JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Credentials, opinions, songs..

I brought this subject up in another thread and rather than derail it further started this one..

Do some people's opinions as to the value of an art object (song, painting, etc) have more weight than some other person's?

It's a curious subject.

Let's stick with songs, since that's more what we all do here.

Maybe if you are a paid professional critic? Still..

Many intelligent music people abhor the internet and social media for leveling the playing-field of opinion--most recently T-Bone Burnette mentioned this in his talk with Marc Maron. I have thought about this problem a lot and come to zero conclusions. It's intractable, to me.

I think I value a listener (his/her opinion) with ZERO credentials as much and maybe more than someone who has written thousands of great songs. Reason being: I am not writing songs for my peers. Not usually, at least..

But moving ahead..at this point in time, what is the alternative to a level-playing field, if that's not quite how it should be? The alternative leads me down this back-alley of thought that leads to this ugly Black Mirror scenario:

I can envision a Black Mirror episode where artists, critics, and the general public's opinions actually have a point value, based on their credentials. and in this future society, anybody who has an opinion that is met with another person with a higher rating, their lower's opinion gets censored or erased. It would make for an interesting bit of satire, I imagine, and not too far from where we are at, in society, given that social media has created these possibilities. Kinda like "Fifteen Million Credits" meets "Nosedive" --if you know the Black Mirror canon..

At least we can be glad these places are "clubs" that one has the choice to join or not join, and if I personally have a problem with any of this, it's the hypocrisy of some folks who join a club (like JPF) that is partly about sharing opinions, and then either assume a "one-eyed king" position within that club (IOW don't know how to share an opinion without assuming an authoritarian voice about something mostly subjective) or show their general distaste for those that share their opinions in even the most modest of ways.

I think we can agree liking or disliking any given song is mostly a subjective thing, but what about songwriting as a craft or profession? There do seem to be basic tenants that will survive from era to era..

But perhaps one problem is that most notions we have about craft are generally snapshots of the past. Like reading The Racing Form in order to pick out a winner. "Look here at what successful songwriters have done," kinda thing, and THAT at least deserves many asterisks..

Hip-hop, for one, seems to derive less of it's lyrical nature from the economy professed in "how-to-write-a-hit-song" books as it does from contemporary urban speech patterns and many-syllabled lines relying on rhythmic hooks as a dominant aspect of the writing. Some styles of music seem to demand we actually listen in order to actually figure out how to write for that genre! The best, though, are usually writers who live and breathe the music they love.

Anyway, I am curious about what other people think..

I think most of us are, or we wouldn't be here.

And I know one thing..I am a better writer for being here amongst y'all..

Mike