The American Spectator

Copyleft| 2.11.10 @ 9:50AM

Pretty shallow treatment of the evolution of popular music there. "They took the melody out!" Yeah, that's what folk music fans said about jazz. And what big band said about rock 'n' roll. And what rock said about disco. And what disco said about rap. And on and on it goes....

Don't like it? Don't listen. There's plenty of music for everybody, of all varieties.

Troll Watch| 2.11.10 @ 10:41AM

Another dumb troll takes up residence. He has a bite for everybody's ankle. Notice how he hates discussion. Love it or leave it is all he can offer up. This is what passes for smarts in our popular culture.

moranec| 2.11.10 @ 10:52AM

Well said and with true hilarity! Seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish..and with what precision!

Copyleft| 2.11.10 @ 12:17PM

I'm sorry, should I have used more words to dismiss Scruton's obviously shallow and narrow viewpoint about how "young people suck, and their music proves it"?

Nope; not worth my time.

Troll Watch| 2.11.10 @ 9:17PM

Plenty of time for ankle bites no time for thinking.

Dr Robert Davidson| 10.30.11 @ 8:16AM

You appear to be referring to yourself here

re: Copyleft| 2.11.10 @ 1:41PM

In way you prove the author's point when you say, "Yeah, that's what folk music fans said about jazz. And what big band said about rock 'n' roll. And what rock said about disco. And what disco said about rap."

They were all right! A gradual decline of genuine melodic content.

boomer babe| 10.17.10 @ 12:54AM

I have listened to all kinds of music from Big Band to Lady Gaga; to me, up until the late 1980s, the sound seemed to change-but now its all hype, more than sound; 80% of the popular songs are outright filthy in lyric, and is not good for Romance like the old standards. I'm starting to see some kids starting to appreciate the standards. Most boys I know, listen to the Woodstock crowd (Hendrix etc) and they KNOW there stuff is overwarmed disco junk with new techno-crap systems to make it not sound so old, or they totally scream. Lastly, if girls stop listening to mess that demeans them,they wont seem so desperate for attention from bad boys ::MUSIC IS HYPNOTIC

WAKE UP| 2.11.10 @ 2:03PM

Copyleft, hi there: damn right - and this is the first time you and I have agreed on something ! Interesting how music can unite where politics divide. (Also, see comment I'm about to add to this thread in general further on. Cheers :)

mk3| 2.18.10 @ 6:54PM

The advice to simply not respond in no way addresses the ancient philosophical (as well as empirical) question which the article raises: What effect do different types of music have on the character of the listener?

Al Adab| 2.11.10 @ 10:26AM

The point is well taken. It is one of the reasons why "popular culture" presents a danger to the common good. Degenerative entertainment, celebrity worship and the like distract a self governing people from the effort required to be an informed electorate.

How long perhaps before bread and circuses take all our time and we simply forgo the inconvienience of the election and accountability processes?

Moranec| 2.11.10 @ 10:49AM

Thank you Mr. Scruton for some considered deliberations. I shall use your thoughts in my class on culture and critical thinking. We have been through Plato leaving us in need of some connection with culture than his Theory of Eidos, Recollection and the Immortality of the Soul. You raise critcal issues concering the formation of laws based on cultural mores. Since Aristotle thought that the highest form of friendship was the pursuit of the good in making laws to serve that polity of the common good, our non-judgmental relativism has reduced us to laws driected toward the 'special interest' perhaps confirming Hobbes' dismal sense of human nature. Your thinking helped me understand better why the slide.
It is hopeful to receive such gifted deliberations. You show yourself to be a sensitive and thoughtful contributor of critical thought that values content over presentation. Perhaps the next topic should be on the effects of digital /video imaging and the loss of grammatical compositional skills of culture. My students compose their papers as if they were working with Photoshop in the triaging of information. I fear the true loss of original thinking like yours. If we live by 'Why have thought when rhythm is more immediate', we have already lost our freedoms.

Dan| 2.11.10 @ 11:59AM

As someone who has a pretty eclectic library of music, and listens to the gamut of genres while at work for 10-15 hours daily, this article seems to make some inaccurate blanket statements. True, much of what you hear promoted on the radio is kiddish at best, but in terms of what's out there for people to find, I wouldn't write off contemporary music as a whole.

