"It's good... but I don't like it"

guilty of writing this about 'discovery' - i thought that because i loved 80s synthpop/metal as well as house, loved 'da funk', thought they were great live etc. that i'd revel in the new album but when i got it i didn't. i'm quite indifferent to it. - maybe im embaressed about how many people are telling me they love 'discovery' whose taste i usually trust - so im covering myself rather than saying its overratedunderplayedmediocre.

i can see why sonically - some people like 'Survivor' - and i think its good compared to a lot of recent chartstuff but it doesn't do anything for me - samantha mumba's single was better in that respect. when i tire of beatscience ( AND ITS HAPPENIN !) - i think i understand Simon Reynolds' shift, i'll think 'survivor' is even more boring.

i think i usually write your statement when i can see why people could like it but know it isn't doing the business for me, rather than saying i dont like it so it IS crap.

sometimes the ingredients are there but it fails the taste test cause there is no special ingredient - cheese scones without a lickle mustard is bland

this is a difficult one.

i had this with autechre for a long time, and possibly tom waits and but less so.

i remember thinking what autechre did was good, not just *clever* but sort of admirable, but i didn't actually like it, it was just too dry. on occasion, i would like something, but then it went back to being dry again on subsequent listens, so i just forgot about them.

but then, from nowhere, i just suddenly really liked them a lot ,and still do.

so, logically i'd argue that its a dumb thing to say "good...but i don't like it", but thats how i felt. this may have happened, to an extent, initially, with destiny's child as well.

as to what makes something good, despite not liking it, well, could be an aesthetic but not emotional connection, with, in the cases above, and emotional connection coming later?

It's a bit of all of the above. I think it's a recognition of the inherent merit of something, without truly understanding the appeal, something which happens to me all the time. I know as music critics we often tend to fall into a really polarized "rocks" vs. "sucks" method of looking at the world, but obviously music isn't so black and white sometimes. Tastes shift. I try to hedge my bets and say something like "It's good...but I don't get it."

it's just an acknowledgement that music isn't created solely to fit YOUR personal taste. 'it's good, but i don't like it' means 'it's interesting, accomplished, innovative etc., but i don't want to LISTEN to it'. because we don't just listen to music on the basis that it's interesting, accomplished, innovative, etc, but we can recognise that it's certainly worthy of existing and being loved by others, and that there might be a time at which we will like it.

Anton von Webern. I went to a concert about six years ago where some of his music was performed and have never forgotten my first (and last) brush with Atonalism. I could see what he was trying to do, I admired his achievement and the excellence of the performers but... it sounded remarkably similar to squawking chickens.

Webern's 'Five Pieces For Orchestra' (they're all about one minute long, and consist of a single guitar strum, a faint glockenspeil hit, a pizzicato pluck -- incredibly delicate little textural runs that don't repeat) is one of my favourite pieces of music.

If you can say 'It's bad, but I like it' (as we all do on a daily basis, our superegos undermined by kitsch, sex, sugar) I don't see why you can't say 'It's good, but I don't like it.' It's the same statement, pointing in a different direction.

AoW CoD?

Dud. Too rockist. It's all decidedly lacking in hooks, the production isn't very interesting, and frankly, the band just look stupid in those monkey suits.

If you can say 'It's bad, but I like it' (as we all do on a daily basis, our superegos undermined by kitsch, sex, sugar) I don't see why you can't say 'It's good, but I don't like it.' It's the same statement, pointing in a different direction.

Well when I'm not being lazy, I manage to avoid saying 'it's bad, but I like it'. It's the kind of thing people who are oh-so-sure about what good art is say about chart music or popular TV or Hollywood films.

it's just an acknowledgement that music isn't created solely to fit YOUR personal taste.

OK, but then what is it that makes you think you are equipped to judge anything as simply bad and not just 'not to your taste'? My suspicion is that it's all bound up with your attitude towards the people who make it and the people who like it. If, for whatever reason, you respect them, then you're prepared to accept it as somehow 'good', despite the fact that you don't get it.

"It's bad but I like it" translates as "This is something which I expect to be bad/I want to be bad/Is peer-group classed as 'bad', but I'm enjoying it" i.e. it's not actually bad. So yeah, you could have the reverse.

I think there's also a sense in which "good" here can mean 'competent' or well-done or whatever, fulfilling any technical criteria for quality you might want to hold up to it, but yet you don't like it.

