JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Why today's country BLOWS!!!!

We all like what we like for whatever reasons. Some are indeed psychological, others for more purely aesthetic reasons.

But there is absolutely NO WAY to prove that any era of music is better than any other. It all boils down to how we feel. That's why these arguments are amusing and a little bit frustrating--to hear people straining and gyrating to prove such a point, where a scientific method of involving big groups of non-biased participants is the ONLY way to truly get any answers. Like Aaron said, nobody listens repeatedly to music they think is crap.

Maybe Midnite Bob will get a grant to go to the deepest jungles of Africa with a hundred classic country songs, and a hundred top modern country songs, with a questionnaire approved by the government, and film these natives and see which they prefer, and call it "The Gods Must Seriously Be Crazy This Time" because they all end up loving a little jingle, not in the study, about shaving cream, the most, and no matter how hard he tries, he can't steer them back to the survey. They want they shaving cream song.

Why African natives? Because it's an attempt to find a group of non-biased people and get a purely aesthetic response. But it, too, ultimately fails the scientific method because if these particular tribes happen to have certain music rituals of their own, they will probably end up liking music that sounds similar. They may lean towards the modern, and for psychological reasons..

Although no one can really explain why Native South Africans absolutely worshiped Jim Reeves (back in the early sixties), a silky voiced country crooner popular in the late fifties/early sixties. Hell, he even made two movies down there in South Africa. So maybe unbiased Africans liked MOR sounding country back then, but it proves absolutely nothing other than we live in a wacky world, where we like things, and we think we know why, but it's truly a mystery. The science of psychology and aesthetics as applied to popular music is very lacking, but that (and a scientific method) is what is needed to make these arguments anything more than p*ssing contests.

Mike