# "90% of everything is crap." True or False?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

There are lots of crappy piano concertos out there, as well as string quartets and symphonies. Do you believe that "90% of everything is crap?" Or not?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

From another thread:

Quote Originally Posted by mbhaub:
"I disagree with the whole premise: the violin concertos we know are the cream of the crop. So the great concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich get far more play time than the others. The Elgar and Khachaturian are superb, too, if not played as often. But then there are hundreds, probably thousands, of crappy concertos. Bruch wrote three, but only the first is commonly played, the other two just don't measure up. The Karlowicz deserves more exposure, but for some people it's pretty lame. But then consider the concertos of Paganini,Viotti, Wieniawski and their ilk: the performer/composer. Pytotechnics aplenty and musically empty. And of the poor concertos, those are the good ones!"

mbhaub here touches upon a subject that, for me, sits just below the surface in any overall discussion of CM: how "good" is the music, really, taken as a whole? This again feeds back into my stressing just how important, how utterly central, are our own unique, personal reactions to music and art.

The simple truth is that while I enjoy a broad spectrum of CM (and other musics) and a large repertoire of favored works, a rather large proportion of CM is of no interest to me at all; it's just "product" called CM, churned out by hordes of composers--some famous, other no-name nobodies. The finding that "90% of everything is crap", by a host of rival discoverers, remains very probably one of the most accurate observations of music and the arts made by human beings and admitted by such in their moments of self-honesty. 

My hat is off to mbhaub for stating this finding very clearly that "there are hundreds, probably thousands, of crappy concertos." And symphonies, and string quartets, and trios, and tone poems, and any number of other genres and pieces as well. We like what we like, and disregard the rest. And that's just as it should be.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

In general yes. But you come into problems if you go too specific. For instance, it's likely that 90% of all music ever composed is crap. But once you do a sifting, the number decreases. I do not expect that 90% of all recorded classical music is crap. I certainly do not believe that 90% of all compositions by any composer of fame is crap.


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## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> There are lots of crappy piano concertos out there, as well as string quartets and symphonies. Do you believe that "90% of everything is crap?" Or not?


there is good music and there is great music, there is no bad music


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

At what point does it become so bad that it is not really music?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Who's to say what's crap music? Every day I read glowing comments about music I consider crap.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> Who's to say what's crap music? Every day I read glowing comments about music I consider crap.


I believe that _everyone_ is entitled to say, in accordance with his or her own opinions and responses. Such it is for any art.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> Who's to say what's crap music? Every day I read glowing comments about music I consider crap.


Are you sure that's "crap" and not "rap?" :lol:


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Two posts from MR about pruning out the less wonderful in the space of a few hours. I sometimes go through those purging moods but have learned to be a little cautious. One thing is certain is that I won't dismiss music that I feel I am not (yet) understanding. 

Of the rest - the music that is known and noted by scholars at least and the contemporary music that appeals to an audience now but will probably be forgotten in 50 years - that music may be 90% of the whole and it may not be so wonderful and unmissable ... but "crap" seems a bit strong. Still, with so much great music written between the 12th century and now, I don't really have time for that 90%.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I'd venture that while my top tier may not look like anybody else's, my trash heap has a lot in common with everybody...

Sometimes the trash heap gets a second chance - for me right now that would be the symphonies of Bax... perhaps best appreciated as if Mahler never existed...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

philoctetes said:


> Sometimes the trash heap gets a second chance - for me right now that would be the symphonies of Bax... perhaps best appreciated as if Mahler never existed...


Maybe you're right, Philoctetes; we need the crap in our collection to remind us of how good the good stuff really is.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe you're right, Philoctetes; we need the crap in our collection to remind us of how good the good stuff really is.


Or maybe to remind me that too much of the "good stuff" makes philo a dull boy...

this approach has been especially rewarding for me lately with those jazz reissues from the 50s of forgotten stuff... while I could still be sleeping to "So What" for the millionth time...


