how do you define bad musical taste?

There is actually a way of defining "taste" that skirts your arguments for radical subjectivity, and that is to consider "taste" not as a set of critical reactions, but rather as a set of tools used in the formation of those reactions. I.e., "U2 is great" and "John Zorn is great" fall on the unprovable-assertion side of subjective taste, whereas having the ability to compare, contrast, or otherwise draw connections between the work of one and the other -- or more generally making clear and coherent distinctions between and critical appraisals of the music one "likes" and "dislikes" -- would be an objective, if impossible to measure, skill. (I say "impossible to measure" because it takes a whole other set of verbal skills and music-jargon knowledge to adequately express those distinctions and appraisals, but I think we can take it as obvious that the initial skills exist in differing quantities and qualities, can't we? One-word post reading "No" will result in annoyance on my part.)

Possibly a bad way of putting it, but do you see what I mean? "Having good taste" can mean not the ability to objectively identify overall good / bad value in individual works, but rather a well-formed understanding of what one likes and dislikes and why. I think the example given last time this point was raised here was the difference between (a) the guy who hears a song on the radio, buys the record, and hates everything but that single, and (b) that person's friend, who heard the same single and said "Dude, I guarantee you're not going to like the rest of that record." It's not the greatest example, in that I see a few glaring holes in its logic, but it gets at the idea of taste as being "discerning," in the literal sense -- being able to discern between various musical qualities. This favors those with extensive listening backgrounds as having better "taste," but this doesn't bother me too much, insofar as continually experiencing any art form is surely the way to refine one's taste.

Am I going anyplace useful here?

Nein. There, see, you can relax now. ;-)

More to the point -- it's an interesting way of looking at it, but I think it sort of...loops back in on itself, for lack of a better way of putting it? Is that 'well-formed understanding' really a matter of taste at all? *thinks for a bit* Hmm...it almost strikes me as the difference -- and I'm thinking of it this way based on your own example regarding purchases and hit status -- between a couple of folks at the horse races, one saying, "That's a really great looking horse! Fiery, well-groomed, looks powerful" and another saying, "I'm willing to bet that that horse over there is the one which is going to be the winner." This is an extreme example, but I trust you see what I'm trying to get at, if hamhandedly. Person one appreciates for lack of a better word the aesthetics according to his/her standards, person two is interested in figuring out what will succeed, both are potentially looking at the same animal.

I have to say I'm also sympathetic to Tom's discussion about how things *can't* be predicted, how the capacity for surprise exists, even if the scope goes from greater to lesser shifts in thinking. The impact of sheer chance is important, and there's no A & R person canny enough to know every potential twist and turn.

I'm only saying that the idea creates an objective sense of what "taste" is, not that you'd actually want too much of it.

Are Morton Feldman aficionados seen as having bad taste? Odd.

I like your construction, though, in the sense that there is something seen to be challenging standards and that this can provide the taste thrill. Though I don't think it's always the case -- as Brian can confirm, I've said for years that I don't have any guilt over liking something or not, that I don't have any guilty pleasures. The 'surprise' is not so much that I find myself liking something I'm not supposed to as it is simply finding something new and going, "Ah, neat!" At least, this is my own perception and experience.

No, no, no -- I don't think I'm being clear. I'm accepting the Radical Subjectivist Program. What I'm saying is that people have differening abilities to discern between musical features -- e.g., when I was listening to Portishead once and my mother asked "Is that Toni Braxton? It sounds like Toni Braxton." My argument, which I'm just now becoming clear on myself, is that those "discerning" listeners therefore know their own taste, and that that taste is knowable to others with those "discerning" abilities -- and thus all that rockist music accumulates a "critical consensus" precisely because it's makers can programmatically figure out what tastes their satisfying. I.e., these tasteful rockists have it down to a quantifiable science, and thus know officially that X is "good" and Y is "not good."

On the other hand, the rank-and-file casual pop listener does not have this Proven By Science "taste," and thus his/her reactions are less knowable. (It's 100x harder to recognize a chart hit than a solid-selling highbrow indie record, right?) Thus pop music can't simply punch the standard critical-discerning-appeal buttons and have done with it -- pop makes no assumptions about how it can make you feel, and therefore just tries its hardest. I'm saying I think that's what Tom likes -- that neither he nor the pop knows what the reaction's going to be, and he can be excited to actually have that reaction, as opposed to the critical- consensus stuff, where his reaction might be "Ho, hum, yes, they are doing everything they are supposed to do in order to be considered 'good.'"

Does that seem to make more sense than what I said before, or am I just making this worse?