[music item x]: to "get it" critically, you need to be able to tell three stories. 1: Is it important? 2: Is it good? 3: Do I like it? ie What does god/history think, what does the world think, what do *I *think? Ideally, these stories shd be unrelated — OK, not totally unrelated, but stories of somehow manifestly difft species. The first is objective-historical-scientific, the second objective- sociological, the third — the only one YOU can be objective about — is/shd be subjectivity unfettered by the first two. The fun is how a slight shift in any one of three (us. for me when someone else says something I've thought of) causes the other two to hurtle about for a while.

I used to call this my "tripod" theory, until I had to describe to someone else, and saw their brain freeze over (fear? boredom? I backed off before I found out...): anyway, now I call it my "triangulation" theory.

(ps AoW = AvW, tho I guess you spotted that. And ans = classic, obviously, tho only on RECORD played VERY LOUD. "Live" classical music = dud forever)

My subconscious seems to be in the pay of v. evil elves this week, or else Alan McGee's acct manager.

someone else says something I've thought of = someone else says something I've never thought of

Or maybe some artist is working in a style that doesn't speak to you. I don't enjoy what I've heard by John Coltrane, but I'm certainly not about to say that the man's music sucked. Though I would have no qualms about summarily dismissing some goth band, when I'm about as unfamiliar with the style as I am with jazz. But then jazz wasn't a horrible idea to start with.

it's a bollocks attempt at "objectivity." i never assume that there's a record that *nobody* could like or that is worthless according to *every* conceivable value system. it's pretty easy to imagine how nearly any record could be good if you privilege certain qualities. in a universe where all aesthetic judgments are subjective anyway, personal taste, which can be analysed and explained, is the only yardstick. if you're not familiar with the genre, why should you judge that a record is "good."

for the record, i never say "it's bad but i like it."

Nick: the statement is OK. Classical music is wonderful and all that, but I don't like it. People who are in some respects more sophisticated than me do like it.

I don't know why this generated so much discussion. "Good" and "I like it" clearly mean different things. E.g., "She's a good singer but I don't like her" means that she sings well but she won't sleep with me. Maybe she's good because I don't like her.

I have no problem making this distinction. Take a recent example in my listening: Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue." I really don't care for the sound of Miles Davis's playing, and in fact it seems to cause me to feel emotions that I don't enjoy feeling. But I can't listen to this recording and not hear skill, creativity, etc., various things which are valuable to me. I often feel this way with regard to jazz. I went to a Latin jazz concert recently where I enjoyed the pianist and the rhythm section, but not the horn section. I thought their playing was good, but, for the most part, I didn't like it.

I am not willing to say that Chopin's is bad, but I sure don't like it.

Of course, when I say "It's good," these days I don't mean to commit myself to the existence of a truly objective aesthetic standard.

id say that when we say its good we mean we see the good qualities in it, but when we say we don't like it we just are not emotionally drawn to it - our intuition says no... the word good can be used in so many ways and i think we use a mixture of all. and if something can be bad but we like it, then it makes sense to be the other way round - we see the bad qualities in it but we are still drawn to it. maybe theres something in us that just assumes what we like regardless of whether it has 'good' qualities or not.

To me, this often means that the music is catchy but the people themselves or the ideas they represent are dodgy or a cop-out or something

i don't subscribe to the 'it's technically good if they can play fast or sing on pitch' etc idea. 'technically good' is meaningless in aesthetics.

'Aesthetic result' = 'Result of technical expertise developed to such a high level that it's unobtrusive'

Another good thread idea.

If you say it's good without liking it then you're just guessing (hoping to allu yourself with the right people, maybe?).

i've started to think 'Ignition (Remix)' and 'Bring Me To Life' are good, but I still don't like them

I don't cotton to this "it's admirable but I don't enjoy it" thing because "admirability" has nothing to do with good music. Personally it's more like the album has traits I genuinely enjoy (not just am aware others enjoy) but those traits are overshadowed by a minute but potent negative element. My best example would be Toby Keith, his melodies are fine, he's witty, direct has personality, etc. etc. so arguably he's "good." But his lyrics usually contain either an attitude or sentiment that I simply do not enjoy hearing. It's the way my mom feels when I point out the gifts of Eminem. I just remembered Robert Christgau gave the album a B/E, so I guess I'm not the only one who thinks he's good but doesn't like it.