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

philoctetes said:


> I'd venture that while my top tier may not look like anybody else's, my trash heap has a lot in common with everybody...
> 
> Sometimes the trash heap gets a second chance - for me right now that would be the symphonies of Bax... perhaps best appreciated as if Mahler never existed...


Yes, an interesting thought. Whenever I get into a Mahler kick, I overdose before too long. Maybe I need to balance it out with "lesser" music. Ditto for Beethoven. Maybe it's time to give Bax another chance. :lol:


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Maybe you're right, Philoctetes; we need the crap in our collection to remind us of how good the good stuff really is.


It might also be that we are not always in a proper mood or circumstances for the dizzying heights of greatness.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

What I could say is that nowadays (and the last 30 years or so) we don't have many great performances & performers. With some composers especially (like Schumann) this problem is big. But this 90% of crap music is completely a bad exaggeration. Most of CM is good, very good or great and also for modern music this percentage is insane.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

I think in general standards of art and culture have fallen down...Take 4 example the movies...Even movies that were considered ''crap'' in 80s are paragons of quality and intelligence/common sense(!) compared 2 nowadays ''blockbusters''...Imho.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

With no intention to dismiss the great stuff, I have simply gotten tired of some of it... I have retired Messiaen for almost a year after I gorged on his music before that... so I've finally pursued the likes of Szymanowski and Scriabin instead ... and I think that the closer we get to the present day chronologically, the more dispute and confusion over "best" and "trash" will prevail...


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

In Classical Music, I don't think there is really any bad music. Even the most uninspired music that's been recorded or performed still takes a certain amount of skill. The 90% is crap is more true of the Billboard Pop/R&B charts.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Some years ago the German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus made the estimate that during the 19th c there were around 20,000 symphonies written in Europe. (How he arrived at that number is a whole other discussion.) Of those 20K, fewer than 50 have been retained into the standard repertoire. Maybe another 100-150 have been recorded out of curiosity. So are all those other 18,000 crap? Well, a lot of them are. They are dull, uninspired, trivial, poorly orchestrated...Every year the more adventurous record companies like CPO, Sterling, Dutton, Naxos and some others bring out some long forgotten symphony whetting the appetites for many of us that now we're going to hear some undiscovered masterpiece. Doesn't happen. Some of the works are pleasant enough, interesting sometimes, but great? Nope. And some of it is really crappy, I have to say. I'm sure the composer spent countless hours struggling with his "masterpiece", but the harshest critic of all - time - has voted thumbs down.

So yes, there really is some bad music (some by famous composers). Most of the music ever written has been assigned to history's dustbin for the best of reasons. 90% might be a low ball figure, too.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Theodore Sturgeon is the author of "90% of everything is crap."

I'll tell you what's in the 10%.......probably more than 10% of Theodore Sturgeon's short stories! There are a few SF books that I keep on my "reference" bookshelf in the den. _Stranger_, my first edition of _Double Star_, that sort of thing. _Selected Stories_ by Sturgeon is one of them. I would recommend the short story _Slow Sculpture_!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Ninety percent of half-full glasses are actually half-empty.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Nereffid said:


> Ninety percent of half-full glasses are actually half-empty.


Yogi Berra: "Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.". Classical Music is both similar and differentNereffid.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> There are lots of crappy piano concertos out there, as well as string quartets and symphonies. Do you believe that "90% of everything is crap?" Or not?