I compose, I play, and I love the vast number and variance of sounds used in music. Give me the raw strength in metal, or the sweet harmonies in Mozart, I like it all. There is a point in the messages in some music, but you'll notice some sounds migrating into genres where the message is totally wholesome. For instance, contemporary Christian now draws from folk, rock, punk, jazz, classical, orchestral, chamber, electronica, etc. and can use them to highlight or complement the message.

In terms of dance, I really don't. Instead, for me personally, music connects with driving, playing sports, running, working, drawing... and rocking out or jamming in general. It has moved beyond a mere accompaniment for dance, and complements people's daily life in general, and fictional experiences like movie/tv soundtracks or, oddly enough, even reading or playing games.

I admire and enjoy music for music's sake, but I would say it now has a symbiotic relationship with almost all aspects of living. You can thank the somewhat newly introduced portability and 'always on' factors for that.

Don| 2.11.10 @ 1:45PM

I am a self taught musician. Because I was self taught, I spent much of my time reading the a Libraries music dept.
This article is an example of the sort of tripe that held me back for years. I call this sort of balderdash liberal arts musicology. If I strip away the nonsense, I would say he makes a good case for being reflective in musical taste, and I would add that these days more than any other, music is an age specific type of choice.
I for example still love all types of Metal music, I can listen to Metal for seconds. :: ))

boomer babe| 10.17.10 @ 12:58AM

Most heavy metal and other hard rock seemed to come out BEFORE THE 1990s!! something changed in the styles of music since. Its not going anywhere AND most motion picture makers WILL NOT PAY someone like a Rodgers and Hammerstein to write a musical score THEY JUST GET A BUNCH OF OLDIES INSTEAD ----cheap---

Robert Pinkerton| 2.11.10 @ 1:47PM

In response to several different prompts, I made it my business to read the Princeton Bollingen Edition of Plato cover-to-cover several times. This contains all of the Dialogues and all of the Epistles of this person between one set of covers. The result of that reading was to believe that Sir Karl Popper's estimate of Aristocles Platon was at least correct, if not wrongfully kind to him.

Responding to Eichmann In Jerusalem, Norman Podhoretz called Hannah Arendt an example of the "... perversity of brilliance..." This same applies manyfold more to Aristocles Platon.

I do believe the contentions of Popper, and before him Diana Speareman (in her Modern Dictatorships, Oxford University Press, 1939), that Aristocles Platon wrote the blueprint, adopted with idiosyncratic variations on the theme both by Lenin and by Hitler, of totalitarianism.

Durant and others say that he had one of the most felicitous of writing styles of any Classical author. This alone would give his novels -- for this is what the Dialogues are -- dispersal widespread enough to guarantee their survival through the milennia. Yet how many of us have been taken in by pleasing style, only to discover either no substance or disgusting substance beneath the pretty wrapping?

If Plato were alive today, I would regard him with nothing less than a man-to-man gut-personal hatred, for I believe that only that is all he deserves from lovers of liberty.

mk3| 2.18.10 @ 6:58PM

A few comments:

1. Plato's own views are not necessarily the views of any of the characters in his dialogues. It is a subject of open debate exactly what views Plato held. Presumably that was his point: To encourage readers to follow the various sides of the arguments, and attempt to think it through for themselves.

As for hatred, that is a very human response, but hardly a refutation of any of the views in Plato's Republic.

As for liberty, we do not really know what Plato's own views on liberty were, or how he would regard today's definitions of liberty.

WAKE UP| 2.11.10 @ 2:10PM

George Bernard Shaw said (paraphrased): "the history of modern music is a story of gradual growth of toleration by the ear of sounds that at first appeared discordant".
Or, as the great songwriter Guy Clark says: "One man's trash is another man's treasure".
Or as Duke Ellington said: "If it sounds good, it is good" .
Or as Louis Armstrong said: "All music is Folk music: I ain't never heard no horse sing".
Or as Fats Waller said (to the little old lady who asked "What is jazz?"): "Lady, if you have to ask, you'll never know".
--------------------
However, every man has his limits. Even I draw the line at the use of the disgusting, appalling word "motherf...er" (think about what that REALLY says) in speech, let alone in rap.
Cheers y'all, happy listening.