Yes I see what you're saying but but but - still the problem seems to be - where does this exercising of taste occur? In the example given the tasteful person is exercising his knowledge of other people's tastes not his own. Using the method on his own listening comes down to "I know what I like" still, surely? You talk about listeners being "trained to respect" things - well I agree, but I think this training is social not aural.

Sorry for posting so much.

No no no no no! I'm sorry -- I'm doing a lousy job explaining this. What I'm saying is that "like," "good," and "bad" are all beside the point, and that "taste" is simply an ability to discern between what's what. Thus I would have "good taste" in shoegazer bands if I could listen to a three-second snippet of a previously unreleased track and say, "Ahh, judging by the guitar processing, I'm fairly sure that's either Slowdive or Chapterhouse." And thus I do have not-so-great taste in IDM, because I don't yet recognize what I imagine are fairly crucial differences between Datachi and Cex. (I haven't really listened to Cex yet, but I think you see what I mean.) No "like," "good," or "bad," just an ability to make clear, coherent, or incisive distinctions and connections between X and Y, A and B.

For example: in your own listening to West African pop, haven't you noticed a sort of learning curve of "taste?" I'd imagine it all sounded pretty similar at first, and then gradually the distinctions and ins-and-outs of it became more and more clear to you, right? I'm considering that skill -- whatever allowed you to form those mental distinctions and associations -- "taste."

Nitsuh is making some subtle, thoughtful points. But his redefinition of 'good taste' is counter-intuitive in that it makes 'good taste' = what any number of people would call 'bad taste'. ie: "*expertise* = good taste" (this is perhaps what the claim comes down to?) - but if expertise is on sth that [person x] hates the sound of, then [person x] cannot call it 'good taste' without wrenching that phrase's meaning.

Also: I accept Tom E's claim that he likes to be surprised - but to extend from this to suggest that [PopOnTheRadio] = Surprise is, I think, an error which sticks much too slavishly to a certain idea of 'FT Ideas Of Pop' (which Tom E's actual listening might have little to do with). ChartPop (assuming we can agree what that is) might be very surprising in some contexts (eg. a classical concert), but very unsurprising in some others (eg ToTP). (Equally, classical music presumably = surprising on ToTP, unsurprising at classical concert.) The claim that Chart Pop (a la S Club 7 or whoever) is (as a genre) innately more 'surprising' than others is just implausible. I think (hope) that Tom E might agree with me if I say that 'surprise' is, presumably, a very context-bound affair.

In any case, I consider an individual to have "good taste" if his or her explanations for liking and disliking things seem to display a really keenly-developed understanding of the things themselves. And I have, in the past, found myself saying things like "Everything he likes is absolutely horrible, but I think he has good taste in his own way."

Pinefox: This may rely slightly on rockist thinking, but I really do feel that the pop of the past few years has been surprising. Surprising insofar as critical-consensus rock has drifted largely into auto-pilot button-pushing "This is what we're considering good" mode, whereas teenpop had no pre-Britney history that was memorable to its target audience (barring the Spice Girls), and thus got to build itself anew.

Like I said in my horse race comparison, HAHAHAHA. No, I tease, this is actually a much clearer way of phrasing it.

In any case, I consider an individual to have "good taste" if his or her explanations for liking and disliking things seem to display a really keenly-developed understanding of the things themselves.

Mm...seems to go back again to expertise vs. taste, though. Or rather a judging of the ability *to* judge.

6. Mental perception of quality; judgement, discriminative faculty.

(And note that "quality" here can mean not "goodness," but rather just the qualities, as opposed to quantities, which exist in the aesthetic realm.)

7.a. The fact or condition of liking or preferring something; inclination, liking for; appreciation.

Whereas I suppose this thread started as a discussion of the common 8th denotation of the word:

8. a. The sense of what is appropriate, harmonious, or beautiful; esp. discernment and appreciation of the beautiful in nature or art; spec. the faculty of perceiving and enjoying what is excellent in art, literature, and the like.

And note that the OED, probably for the sake of excising an extra volume on this issue alone, assumes that the word "taste" implies the objective existence of the "excellent."

Your last few posts see you take on the role of an incredibly self-righteous commentator who cannot and will not see anything except through your own lens. You express revulsion -- it is not too harsh a word to use -- that others would dare to have opinions on taste and its functions that don't match your own worldview, and react to these differences not with an appreciation of how those opinions might be different, but instead with patronizing condescension.

What an unbelievably apt example of projection!

I'm sorry, but this makes my blood boil. Ned, you really need to rein your tone in like, yesterday, m'kay? Whenever you get involved in these discussions, your posts turn very nasty, and frankly I think it needs to stop now, because it's rather oppressive to those who don't share your POV, and I don't think IL* is meant to be about one person's ideology, is it? If you have a valid point to make, it can be made without name-calling and ad hominem attacks.