You're talking about the last 75 years aren't you.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

mbhaub said:


> Some years ago the German musicologist made the estimate that during the 19th c there were around 20,000 symphonies written in Europe. (How he arrived at that number is a whole other discussion.) Of those 20K, fewer than 50 have been retained into the standard repertoire. Maybe another 100-150 have been recorded out of curiosity. So are all those other 18,000 crap? Well, a lot of them are. They are dull, uninspired, trivial, poorly orchestrated...Every year the more adventurous record companies like CPO, Sterling, Dutton, Naxos and some others bring out some long forgotten symphony whetting the appetites for many of us that now we're going to hear some undiscovered masterpiece. Doesn't happen. Some of the works are pleasant enough, interesting sometimes, but great? Nope. And some of it is really crappy, I have to say. I'm sure the composer spent countless hours struggling with his "masterpiece", but the harshest critic of all - time - has voted thumbs down.
> 
> So yes, there really is some bad music (some by famous composers). Most of the music ever written has been assigned to history's dustbin for the best of reasons. 90% might be a low ball figure, too.


Leif Segerstam alone wrote 337 symphonies so far. I can believe the 20,000 number.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> There are lots of crappy piano concertos out there, as well as string quartets and symphonies. Do you believe that "90% of everything is crap?" Or not?


Some recent music is generic, well constructed avant garde. I'm listening right now to some quartets by Alberto Posadas, and this seems to be a good example. Yesterday I was listening to Beat Furrer's 3rd quartet. Both Posadas and Furrer have produced some music which is very pleasant to listen to, it's certainly not crap, but it's a bit workmanlike I think, and derivative. No doubt not all their output is like this.

You'd expect this though I think. At any given time 90% of music is competent without being specially inspired. And the 10% may fall by the wayside.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

"generic" "workmanlike" "derivative" "competent without being specially inspired". For me, this formulation would be a working set of examples illustrating the concept of Damning By Faint Praise. I seek more strongly-flavored fare: the joy and the wonder is that music is so abundant that the 10% is readily available. If one kisses enough frogs?......


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

DaveM said:


> You're talking about the last 75 years aren't you.


The percentage is too low.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Definitely true. If you put most kinds of human achievement on a bell curve, most everything is wanting in some way or other. How many baseball players can hit a Major League fastball? What percentage of even MBAs could keep from running GE into the ground? It has been estimated that the number of operas written since Monteverdi's L'Orfeo is around 30,000. How many make up the standard repertory? A couple of hundred? How many others are sometimes revived just for the experience? A couple of hundred more? That's why CM radio is so bad. The programmers keep trying to find undiscovered masterpieces that aren't the standards -- mostly unsuccessfully. How many works of art are in the Louvre? Met? Getty? Hermitage? How many copies of Bob Ross hang in people's living rooms? Sad to say, most art is bad. But it takes the 90+% to make us appreciate the greats. Let's celebrate them!


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Many decades ago I had at my disposal a formidable music library. At the time, that music library probably had more actual physical scores than the county library had books. I used to "walk the stacks" rummaging through the scores looking at music written by folks that were pretty obscure. This was back in the day where there was a place on the inside back jacket to stamp the check out date. So many scores by so many composers that few had heard of that were checked out by maybe 5 students in 5 years. It was an example Sturgeon's Law before I knew what that was.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The older I get the higher the percentage of crap. I wonder what will remain at the end. Maybe just Om on the Range.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

No. Even with moonshine, 90% of it is pretty good. For classical music, a work that gets recorded more than once is probably pretty good. 

Looking around the house where I am right now, other than some garbage -- a used tissue on the coffee table, two empty bottles of scotch (my wife was at her sister's home last night) -- the only thing that could be called crap is some North Korean blueberry liquor, and even that has some interest as a novelty to most people. I have five CDs of music on the table in front of me, and none of them are crap.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

Short answer, "YES, 90% of everything is crap"

Long answer, "YES, 90% of everything is crap, BUT...."


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Just no.................................


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Room2201974 said:


> ...This was back in the day where there was a place on the inside back jacket to stamp the check out date. ...