Tony in Central PA| 2.11.10 @ 4:13PM

Is anybody else here surprised at how regurgutative popular music has become ? I'm in my mid 40's, and I am continually astonished at the number of teens I come across who know about the songs and groups that were already getting old when I was their age - - thirty years ago.
Maybe this is a symptom of a culture nearing the terminus of its decline. We've reached a place where creativity has dried up and nobody has anything to say.

Seek| 2.11.10 @ 4:29PM

Tony:

The fact that certain teens are familiar with songs that predated their existence doesn't mean they're not listening to today's sounds either. To read into this civilizational "decline" is a stretch.

As for Plato, The Republic contained typically unpleasant, humorless passages about the need to shield youth from "improper" music. I'll stick with Iggy Pop.

Roy| 2.12.10 @ 1:41AM

I basically know what Scruton means, even if I might nitpick here and there. But I'm not going to die on this hill in a world where the unborn are getting vivisected on an industrial scale. Trying to get a teen or young adult to listen to arguments like this is next to impossible, and runs the risk of getting them to tune you out; if I'm going to run that risk, to reiterate, it's going to be in the service of "not vivisecting your offspring" rather than "dancing the reel".

So yeah..but..substantively, good points.

boomer babe| 10.17.10 @ 1:04AM

Roy, I think you answered my 'question' since the unborn were getting aborted in the past 30+ years ; how many songs would the unborn would have written---and not the usual LadyGaga hype, etc. Would they have written new standards of romance like the people in the American Songbook?......something to think about

Alan Brooks| 2.12.10 @ 1:46AM

Today if entertainers want to branch out from their somewhat mediocre careers in acting to mediocre careers in pop music all they have to do is call their agents and say, "can you get me singing on a CD?" Their agents don't have to think for a second: "why sure sweetie, no problem at all."

But what about my voice?, ask the actresses.

"No problem, there are pitch modulators to change the notes that are off key. Don't you worry about a thing-- say! that was a song by Stevie Wonder, you can do a cover of it sweetheart!"

How did Britney Spears get to be millionaire? by being very attractive and showing her little pink belly button. Ask yourself this: how many CDs would Britney have sold if she were ugly? Hard to believe that at one time songs had to be of fairly high quality to sell. Now it appears to matter almost as much what the big pop artist (if that is what you can call he or she) looks like. You see music lovers, the eyes have partially replaced the ears as the judges of music. It used to be you could look like the Elephant Man if you could do good music but now it doesn't hurt one bit to be good looking. Okay perhaps the Elephant Man is an exaggeration, but just say you looked really plain way back when, your lack of good looks was secondary or tertiary to being able to write fair-to-excellent songs and/or sing and/or play instruments. Mama Cass was quite a good singer but no one raved about her belly button.

Now it's not all about the 1960s, there has been good music all along. However now the market is spread way way out. In grammar school in 1967 I started listening to radio and what a time to be kid who liked music more than anything. You'd hear one knockout song right after the other. And there's no market-mystery why; after Rubber Soul and Revolver and the other top albums and singles of the era the standards went up rapidly, so record corporations couldn't just put out songs about Teeny Weeny Itsy Bitsy Yellow Polka Dot Bikinis. The quality lasted well into the seventies (and still influences today's music) but then, inevitably-- like a wave receding after it has washed ashore-- quantity began overtaking quality as it had done before-- what guitarist John McLaughlin termed the "hamburger mentality" of recording corporations.

Again, so there's no misunderstanding, there's plenty of good music being released today, but there is so much product being cranked out and so much of it is hack material. Who with any taste would want to spend $9.99 on a mediocre CD when there is quality to be found somewhere else? Who? The answer is juveniles who think a photo of a diva's belly button is worth the ten bucks. After all, maybe the disc can be thrown in the trash and you can save the jacket.

boomer babe| 10.17.10 @ 1:07AM

todays music is the REAL BELL CURVE ---It started right after WW2 and fizzled out in the late 80s---Woodstock in 1969 was the top of the curve

Jacob| 2.12.10 @ 7:54AM

And we wonder why American children have become so stupid.

Dr Robert Davidson| 10.30.11 @ 8:21AM

Mostly because right-wingers have destroyed the education system over there, and continue to wreck it. Not because of popular culture - Scruton comes across as so very ignorant about popular music.

