-scientifically analyzing these numbers, using Garth as a control of an artist well known in both environments,
Emmylou is classic – Everyone knows her, so she doesn’t get a lot of rotation on CMT, and she doesn’t have a brand new album.
Gillian Welch is a lesser known artist, first album in 1996, but as female artists go, she holds up well.
Steve Earle appears to be the only artist who appears to have a substantially better ‘Bob Harris’ audience (Using my patented Garth Quotient) than CMT, but wait! Steve Earle isn’t off rotation, in fact if you check todays schedules on CMT, you’ll see he’s a featured artist. So your choice: authentic artist/mindless pap.

But what to make of an artist like Sara Evans, who actually has a negative garth quotient(Mentioned more in conjunction with CMT than BBC). But Bob Harris Likes her. So again your choice: authentic artist/mindless pap.

So maybe I’ll argue it differently: What you hear on BBC isn’t more or less authentic than CMT: It’s exactly the same….

Most of the music produced isn’t well known because it isn’t very good at all. Some very well known music isn’t very good either, but on the whole it tends to be ok, somewhat in a lowest common denominator way. There is a lot of stuff out there in the populuar music sphere (whether in C&W, hip-hop, rock, reggae, whatever) that boils down to medium talented [1] people doing it by the numbers.

Now the interesting thing is that while some of the best music being produced (in any of these genres) is well known, a lot of it isn’t.

[1] here I mean, of course, medium talent for professional touring (popular) musicians, which is a lot better than your average kitchen musicians and random weekend bands, but not compared to, say, your average symphony player….

1. Until this very comment, only one person has used the word “obscure”.

2. Emmylou Harris is not obscure by any standards, and Steve Earle and Gillian Welch arguably aren’t either.

1. Does what Bob Harris plays in the UK, but nobody listens to here, better reflect the lives and values of the people who live here, but listen to mainstream?

a. If you answer yes, explain why society does not embrace the music that reflects itself, and rationalize this in terms of the punk movement.

b. If you answer no, explain how popular music reflects society, how an outsider might not recognize the cultural touchstones, and rationalize this in terms of the punk movement.

2. Somebody , objectively quantify ‘Musical Pap’. Any reference to ‘Whistle Test’, ‘John Peel Sessions’ and pre-electric Dylan instantly disqualifies.

Hoping to enrich my musical education

Mark

Have you spent hours watching CMTV? Or listening to corporate country radio (or any other radio for that matter)? Are you willing to defend the pap as qualitatively equal to the kind of stuff Bob Harris plays? Or Dolly Parton? Ten hours is plenty of time to get a sense of what is actually playing on these stations because they repeat themselves endlessly. Garth Brooks is the macho equivalent of the Backstreet Boys. Alison Krause, sure,is something else (so, obviously, is Dolly Parton).
I see no reason to refrain from making qualitiative judgments just because they fly in the face popular opinion. Nor is this a case of someone elevating their own tastes to objective judgments. My tastes and my objective judgments are often out of alignment; I’d sooner listen to Peter Skellern than the Clash; I have no illusions that this reflects the objective reality of his artistic superiority, he’s obviously a lesser artist.

My daughter’s school starts at 7.41 (I’m not kidding). Its a 20 minute walk, but she leaves early because she is over-eager.