Wow, I'm really behind the times. I thought they still did that. :lol:
Since the Internet came along, I guess it's been a couple of decades since I've even been in a library.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

Just because some compositions are forgotten, not discovered or not as popular as "masterpieces in the standard repertoire", does not imply they're of lesser quality. Of course there are many objectively inferior works. Even the best composer had his/her learning days. I believe there're many obscure, less known works that are worthy to be called masterpieces. Not just those we find in every seasons of every orchestras. There are many external factors contribute to the success of music. 

Did the composer had powerful friends to help his/her career? 
Was there a political party that oppress the music? 
Was there a war going on where most people worried about their lives then attending concerts? 
Did the music matches the music taste of the mass at the time?
And many others..

Just imagine you invite a teenager of today who loves pops, electronics or raps to listen to a Beethoven symphony (or any of your favourite masterpiece). Good luck "converting" him/her to this side with the best and greatest! 
Let's say 200 years from now, no one but the historians know the "great" music we currently have. Are they crap because of the lack of popularity? 

I do agree with the "90% of everything is crap" statement, but only when applied to personal level. The music I love are all great, the rest are subjectively crap. (have no value to me) However, considering all the works that are in the performing/recording repertoire, I think 90% crap is an overstatement.


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## mark6144 (Apr 6, 2019)

Eveything except the best 10% is relatively crap.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Everything expect the worst 10% is relatively great.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

If the OP is right, 90% of the replies in this thread are crap. Of course, at the same time also 90% of the threads started by the OP are crap. :devil:


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I'd say more than 90%. If I look at science, then 97% of scientific publications are crap.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

1 mans trash, another mans treasure


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

When I look into my library of kept pop, rock, etc. songs, I barely bother to list bands, because they do not repeat.
The same with the Strauss family. Other than _The Blue Danube_ and the _Fledermaus _overture, I have found only disappointments and yawning in a 100 or so of their works I sampled before I gave up.

Depending where one looks, the ratios may differ. I bet Bach's works are not 90% crap.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Fabulin said:


> When I look into my library of kept pop, rock, etc. songs, I barely bother to list bands, because they do not repeat.
> The same with the Strauss family. Other than _The Blue Danube_ and the _Fledermaus _overture, I have found only disappointments and yawning in a 100 or so of their works I sampled before I gave up.


they do not repeat????


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_There are lots of crappy piano concertos out there, as well as string quartets and symphonies. Do you believe that "90% of everything is crap?" Or not?_

I don't believe that anymore than I believe it about people, shirts, paper plates or anything else.

People say things like this in art to puff up their own opinions. Another one, among the most used in art and essentially the same as this one, is that *good is the enemy of great*. Pure poppycock.

I think it may be true that the average listener/collector/player only likes about 10 percent of what s/he knows.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

janxharris said:


> they do not repeat????


Among songs of the pop, rock & roll, rock, disco, country, and similar genres, ranging from the 1890s to the 2010s, only these performers feature in my library at least 3 times:
Elvis Presley
Frank Sinatra
Nancy Sinatra
Marty Robbins
Anna Jantar
ABBA
Michael Jackson
Sandra
Sabaton


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

rice said:


> Just because some compositions are forgotten, not discovered or not as popular as "masterpieces in the standard repertoire", does not imply they're of lesser quality.


No - only 90% pf them.


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## Kilgore Trout (Feb 26, 2014)

mbhaub said:


> Every year the more adventurous record companies like CPO, Sterling, Dutton, Naxos and some others bring out some long forgotten symphony whetting the appetites for many of us that now we're going to hear some undiscovered masterpiece. Doesn't happen. Some of the works are pleasant enough, interesting sometimes, but great? Nope.


I don't know what you've been listening to, because they recorded plenty of mediocre works, but also a shitload of masterpierces, some of them that have crept into the repertoire since (Szymanowski comes to mind - he was pretty much unknown outside of Poland until Naxos recorded his works).

Let's talk about the real deal : 90 % of the pieces of the basic repertoire, while not "crap", don't deserve to be played as much as they are.