Robert Judd| 2.12.10 @ 10:38AM

As a card-carrying musicologist (executive director of the American Musicological Society, in fact) with a deep concern for these issues, I feel compelled to add a note to the comments.

I would argue that Scruton is correct in drawing attention to Plato's caution, re the dangers of music. The danger has been around a long time. I think the Sirens that tempted Odysseus, Augustine's caution re music drawing one away from God, and the not-so-long-ago movies warning of the dangers of jazz ("Reefer Madness") could be mentioned. And the whole musician/relation to the devil topos: Mann, _Faustus_, legendary fiddlers' duels with the devil, etc. These stories and comments over the past 2,500 years arose for a reason. There's always been a numinous side to music that has been interpreted both good and bad. The idea of dance and the ecstatic ("whirling dervishes" are a prime example) or sexual (dance equated with sublimated sexual relations, hence forbidden in the church for centuries) has also been around for a long time, and is part of the subject.

No doubt Scruton is painting here with a broomstick and the fine points (including swipes as musicologists who study pop music) are open to challenge, but I applaud him for taking the issues seriously, and the AS for publishing the piece. It's easy to say "whatever" when questions of evaluating taste arise, but this has long been a concern for many musicians, listeners, and thinkers, and it's certainly worth keeping under consideration today.

Dr Robert Davidson| 10.30.11 @ 8:23AM

He could start by knowing the slightest thing about popular music before writing though - that could help. I write as a music lecturer who has no fear for the healthy and vibrant state of music today - in fact, I see today as the richest period of music yet.

Big Leo| 2.12.10 @ 11:55AM

When I remember the music I grew up with in the fifties and sixties, I remember that most of it was just awful. I preferred the music of the thirties and forties for a reason I didn't recognize at the time. The music from that earlier period that was played was the best of the times. Some music that was played in the fifties and sixties jumped out at you when you heard it. It was really good. That's usually the music from that period that is still with us, and the rest is sunk into oblivion except for the fanatics. We look back to the great music of the past because unless we heard it when it was current, it was also submerged in a sea of mediocrity. What music of the last twenty years is worth listening to I have no idea-- I haven't been listening.

Alan Brooks| 2.13.10 @ 8:47PM

Rap isn't music;-- and why scratch a record for hip hop when you can flush a commode over and over?

See how evil slavery was? now blacks are getting even by way of "music"?

Dr Robert Davidson| 10.30.11 @ 8:24AM

Such nonsense. Rap is clearly a very rich field of music.

digison| 2.18.10 @ 12:51PM

'Good' music will create the emotional response it's intended to in the listener. (Maybe a better term then 'good' would be 'properly executed')
Worship music will create the proper emotional atmosphere for worship.
Big band, early rock, disco, etc, creates an emotional atmosphere of 'letting go' of your inhibitions- a fun, dance type atmosphere.
The heavy metal, demon rock, punk type music creates an atmosphere of anger- the screaming and the mosh pits.
'Blues' actually uses a very rigidly defined 12 bar form, and creates the atmosphere of being trapped in a situation beyond the listener's control.
Can't say I've listened to much rap- but it seems to create the atmosphere of a hedonistic, gangster world.
Schoenberg's idea on music was to throw out the 'restrictions' of tonality, and the atmosphere he creates is one of chaos and randomness- sort of like 21rst man- no purpose, being here is a fluke of nature. (even the communists didn't like this, because they had a purpose- the 'state')
Hitler loved Wagner's music and used it to create the atmosphere of the 'master race'- hence anything the Nazi's did was OK, because, as the superior race, they knew best.
One scary thing for me is, it will be John Lennon's tune 'Imagine' that ushers in the one world government and ultimately the anti-christ. The tune
is pretty, the lyrics are straight from Marx. When it was sung on American Idol- no one seemed even remotely concerned at it's lyrics, because it's such a
'great' song by such a 'great' artist. (and I only happened to see American Idol because my wife watches it...) And it does the job it was intended to do-
it creates the atmosphere of a godless, one world, brotherhood.
Perhaps, in a free society, the best way to insure that music is used to promote desirable qualities in a listener is through music criticism and looking
at the emotional response it creates in it's listeners. And perhaps even better then music criticism is creating the desired music yourself. Right now, I think we need music that promotes truth and honesty, and despises spin.