Hm. Considering this bit from Alex to Frank:

Frank, I am sorry to say but you are a moron. Not only everything referring to me was wrong in your post above but you cannot even spell the band you accuse me of not knowing. They are called Plasmatics apparently.

...I find your rage against me and not your philosophical soulmate regarding universal critical judgments over the matter of supposedly bad tone and name calling to be more than a little suspect. Condemn us both or don't bother.

And it is, indeed, dependent on a hierarchy of aesthetic value -- one that may not be universal (at least not in the sense of existing as a set of golden tablets on top of a mountaintop), but the fact that it's socially constructed and materially based doesn't mean that it's arbitrary and could be replaced with anything else. (One might even argue that certain elements of it are inevitable consequences of our biological nature as human beings, or of our nature as consciousness existing in social organization.) To fantasize about hypothetical listeners who exist outside of social constructs is a diversion, but nothing more: we ourselves exist in it, and having gotten past the "Yes, everything we believe is socially constructed, blah blah blah" business, we can critically evaluate music with that underlying assumption already addressed, depending in part on the extent to which we're familiar with the signs and signifiers of the music in question.

Or something like that, anyway.

But I think there are more fundamental values and expectations that are far harder to construct/deconstruct, some of which are inherent in the acoustic/technical material of music, others of which are closely tied either to our biology or to our social nature, and still others of which are an inherent consequence of music's perpetual (and compulsory!) dialogue with the past and present -- in other words, the conception of music as a communicative and historical medium, with a more-or-less specific intended listener who has acquired the signs and signifiers of that particular genre through familiarity with prior representative works.

This poses the question: what assumptions, or traits, are shared by value-hierarchies that "take root"? (In other words, is there a fundamental, unbridgeable difference between the value-hierarchy of hip-hop and that of country music, or do they share any fundamental values common to both, and perhaps to all Western music, or even all music?) From what principles, characteristics, or technical elements do they draw their common origins? What generalizations about different forms of music can be made in a language that will apply to all -- can one come up with a Grand Unified Theory, as it were, of the organizing principles of music, whose implications will give one the tools to understand and critically evaluate Ravi Shankar, Palestrina, Benny Goodman, Merzbow and Snoop Dogg in a way that doesn't require total compartmentalization or Ned's radical subjectivism? Is there a musical equivalent of linguistics -- or is that what I'm after?

(I like that thought, by the way, in that linguistics is capable of making critical observations of languages as a whole -- one aspect of which is pointing out that there are some thoughts you just can't fully express in certain languages, or concepts for which there are no synonyms -- and yet is also nonjudgmental: it doesn't say "language X is bad", although it does specify the grammar and vocabulary necessary to speak and understand language X.)

This is hopelessly muddled, and I'm not sure that I agree with everything I've written, but I've run out of free time to finesse it. I'll just add that some work in this area has been done -- for instance, in trying to understand the incidence and characteristics of tension-and-release patterns in different forms of music, or in exploring the role of expectation in listener satisfaction.

I find this an interesting comparison because, after all, if one hears a language one cannot interpret, one hears the sound without any real sense of the meaning. Perhaps this question should be turned around...

So ... you can have all of these tools to break it down into codifiable bits ... but whether those bits are "good" or "bad" is vexed and subjective?

That said.... I think there are two kinds of bad taste. Ordinary bad taste is the taste that comes from being lazy and not really caring about music. The people who buy "NOW!" compilations, Nelly, and whatever else is popular. Also people who hate genres -- saying, uncategorically, that you hate country or rap only proves you know nothing about music.

But that's far less annoying than bad taste number two, which is moulding your record collection to fit whatever is trendy. They might have obscure or interesting albums, but it's all obscure stuff Pitchfork likes.

In either case, I guess the defining note of bad taste is that it reflects a failure to experiment, to seek things out, to cross genre lines, to be uncool if it makes you happy.

So one has to be unpredictable to have good taste? I dunno, it'd make the person more interesting but not necessarily have good taste. How do I define bad taste? Probably differing from my *own standard* (so if a person likes fe Limp Bizkit/Shania Twain and Celine Dion, I'd say s/he has bad taste until s/he offers me insight into why s/he likes said music). Actually I prefer people to have *bad* (different from mine) taste because I can have a different outlook on the music after hearing why s/he likes the music.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090918170035AA00ZaH

is it very typical for an extremely indie taste in music to kick in at around 13 like this kid? seems slightly young but i'm out of the loop

i mean for those who go indie, when does it usually start?