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## Aurelian (Sep 9, 2011)

When a modern composer spent years studying, then writes music that sounds like he didn't learn anything, this doesn't help.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

The question itself is fully subjective. While quality surely forms a pyramid with 1s on the bottom and 10s on the top, which line you place yourself on will determine if the music above you is good and the music below you is crap. If you're the kind of positive person who rests on a lower line, then most music will be satisfying or interesting to varying degrees. There are many people out there who place themselves on the top. They don't listen to music or care for it. It would seem most people regarding the Arts are closer to the top than the bottom.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> * "90% of everything is crap." True or False?*


According to your opening statement, this has to be False.

You have 36 "digits" in the statement (including numbers, letters, and punctuation marks). Of these, four are crap, which is approximately only a touch over 10% of the 36 digit statement.

By the way: looking at this another way, the word "everything" contains only one letter of the word "crap". That's 1 letter of 10, again only 10%.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Ethereality said:


> The question itself is fully subjective. While quality surely forms a pyramid with 1s on the bottom and 10s on the top...


It's interesting (well to me at least), because for my taste, popular music tends to follow your pyramid model (and I love lots of pop/rock), but recorded classical music tends to follow a diamond shape, with a large bulk in the middle that I don't mind but also don't particularly like, and decreasing amounts of works below that.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I don't know about 90 % of classical music " because I sure as heck haven't even coming remotely close to knowing 100 % of all the classical works written over the centuries . Most likely, this comes to MILLIONS of symphonies, concertos, sonatas, oratorios , cantatas, string quartets , operas , 
lieder , chansons , trios, quartets,quintets, sextets, etc for diverse instruments etc .
By who knows how many composers , most of it deservedly forgotten . It's been estimated that since the early 17th century, approximately 40,000 operas have been written . Most have been deservedly forgotten . 
Over the years , I've probably heard a lot more classical music than most people in 50 plus years ago when I became that rarity , a teenage classical music freak . But by golly, there is so much available on CD or on youtube and elsewhere on the internet I have yet to hear - more than anyone can imagine . As the old saying goes, the more you know about a given subject, the more you realize how much you don't know . 
I have no idea how many complete recordings of operas I've heard over the years on LP, and CD . And this doesn't count all the ones I've heard multiple recording of . These range from Monteverdi, the father of opera , to recent contemporary ones . And in recent years, I seen an awful lot of operas on DVD , but not as many as on LP and CD yet . 
I have no idea how many symphonies, concertos and miscellaneous other works I've heard the years on LP, cassette and CD . But there are still countless ones I haven't heard . 
And in the past several years , I've heard a heck of lot of obscure music by obscure composers on youtube . Just about a half hour ago I listened to a symphony by the once respected 19th century German composer, pianist and conductor Carl Reinecke on youtube . 
Frankly, it was no immortal masterpiece . But it was peasant enough and I don't think it was a total waste of time to hear it . I've also heard some works on youtube that were frankly mediocre to blah . 
But- and this is a very big but - there are some lesser known composers who wrote really interesting and highly enjoyable stuff out there . Your chances of hearing them live are pretty slim, but these works are out there in abundance on CD and many are on youtube .
A random list - Zdenek Fibich , (Czech), Havergal Brian( English ) , Alberic Magnard (French) , 
Stanislaw Moniuszko ( Polish ) , Jon Leifs (Icelandic) , Ruud Langgaard , ( Danish ) ,
Walter Braunfels ( German ), Jesus Guridi ( (a Spanish Basque) , Siegmund von Hausegger (Austrian ) ,
Silvestre Revueltas (Mexican) , Sergei Taneyev, Mily Balakirev, Nikolai Myaskovsky , Vasily Kalinnikov , ( Russians ) , Arnold Bax, Arthur Bliss, (English ) . Charles Koechlin ( French) , Frank Martin ( Swiss) 
And the list of interesting but rarely performed composers goes far beyond this . 
Why don't we just rejoice in the fact we have such incredible diversity of classical repertoire to available to us ?


