Truth vs. Beauty = fite

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A major element in blues or jazz or hip hop or any 'black' music is the retelling of a history of an oppressed people. Blues artists riffed on a few distinct themes: poverty, opression, booze, cheatin women. Black Jazz instrumentalists expressed themselves in the abstract (ie without lyrics) but their subject matter was the same. There is truth in catharsis: singing the blues makes you feel less blue. Coltrane's sqwonking and bleeping reads as spontaneous 'truth' in a modernist context. This could also be a way to look at the popularity of forms like emo/sadcore (or the Smiths entire catalog) where the draw is the affirmation of the listener/performer's shattered emotions within a hard and imperfect reality: telling it like it is, gawdammit.

Alternately you have music which strives to establish a concection with the listener through expression of joy or 'beauty' - a sense that all is right with the world, and even when bad things happen, well, as Aaliyah says, you gotta dust yourelf off and try again. I am thinking here of Britney pop, songs from musicals, Fats Domino style R'n'B, Gershwin + Porter. This is not music that strives to be validated: it's easy to listen to and it makes you feel 'happy.'

So - is beauty truth? Is truth Beauty? Sorry if this is tediously abstract or incoherent, it's 4 am and mind is wandering...

― turner, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The concepts of 'truth' and 'beauty' are nothing but defense mechanisms to shore up the fragile consciousness against the essentially chaotic, pointless nature of the universe. They're anaesthetic, if not opiate.

― dave q, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Erm, notice how I slipped Morrisey in there with all that black music...He wont mind will he?

― turner, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

all music is art. all art is inherantly a lie, because it is a reproduction of the "real thing" i.e. emotion or life or whatever.

so truth is negated, it is all about beauty.

― kate, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Point taken about music being artifice, that doesn't change the fact that a lot of music listeners pride themselves on the 'authenticity' of what they collect, ex: people who listen exclusively to their local indie bands or stuff from Fat Possum records.

― turner, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Giving the socially and racially constructed notion of 'authenticity' in popular music the name 'truth' strikes me as a bit problematic. But anyway I see what you're getting at.

I don't 'feel' this divide much myself - partly because there's so much music that falls outside it, partly because I think a lot of 'truth' music is very easy to listen to, partly because I think there's a lot of tell-it-how-it-is 'truth' in the 'beauty' music.

I think the problem of performance gets to the heart of music based on 'truth' like this, though. You are an emo band, say. You write a song about how you can't get it on with this girl. Your record is a moderate success. You now are expected by the fans to perform this song, on tour, every night - at what point, on which nights, do your performances of the song stop being 'true', since presumably you aren't feeling those emotions every night? Or does 'truthfulness' reside in a song itself? In which case any 'beautiful' song could also be 'true' when performed?

Away from performance, on record, a different problem arises. What we have here is a phantom performance - when you put on a record, there is nobody actually playing or singing, there is simply the reproduction of a human moment (or several mixed). The 'truth'/'beauty' distinction you're making suggests that emotions can be captured on record - which they can to an extent, but in my experience the sincerity of a record is impossible to divine (sincerity is key for the 'truth' end of your argument, though you're not implying that 'beauty' is insincere)

Since everyone tries to sound sincere on a record, seers of the sincere tend to rest on certain (easily-faked) tropes - an acoustic instrument, a voice cracking in a particular way, self-songwriting. Or to put it another way - are Travis or Starsailor 'truth' or 'beauty'?

All that said I think the ideas - comfort vs catharsis - are important, but they're all wrapped up in one another and crucially they're important when they're things the listener brings in, not the artist.

― Tom, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Re black music - most of what is designated 'true' or 'beautiful' is designated as such by outsiders (oppressors?) anyway. Both concepts also imply exclusivity - 'truth' is collectively generated, 'beauty' subjectively.

― dave q, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

when you put on a record, there is nobody actually playing or singing, there is simply the reproduction of a human moment (or several mixed). The 'truth'/'beauty' distinction you're making suggests that emotions can be captured on record - which they can to an extent, but in my experience the sincerity of a record is impossible to divine (sincerity is key for the 'truth' end of your argument, though you're not implying that 'beauty' is insincere)

I remember this issue being brought up a while back on the thread about the Mag Fields. Too tired now to write more. must sleep...

― turner, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Beauty is fickle in the eye of the beholder. Truth remains a faithful mistress. But I like being abused and toyed with.

Beauty wins!

― Sterling Clover, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A non-question for Neoplatonists for whom the two are the same. Not the most credible philosophical position but probably the most beautiful. (Not swallowed by Keats, though, I suspect).

A discussion of truth v beauty will have much the same characteristics as a discussion of form v content (or rather content v form). "Rockist" critics place a premium on content - lyrics, emotional authenticity etc; interestingly Punk was predicated on similar values - a return to authenticity and political commitment. Beauty for it's own sake has always been more peripheral to rock than classical or even jazz. Anti-rockists will almost inevitably attempt to correct this bias against beauty for it's own sake.

Question: is "Fear of a Black Planet" a great album because of the lyrics (primacy of content); or despite them (primacy of form).

― arfarf, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Truth, beauty and kindness: the three most important things to fight to protect when you go to war.

("The Lion Has Wings", 1939)

― Anthony Sanderson, Tuesday, 4 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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