If I liked everything that was good, I'd have no time to do anything else. Unless this thread is populated by Olympian immortals, I'm confused as to why this is even a question at all.

liked isn't a synonym for experienced.

True, but it generally takes multiple experiencing for me to be able to honestly say I actively like something. I mean, I've always 'liked' James Brown in the abstract, but it wasn't until I bore down for the better part of a week on the Star Time box set that he reconfigured my neural pathways to the point where I could actively consider myself a fan. And for every James Brown, there's hundreds of other musicians (as well as writers, filmmakers, poets, etc.) that I haven't done this with. My thinking is best summed up in a joke I once made to Christgau. If I were to write my own Consumer Guide book, it would be the exact obverse of his: 5% Grades, 95% "Subjects For Further Research."

the question isn't about saying "it's good...but I don't fully appreciate it yet" it's about know it's good but having an ACTIVE disinterest in it. It's not saying "I'll love it, but I'm gonna finish that classic novel later" it's saying "yeah this is good but I wish it didn't exist."

Why would you possibly wish anything good didn't exist? That strikes me as pure solipsism. Note that "good", to me, is related both to aesthetics and morality -- so it doesn't matter how catchy Toby Keith is, or how well-filmed "Triumph of the Will" is. They might be "impressive", but they're certainly not "good."

And "disinterest" doesn't mean "lack of interest", it means "having a lack of bias due to not having a stake in the proceedings." FYI.

pure solipsism is what I'm all about, but you've got a point about "good" being related to aesthetics and morality. Thing is, Toby's best songs aren't merely impressive. They're engaging, endearing, etc. My problem is that they don't get as cartoonish as Ted Nugent, so I can't pretend I enjoy them as camp. Toby bugs me. If I had to pick my top 5 fave pop country artists of today I'd have to put him on it, but if you could just erase his entire body of work with the press of a button I'd do it in a second.

Good point, esp. re: Nugent. As for Keith, the first song of his I heard was "Beer For My Horses", so I don't have much of a pleasure vs. morality dilemma about wishing to erase his entire body of work, but I can see the quandary. Although who knows? Judging by this article, Willie Nelson might be rubbing off on him...

"Beer For My Horses" a.k.a. "I Miss Lynching" definitely qualifies as a "it's not good and I don't like it" song. It's actually tracks like "Who's Your Daddy" and his new "I Love This Bar" that rub me in both the right and wrong ways.

when i need albums to review for stylus, i often borrow boring singer-songwriter/alt-country records (like Ed Harcourt) to write about - even though i wouldn't dream of putting something like that on for my own personal enjoyment. I still give some of them decent reviews, though, because even though they're dealing in a sound or style that doesn't interest me at the moment, i can still see when they're making a decent fist of it.

ie. an album could have strong melodies and nice production - and i could see that fans of this sort of thing will love it - but still be completely bored by it.

People on ILX seem to use 'solipsism' into a fancy synonym for 'self-centredness'.

I thought it was rather more specific than that, meaning (in its strong form) the philosophical position that nothing other than oneself exists, or (in its weaker form) that one cannot be sure about anything beyond one's own existence (ie. drawing the line at cogito ego sum).

If you mean the latter then I don't see how solipsism is relevant. If you mean the former then these good things don't exist to destroy anyway!

But yeah, OK, language changes, academic concepts get popularised. I got slapped down by a Spanish physicist for using the term 'entropy' loosely once.

"Its good ...but i dont like it" i can definately get with - it's humble... however, "its bad ...but i like it" is just pathetic.

aye - if i enjoy something - there is no way i'll accept it's "bad". if i'm having fun - the record is doing its job - and is GOOD, but some records are working in an area which couldn't get an enthusiastic response from me, no matter how hard they try. however, they could still be impressive pieces of work, and worthwhile purchases for people who like that sort of thing.

You're probably right about solipsism, N. I'm guessing it's just gotten watered down the same way auteurism did.

Serves you right N. Going round, muddying the language like that. You should be ashamed.

Good, no. Influential or important, maybe

Is this self-analysis?

I used "solipsism" figuratively, yes, but advisedly. It strikes me as a little stronger than mere self-centeredness to wish something you acknowledge to be "good" didn't exist, unless that thing has some capacity to harm you specifically. But now we're just drifting into semantic hairsplitting, so I'll stop.