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Having spent much time and effort on composing, and posted a lot on TalkClassical about under-recognized composers and works, I find this thread disappointing. Maybe if we would "weigh and consider" (Francis Bacon's phrase) music would be more interesting, instead of flinging the "POC" accusation at compositions.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I would say a much smaller percentage than 90% is crap, the largest percentage is mediocre and then another small percentage attains excellence. Which makes sense if you think about it, we tend to value the works that we feel in some way transcend the ordinary. If excellent music was ordinary, it would no longer seem excellent to us, but average, and there would then need to be a new benchmark for excellence.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Aurelian said:


> When a modern composer spent years studying, then writes music that sounds like he didn't learn anything, this doesn't help.


Spend one hour on Sound cloud and you will being talking a lot different.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

YES...………..…………………...


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

In the 1990s I heard a program on the radio (WETA in Washington, DC) in which the host presented really crappy recordings he had curated. He explained that in the acoustic recording era, the expense of the recording process sometimes contributed to producers’ decisions to publish recordings that contained obvious errors. But he also had some examples of more recent recordings with appalling errors which were easy to hear even if he didn’t point them out. I found it amazing that such products could actually go to market. It’s one thing to buy a CD of your kid’s high school orchestra performance as a souvenir and another to buy a recording of professional musicians that is obviously sub-standard. But “crap” of this kind is exceedingly rare, I believe.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

For many genres I would agree it's at least 90%, but not classical music.
I like to listen sometimes to random, obscure classical music (mostly late romantic stuff) on certain Youtube channels and what I hear is usually quite interesting and competent to my ears. Not the greatest music, but still enjoyable and sometimes very close to great. No I don't believe it's 90%.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> Some years ago the German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus made the estimate that during the 19th c there were around 20,000 symphonies written in Europe. (How he arrived at that number is a whole other discussion.) Of those 20K, fewer than 50 have been retained into the standard repertoire. Maybe another 100-150 have been recorded out of curiosity. So are all those other 18,000 crap? Well, a lot of them are. They are dull, uninspired, trivial, poorly orchestrated...Every year the more adventurous record companies like CPO, Sterling, Dutton, Naxos and some others bring out some long forgotten symphony whetting the appetites for many of us that now we're going to hear some undiscovered masterpiece. Doesn't happen. Some of the works are pleasant enough, interesting sometimes, but great? Nope. And some of it is really crappy, I have to say. I'm sure the composer spent countless hours struggling with his "masterpiece", but the harshest critic of all - time - has voted thumbs down.
> 
> So yes, there really is some bad music (some by famous composers). Most of the music ever written has been assigned to history's dustbin for the best of reasons. 90% might be a low ball figure, too.


I am not sure why but I often find myself comparing music with art (paintings). I am not really a huge art fan. I know many of the noted masterpieces and acknowledged great artists and love many of them. But when I do to a big art gallery I find hundreds, perhaps thousands, of works from the past that are fine work and by artists who the experts know and value. I'm afraid I tend to whizz past them to the next big name. But they are there and are highly valued by those who know the art of the period. I suppose music is like that with lots of those works that tend to be pioneered by the labels you mention being like the art that only the experts and connoisseurs know. Not crap, then, but often music I don't have time for when there is so much more great music that I don't know.


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## Rosalind Ellicott (May 21, 2020)

More likely hydrogen, or something.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

tdc said:


> I would say a much smaller percentage than 90% is crap, *the largest percentage is mediocre* and then another small percentage attains excellence. Which makes sense if you think about it, we tend to value the works that we feel in some way transcend the ordinary. If excellent music was ordinary, it would no longer seem excellent to us, but average, and there would then need to be a new benchmark for excellence.


