Just to get a few things off my chest

[Carl E. Anderson]

> > 4.  Music is neither good or bad -- you may like it or not like it, but
> > that like or dislike doesn't make it good or bad.  I don't particularly
> > like alot of what's being played on the radio these days (although I'm
> > starting to get into some stuff), but that doesn't mean it's bad, just
> > that I don't like it.  Maybe I should start a new slogan:  "Music
> > doesn't suck - people do."  O.K., maybe not . . .  ;-)
>
> Relativistic hogwash, John.  :-) There *is* such a thing as shoddy
> music, just like there are sour wines, uncomfortable shoes, badly
> written books, and knives that won't hold an edge.  Just because
> somebody likes those things doesn't make them good, it just means that
> people have a taste for bad stuff.

        Ah, but as a folklorist and student of culture(s) (I knew that
education would be good for something!) I can assure that _good_ and
_bad_ are entirely relativistic by definition.  One cannot exist without
the other, ie. things that aren't "good" are "bad", and _vice versa_.
Some of the examples you give above demonstrate how we make those
definitions in terms of things to perform a specific task.  Thus the
shoes are uncomfortable (and therefore "bad") because they fail to
perform a given task (that is, to be comfortable shoes).  Some of the
examples fall into a more hazy area of personal (or cultural) taste.
You or I may brand the wine "bad" for being sour--I'm on better terms
with beer here ...  A lot of really classic Belgian beers I find
unspeakably sour (and probably best used to sprinkle on your chips ;)
but fans of these same beers (including the Beligians, I assume) just
can't get enough.
        Thus we can see that _Imaginos_ is an utterly *crap* country
music album.  We might also find a fan of Irish jigs rather put off by
Mongolian singing ("Sure, and it's a terrible noise they're after
making!")

        So, on purely academic grounds, I have to agree with John.
Music can only be defined good or bad in relation to the tastes of
the individual (or more generally, that individual's subculture).

        On a gut level, of course, I agree completely with Steve.
Michael Jackson blows syphilitic whale wads over putrified wombat
corpses and anyone can see that! :)

Cheers,
Carl