Artists that I listen to(which I consider weird) that your list is missing: CocoRosie, Devendra Banhart, Animal collective, Wolf Parade, Battles, Pink Floyd, Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, Karen Dalton, Vashti Bunyan, Metallic Falcons, Josephine Foster, Iron and Wine, Jenny Lewis, Fleet foxes, Melt Banana.

i'd say about 14 for indification

i was 12/13

It seems to come about the same time as adolescence, because it's very much an identity establishing maneuver - that whole idea that one's personality can be defined by long LISTS of stuff. So your mileage may vary according to what age one reaches adolescence at.

What's a more interesting question to me, is - at what point does it stop?

Because I can definitely remember, when in my late teens, when asked to define myself, I would respond with lists - usually of bands, but also books, films, etc. Continued through my 20s definitely, but I don't remember at what point it ended, though by my late 30s, it certainly has. (Though if asked to define myself, I don't list my taste, but simply that "I'm a music obsessive.")

I mean, to a certain extent, this is the result of creating "profiles" for oneself (originally on the penpal circuit, before there was an internet, though the internet has certainly calcified it) but is there a point that one's profile stops being "stuff I like" and becomes "stuff I am" ?

indie taste kicked in at about 12/13 with me - I probably didn't have quite as long a list of bands as that kid, but then I didn't have the internet, only the radio & the nme & select & &c.

I think the connection with adolescence & identity-establishing is very well stated.

(i suspect my list at 12 would have contained a number of bands i hadn't heard but knew i would count as part of "my taste")

It pains me to see high school kids categorically dis r + b as if it's "cool". I can say that because I felt that way when I was in junior high / high school. It's even worse when 30- or 40-year olds do it.

Maybe if most rn'b weren't so abjectly stupid, they wouldn't feel compelled to dis it.

To my mind, bad taste is defined by settling for any old thing that's making the rounds (as opposed to seeking out something a little off the tired, hackneyed menu).

let's get less rnb and more goth up in dis area

Some xposts: second half of being 14 for me. I'd made attempts a little earlier than this, but when I were young it was harder to find that stuff. Which was most of its appeal, needless to say. I grew out of it pretty early - probably from 18 onwards when it seemed like everyone else was becoming indie (again a major factor).

It might be as accurate to say that I just ran out of indie - I'd always had a residual reaction to other types of music and it was feeling more and more obvious that a lot of the stuff I should've been into, even by my genuine favourite bands, just wasn't very good. Then I moved abroad when I turned 20, which was the decisive break as I physically couldn't get the NME any more and was marooned with my tape collection, which thankfully had had enough time to significantly evolve before I went, plus whatever new stuff was popular enough to reach me there.

I've cringed ever since at contemporaries professing their indiedom, which still happens occasionally today - although to be honest I'm not sure that cringing is very different from the mentality that made me indie in the first place all those years ago - they both seem a bit snobbish. Certainly I displayed similar behaviour in developing interest in other things - classic films, politics, um, genuinely struggling to remember any other interests I've ever had - up until I was about 28, which is probably when I'd be comfortable saying I finally, indisputably became an adult (also makes me sceptical about lowering the franchise to 16, because what the hell do teenagers know about anything?!).

These days I'm all about enjoying the everyday, which is nice after that journey, but even so it has an element of celebrating what noone else does. I doubt I'll ever break out of that mentality now - it seems clear that it's a big part of what I am.

I like your last point, Ismael, since I'm right there with you -- though it takes different forms: when it comes to music, I can't really celebrate what nobody else does since, well, I'm here and that covers a hell of a lot of ground. But that's the quandary of the net -- if you just want to cultivate a private pleasure, how do you do that? (And, arguably, should you?) The best answer, maybe the only one, is nonparticipation in the discourse. This applies for me more with books, I feel -- I read a hell of a lot but I rarely get into deep discussions about what I do read.

Indie germinated at 13. I even had a latent period between 10 and 13 after being introduced to stuff like MBV, Yo La Tengo, Bardo Pond, Aphex Twin, Jeff Mills, wherein I declined into listening to the worst music of my life, skate videos resuscitated me.

Perhaps the more interesting question is what this was like 15 years ago, when you had to spend a lot of time and money amassing a collection of cd's before you could profess things. I'm born in 88 so I'm kind of on the edge.

What was 'the worst music of your life'?

For me I guess an indie taste (v loose term) kicked in at maybe 13 and was a slow builder in that direction for another few years - fwiw I didn't really have a music taste before that, didn't buy music or listen to the radio or watch TOTP - then just decided it might be a decent use of my time and started listening to evening Radio 1 after school most days and joined the lol Britannia lol Music club lol