Much hinges here on the importance one places upon eagerness to again experience a work of music or art. I looked at about a half-dozen Internet dictionary definitions of _mediocre_, and among the many synonyms was "barely adequate'". Barely adequate and "mediocrity/mediocracy" are not enough for me, anyway, to want to revisit with enthusiasm a piece of music, after several attempts have produced no such reaction. I think the term "crap" can be usefully used to indicate those works--unique to each individual, but often shared with others--that fail to trigger that desire to eagerly re-experience music or art. 90% seems about right.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Strange Magic said:


> Much hinges here on the importance one places upon eagerness to again experience a work of music or art. I looked at about a half-dozen Internet dictionary definitions of _mediocre_, and among the many synonyms was "barely adequate'". Barely adequate and "mediocrity/mediocracy" are not enough for me, anyway, to want to revisit with enthusiasm a piece of music, after several attempts have produced no such reaction. I think the term "crap" can be usefully used to indicate those works--unique to each individual, but often shared with others--that fail to trigger that desire to eagerly re-experience music or art. 90% seems about right.


There are plenty of composers and compositions that I find mildly entertaining, but would not particularly want to investigate further or listen to again. I think the term mediocre or even better average is suitable for that, but definitely not the term crap.

An example: the two violin sonatas by Rheinberger, which I'm listening to right now. Pleasant music. Would I miss it if the CD disappeared from my collection? Most likely not. But that does not make it crap.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Art Rock said:


> There are plenty of composers and compositions that I find mildly entertaining, but would not particularly want to investigate further or listen to again. I think the term mediocre or even better average is suitable for that, but definitely not the term crap.
> 
> An example: the two violin sonatas by Rheinberger, which I'm listening to right now. Pleasant music. Would I miss it if the CD disappeared from my collection? Most likely not. But that does not make it crap.


Then by the standards of this thread, you need to expand your definition of "crap" to include just what you have described. You don't have to call it that in private, and on this thread we will continue to use the term, but will bear in mind that you object to the term, in spite of your desire to participate. Just call it a "free pass."

Example: Art Rock is listening to two violin sonatas by Rheinberger, which are crap.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

* flips switch *


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Art Rock said:


> * flips switch *


...Goodnight. (yawn)


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## Acadarchist (May 22, 2020)

I would consider myself a CM novice, as I listen to lots of other musical genres, but the lockdown has given me lots of time to explore more classical composers and musicians that I had never previously heard. Even those regarded as forgotten have their merits and I have enjoyed my explorations so far. Going back to "the greats" does now give a perspective as to why they so highly regarded however.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> Acadarchist I would consider myself a CM novice, as I listen to lots of other musical genres, but the lockdown has given me lots of time to explore more classical composers and musicians that I had never previously heard. Even those regarded as forgotten have their merits and I have enjoyed my explorations so far. Going back to "the greats" does now give a perspective as to why they so highly regarded however.


Remains the question... what do you like?


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

There is no nonsense which failed to find its listener.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

In classical music 90% of everything is craft. 
10% is inspiration.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

If you believe 90% is crap, then listen to 10% and be happy!


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Not all crap is equal...Some is beautiful.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Oldhoosierdude said:


> If you believe 90% is crap, then listen to 10% and be happy!


Excellent advice, and that's exactly what I do. Life is too short to spend much of it trying to figure amongst the works of Composer X whether there is truly merit in his work F When ABCD and E have been examined and found wanting. But I am the sort who re-reads books and looks again at art that I thoroughly enjoyed the first time(s).


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## That Guy Mick (May 31, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> There are lots of crappy piano concertos out there, as well as string quartets and symphonies. Do you believe that "90% of everything is crap?" Or not?


Yes its true. Sadly the zither is a grossly under-utilized instrument and our listening suffers for its absence. And the quarter notes are used far too often simply because they are cheaper for composers to purchase. Music is enjoyable, but will never reach the sheer pleasure of attending a nude beach, for example. And clearly the quality of music declined when men gave up wigs and began wearing trousers that extended below the knee.


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