essential

I would use the term, I wouldn't necessarily think about in terms of someone's collection, but I might think that if they didn't bother HEARING the record in question they'd missed out on something, in my review of "Showtime" I said "essential" mainly because I feel that it's important for people to listen to the record and formulate an opinion about it either way, perhaps because it is going to be talked about all year.

I guess it's not exactly a great word to use, I think there may be a certain amount of goading involved too.

PET SOUNDS YEAH OOOH YEAH

Pet Sounds is only essential if you're out of coasters.

How about something essential instead of nixing somebody else's post, Grumpy?

love,

Snow White

Okay, Mother Goose. Funhouse by the Stooges is an essential albums, as far as I'm concerned. Feel fee to disagree with me.....but you'll simply be gargling from an ice-cold tallboy of FUCKIN' WRONG!

Ace

When Dad sits down and listens to Public Enemy "million" all the way through twice I swear he'll swear onto hip-hop fo' evah

"...millions..."

Essential should be meant to define a band or artist when they are firing on all cylinders, at least as *you* hear them. Not necessarily a greatest hits type of thing.

context, semantics, etc.

yeah I wouldn't consider my grandmother's collection lacking if it didn't contain Public Enemy

Adopting a position for argument's sake:

Hrm, well, wouldn't you say that a certain level of familiarity with "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" and Beethoven's 5th and 9th are fairly essential to understanding Western music as it is and has been? That you can't even really criticize rock music if you haven't heard The White Album or "Stairway to Heaven"?

I would hope that our world continues to be one in which some 15 year old kid or 38 year old geezer or 83 year old great-grandmother can have an opinion about music he or she hears, even before memorizing and genuflecting to our stodgy old canon.

Well, of course anyone can have an opinion about anything they want. But how far are we willing to take that line of thinking? Are we willing to accept all the implications of the idea that nothing is canonical or 'essential'?

e.g. Should the teaching of music history be totally abandoned because we no longer believe in any 'universal' canon? Or should it just look at culture studies/sociology aspects of music history without any need to study any particular artists or works? Even current teaching of instrumental/vocal performance tends to be very canon-based - should the concept of "standards" be abandoned altogether? Likewise, should English classes stop teaching Shakespeare?

Is there any way to avoid canons - this is something I've been thinking about? Through one way or another, there always will have to be a process of selection simply because there's not enough time for schools or media or individuals to give equal time to every artistic work.

I don't necessarily have a clear opinion on any of these questions. It's just stuff I'm thinking about.

And also, 15-yr olds or 83-year great-grandmas based their opinions on some sort of frame of reference, right? Probably one that's been shaped by some sort of large-scale selection process? Like, say the 15-yr old gets most of his information from the radio or MTV - don't they kind of create a de facto canon of 'essential listening' just by what they choose to rotate heavily? I don't know where this is going exactly.

Thats a good point. I suppose it can become so to anyone who lacks a form of background. Thus, a lot of today's and yesterday's overplayed total shiteness. Give the people what they want kind of mentality. Now, I'M not sure where this is going.

There's no reason that an artist should enter the canon and never leave it. In literature, for instance, consider John Donne. He was in the canon, then he was out for some 250-300 years, and now he's in again. Maybe in another 200 years he'll be out, who knows? Writers like Shakespeare who have been considered "essential reading" for hundreds of years are the exception, not the rule.

I'd expect the same thing to happen with music, that is, the group of "essential" artists will have a constantly transient membership.

Yeah, of course it happens, but the point is that there still seems to be a concept of an "essential" artistic canon that people need to know, whether or not this group shifts with time. That is, the concept what should be included in the canon can keep changing or be challenged but the concept of a canon in and of itself appears to remain.

Although, come to think of it, I don't know that the canon of 'essential' common practice (Baroque-Romantic) composers has really changed all that significantly in the past century. Has it? I'm not an expert so maybe it has. Is there anyone who engages at all with anything that could be considered classical music (no matter how radical) who would deny the 'essential' nature of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, and not just them but Chopin and Schubert and Haydn and Vivaldi . . .too?

It seems to me that even the most postmodern relativist in the field - I mean, at least they themselves know those works and work from that frame of reference even if they attack the system. Or something like that.

but the concept of a canon in and of itself appears to remain.
But some of the other posters were disagreeing with this, or at the very least, arguing for the extinction of the canon. Or maybe I misread their intentions.

but the concept of a canon in and of itself appears to remain.
I don't think that's a given on this thread ... some of the other posters were skeptical of whether or not the canon really exists (in addition to the discussion suggesting that if it exist, then maybe it should be abolished).

the idea of 4'33". classic & essential. grans should know & experience the silence, if only to know once & for all if they think it's deep or stupid.

oxygen and food: essential.

and water, dont forget water.

ppl don't really attack just the idea of a canon but mostly how it's used -- and it usually turns into stuff like 'things were so much better back then' etc. Talk of ppl who only listen to canonized things and something that is 'new' to them is something that carries on in that 'tradition'.

Referring to something as "essential" is normally, for me, a genre specific kind of idea (and I know we hate genres). In most reports of albums, they are a little segregated. The idea is, for me, that if you wish to claim knowledge or have interest in music of that field, then that LP / release is essential (ie - otherwise you are probably talking with a huge hole in yr knowledge).