# What is good and what is bad?



## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

...music or performance...
I usually only listen to good performances of good music  It can be Darkthrone or Donna Summer, Lassus or Ligeti. I would really have to think hard to describe why...


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> ...music or performance...
> I usually only listen to good performances of good music  It can be Darkthrone or Donna Summer, Lassus or Ligeti. I would really have to think hard to describe why...


This is why church choirs generally don't excite me. I realize their purpose is different than that of a professional singer making a recording, but still, I would much rather hear the professional singers. One church near me recorded the entire Handel's Messiah. It was a valiant effort, but musically deficient. It is a one listen and stuff it in a box in the attic and forget about it type recording.

But I think, on balance, if you are going to spend the time listening, why not listen to the best?


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Fritz Kobus said:


> But I think, on balance, if you are going to spend the time listening, why not listen to the best?


I don't like the term 'best' as it is strictly subjective but I would agree with only listening to well done performances. It doesn't have to be technically perfect but there should be an interesting/thoughtful interpretation, a performance which has something to say about the work. I am definitely not interested in looking for the latest or most obscure recording for no more reason that it is the latest or most off-the-wall. There are more than enough good recordings out there already and new and interesting recordings do come along occasionally. My time is better spent looking for fascinating works which I don't already know rather than the umpteenth Beethoven or Mahler symphony recording done for little more reason than to satisfy the conductor's ego or to pad the record company's catalog.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Darkthrone? Black metal all sounds the same—static on the radio. Most metal is awful, actually.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I don't seek our, nor play more thn once, bad recordings. But in live performance --especially by amateur ensembles -- I'm usually able to hear around the "badness" and focus on what the music is saying.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Red Terror said:


> Darkthrone? Black metal all sounds the same-static on the radio. Most metal is awful, actually.


They really tried to sound bad, but people love it


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Red Terror said:


> Darkthrone? Black metal all sounds the same-static on the radio. Most metal is awful, actually.


Stryper sounds great. Try Second Coming, Fallen, To Hell With the Devil, or their newest (2018) God Damn Evil.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

To me, musical good, what sounds good/great, is sometimes linked to moral good/greatness. I have found repeatedly that I seem to have an intuition for this, or perhaps I am spiritually guided by a higher power. For instance, for music I usually didn't like at all, later I would find out the creators of such music were fairly bad people in various ways. That's not always the case. It's the pied piper syndrome. One singer from a rock band who had a solo career I liked a lot. Looks like he's turning out to be a fairly lost alcoholic, but he was always posing with cigarettes, I mean it was a joke. That was the image he wanted to portray, even though he has kids and now a broken marriage. 

It's interesting that the progressive rock crowd have mostly all lived to be older men, with the majority of the major figures still alive and active into their early 70s!


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

The esthetics differ in different music...


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Since Darkthrone is intentionally BAD, I'll exchange it with f.ex. Opeth. Then all my examples are GOOD


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I do want to spend my time listening to music that I have reason to believe with be good. But more that that I want it to move me in some way (I do not mean this solely in a narrow "moved to tears" way) and that will mean interesting me. There seem to be many different but excellent ways of playing some music that I know well and clearly there can't be a best with such music. As for music itself, what is worthwhile is much more difficult to define. Again, for me, if the music is ploughing furrows that I know well then it had better do so in a really interesting and exceptional way. If it is newer than that to me then it may well interest me even if there are better ways out there of doing what it does. But as I get to know the genre (and ideally the composer) I begin to discriminate more.


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2019)

good music is technically well crafted, has contributed something new to the history of music, has power, energy, beautiful harmony or fascinating disharmony, sometimes interesting or moving content and above all lasts the test of time
good performance is a different matter: there are two tendencies a faithful rendition of what the composer has written or a very personal version with new insights that might not have been welcomed by the composer (this would be my preferred choice) ; the technical qualities, the soul of the performers and the quality or the combination of the instruments can give the performance additional value (the famous "supplément d'âme" in French); in the case of vocal works the uniqueness and emotional appeal of the voices can be decisive


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"A song that is well and artificially made cannot be well perceived nor understood at the first hearing, but the oftner you shall heare it, the better cause of liking you will discover." -- William Byrd


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Good music is what they don't play in public places. Apparently bad music is thought to encourage shopping. It just sends me out of the store prematurely, brimming with Badwill.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Good music is what they don't play in public places. Apparently bad music is thought to encourage shopping. It just sends me out of the store prematurely, brimming with Badwill.


They don't play this in public places anymore -- it might make you feel better...


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

When it comes to performance: at a basic level it's very easy to discern between good and bad. I'm bad at the piano, Richter is good. But at some point, at the highest level, it's all good! And what remains is endless different nuances and preferences.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

If you like something, that is good (for you.) If you don't like it, it is bad (for you). Suma Summarium this is my thesis, dear Norwegian friend. There are not good or bad performances, or music. I had a neighbor who listened all the day heavy metal. For him it was perfect. Another one German Folk music. One day caught my self singing one of his songs… I knew also a very beautiful German lady. Her husband was without teeth!!!! I wondered many times what she has found to him to be committed for her whole life in such a marriage. I was thirty. No, I'm fifty and I don't ask any more. All these Etiketten belong to the past. Cheers from Germany!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Red Terror said:


> They don't play this in public places anymore -- it might make you feel better...


You can't touch this.


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