Matt| 2.19.10 @ 3:45PM

Another great essay by my favorite living philosopher. Scruton is rare, even for a conservative intellectual, in discussing "ethics" as if morality mattered. It takes not only brains but guts to win the culture wars.

watches| 4.28.10 @ 11:55PM

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Cain Wormwood| 6.8.10 @ 11:16AM

Dear friends,

It has come to my attention that several of our members have recently attempted to provide rebuttals to an online essay on music by Roger Scruton. Now, I am obviously as concerned as anybody about the attempts by joyless old farts like Scruton to stifle, like, our creativity, man. But at the same time, I recognize that many of said members (I'm not naming names, but let's just say “intellectual property pun” and leave it at that) are perhaps less than fully capable of constructing an intelligent philosophical argument. Given my long experience with the defense of artistic views and tastes often labeled as “vulgar” or “stupid” by narrow-minded elitists like Scruton, I feel qualified to give you a few pointers on how you can rebut nasty reactionaries of his stripe without actually having to put yourself at risk by understanding their opinions.

Firstly and most crucially, use slurs such as «old-fashioned,» «parochial,» etc. whenever possible. As I said previously, this prevents you from having to actually engage what we call your “reason.” Such an act of rationality, if attempted, will most likely be time-consuming, painful, and ultimately unsuccessful for most of us. How much easier it is to simply say that the difference between Maria Callas and Florence Foster Jenkins is a matter of taste and leave it at that. I suppose that's the biggest advantage among many of belonging to a party which demands no taste, intelligence, or intellectual engagement: as long as you're willing to associate with any knuckle-dragging waste of air, keeping them on your side and away from the road less taken is so incredibly easy.

It's good to be king.

Sincerely,
Cain Wormwood
Chairman, Association for the Aesthetically Challenged

P.S. – To reiterate, AT NO TIME MUST YOU TRY TO ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND OR ENGAGE THE ARGUMENTS PRESENTED IN THE ESSAY. I can't emphasize this enough.

Dr Robert Davidson| 10.30.11 @ 8:26AM

The reason Scruton is not worth answering is that he has not done his homework. Like Adorno, he knows next to nothing about popular music, as is so evident from this essay.

Don S.| 10.23.10 @ 5:21PM

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Belly Dance Birmingham | 12.26.10 @ 5:43PM

Gotta love:

'The answer is juveniles who think a photo of a diva's belly button is worth the ten bucks.'

Just about sums it up!

Survival Checklist| 12.31.10 @ 4:19PM

The mechanization of music is no surprise. Unlike live folk, digital beats are replicable, mass-produceable.

I think the arguments on free agency in dancing vs the kind of beat are a bit ridiculous. Much of the mass-produced music is still created by human beings, and much of it incorporates tribal and folk rhythms, the same that Scruton finds morally dubious.

vouchercodes| 1.6.11 @ 9:19AM

I like listening to music but I don't find the connection with music and moral

Warren| 1.15.11 @ 5:14AM

Plato’s thoughts on music as more than neutral amusement is presented, which includes the ability of music as an expression of virtue or vice. Topics include the complications regarding questions related to the moral character of pop music, such as individual preferences, how musical tastes change from one generation to the next, and the nature of rhythm in pop music.

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แรน| 4.22.11 @ 12:24AM

I basically know what Scruton means, even if I might nitpick here and there. But I'm not going to die on this hill in a world where the unborn are getting vivisected on an industrial scale.

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Dreamcatcher Belly Button Ring| 12.17.11 @ 2:03AM

I would reason that Scruton is appropriate in sketching attention to Plato's extreme caution, re the dangers of audio. The danger has been around a long time. I think the Sirens which tempted Odysseus, Augustine's extreme caution re tunes drawing one away from The almighty, and the not-so-long-ago videos warning in the dangers of spruce ("Reefer Madness") could be talked about. And the total musician/relation to the demon topos: Mann, _Faustus_, legendary fiddlers' duels with all the devil, and so on. These testimonies and remarks over the past Two,500 years came into being for a cause. There's always been a numinous part to tunes that has been viewed both bad and good. The idea of boogie and the thrilled ("whirling dervishes" are a leading example) or sexual (dance equated along with sublimated sexual relations, hence forbidden inside the church for years and years) has also been about for a long time, which is part of the subject.

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