Viewer Mail - "More than a feeling?"

I've been getting some very welcome feedback on the blog and a recent exchange was worth repeating. I've narrowed the "Mike" in question down to two people. I decided I don't have to know which one it is to reply.

Mike said...

This is truly astounding Jay. I have always considered myself as very "into music" and fairly opinionated on the topic but your undertaking here has left me feeling like a exclusively top 40 radio listener. It's actually a bit intimidating. I feel like anyone who has gone to this much effort must A)care more about music than I do and B)have a more informed opinion than I do. Probably true on both counts (although music is huge part of my life).

I can't help feel though that there is something a bit "wrong" about the whole enterprise. I like your example of the Bob Dylan/Corey Hart issue. It is true that I feel that some music is much much better than other music. I think though that the operative word here is "feel". I either like something or I don't and I think it is much more of a feeling than a decision. This feeling is based on a number of factors but how I judge the song is based on the feeling, not the factors. It's a reaction to it, whether it pumps me up, brings me down, makes me think about or remember something or all those things at once. You may even say it's "More Than a Feeling". Something indescribable. That is what makes music beautiful. It's mostly unquantifiable for me. I just don't know if the "goodness" of a song is something that one can have any kind of sensible argument about. I think you would agree that a song is much much more than the sum of it's parts (as is a band)so breaking it down into its constituent virtues doesn't capture it for me. It's the reason I don't read record reviews very carefully and the reason I don't spend much time thinking about what it is I like about a painting. I either like it or I don't and I think that should be enough.

Don't get me wrong it's not that I don't care that much. I just think that it is a unbelievably difficult endeavor to have an argument that can come anywhere close to resolution about THE top 500 songs, but I guess that is not the point. I suspect that it is not the destination you are interested in but the journey. Journey is on the list somewhere right? Anyway, like I said kudos for the undertaking man. Truly impressive. I'll be interested to read the witty exchanges that are sure to ensue.

My reply...

Jay said...

I have no illusions about the hopelessness of the endeavour. You're absolutely right, the joy is in the journey not the destination. At the end of the day nothing definitive can actually be said (although, goddammit, a lot of good arguments will be tabled) -- but the fun is in the trying. As Elvis Costello once said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture". My response to that is, "Yes, YES! Let me see you dance about architecture and we will see what we can learn!". I also think that this...this "thing" I got going on is a combined consequence of....

1. a personality type: the "collector", a need for conceptual order
2. my training as a social scientist, researcher, and appreciative inquirer
3. the object under study: the passion and love for music itself
   

Re: quantifying music. I am giving rough proportions of what is important to me in a song, and percentages seemed the most transparent way to do that. But within the categories it is purely qualitative judgment and the categories interact in qualitative ways. This comprises "the feel", which I also have, of course. My goal is to articulate these things. I want to examine the feeling. I get tired of calling something "authentic" and something else "cliched and insipid", and not really being able to say why. And the reason why I have a need to articulate these things is something I find very difficult to escape (whereas other people don't give a shit). It is simply this: I am CERTAIN that London Calling is a "better album" than Green Day's Dookie. And so are you! You ARE! So...why? WHY? WHY? You may not care to answer that with anything other than "its just a feeling I get". But that's simply not good enough for me.

PS. Journey did not make the list. Do you want to know why?