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BinniLee

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry for responding so late, it took me quite a time to manage to handle that.

I am not even sure if the original commenter is still browsing in O`ism Online.

Nevertheless, I did not get into that subject only because of this godforsaken thread, and expressing the sense over musical taste has been a long-range task for me.

I've actually started a blog about Objectivism in music! I've been browsing this thread to get ideas for reviews, and I'd really love your thoughts on what I've already written ;) Here's the link: http://objectivistmusic.blogspot.com/.
For honesty's sake, I have read some of your blog, and I do not find it to have anything to do with Objectivist esthetics, id est, to posses the consistent and integrated projection of pro-man and pro-rationality metaphysical values.

Through the following post, I shall---KILL ME---try to bring into existence a general direction towards an objective standard of judging music's emotions and values, and I shall do that on the ground of Rand's (proved) theory of values, her theory of esthetics (which is proved as well), her (validated by means of introspection) theory of music, her hypothesis on the nature of its emotions and metaphysical values and my own musical taste (which according to my artistic experience I regards objective), in part Rand's. The three former are placed in the book The Romantic Manifesto.

But first, let me repeat and empathize that I don't recognize such thing as 'Objectivist music' as much as I don't 'Objectivist furniture' etc, and anything as such.

Objectivism has absolutely NOTHING to do with faith.

Philosophy deals with broad abstractions, human beings deal with concretes.

That is according to the sacred Objectivism itself.

My only purpose here is to show you that the reasons you (as well as many others) chose what you chose is not the standards of art that are consistent with O`ist esthetics.

The objective criterion of music would read as follows:

Style

(i) Art is a selective recreation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value judgements. The standard of art is what philosophy it projects (subject), and how it is projected (style). It does that (projecting philosophy) by showing the picture of an representing, ideal (i.e., a man of vales as an artist observes them) (or rather, a selfless, automatically acting or ultimately 'smaller than life' character, as to if the creator does not find 'vale' a valid concept at all)character, as to if the creator does not find 'vale' a valid concept at all) to deal with a given situation of whose theme.

Music means the emotions made out by periodic vibrations. It is created by means of integrateable relative (stage) and relative (tempo) height of tone, integrateable relative (duration), relatively relative (time signature) periodicity.

Therefore, it must be composed of integrateable notes and an integrateable relationship between them.

(ii) Great art contains great style.

Music is created by means integrateable height of tone and periodicity.

Therefore, it should be written in a language which is understandable to a western-enlightened person (e.g., no quarters or oriental dissonance).

It is not clear what foreign music expresses or even whether it expresses the same emotions of the western one.

(iii) Great art contains great style.

Art is created by an individual, somewhat has to challenge man intellectually and realist metaphysical value projections are detailed and complex.

Therefore, music should be enough mathematically challengeable to integrate and purely integratealbe alike: No rational music is founded on mere three natural chords and quarters. Such music shall not be exciting and valuable: it will be boring, selfless and ultimately nothing.

(iv) Great art contains great style. Due to the principle of mind-body unity, it contains great characterizations and great happenings (environment, universe) simultaneously.

Music should be enough mathematically demanding. In music (or at least a good one), the leading instrument \ track is the equivalent of the term characterization in literature whereas the background \ 'rhythm' ones symbolize of the occasions \ environment \ universe. This fact can be simply validated by means of introspection of what each part of piano concertos composed by Tchaikovsky or Chopin.

Therefore, music should contain a well-enriched arrangement.

(v) Music is a performing art.

Performing itself (yet not apart) is an an artistic method.

Therefore, it should be played and produced well.

Subject

Subject is a much more crucial and a much more tough task to define. Whereas the principles of style are almost explicit to that extent---the emotions a given musical work gives the listener and why it does that (i.e., what is the logic of a purely musical perception) requires a spectrum of knowledge in fields such as psychology, musical composition, musicology and even biology that ours currently does not suffice to supply.

However, I shall make a new issue by saying that this knowledge is not necessary for the sake of proving an objective standard of music: if music has any objective standard, then one can judge each composition apart without any psychological means of deduction: but means of the initial, impersonal, elementary emotions he experiences (emotions prior to a man's subjective appraisal, which depends on his own sense of life).

(vi) Art is created according to an artist's metaphysical value judgement. Its standard deals with them.

Art is objective. Music ultimately results in emotions. One's musical experience feels as if it were fundamental, objective. Thus the initial emotions created by music are the same for each person: such fundamental emotions as of happiness and depression, emotions that commit no sense of life (nevertheless maybe some mental-human sanity) in order to grasp.

Therefore, EVERY piece of music should evoke the emotions that a rational man handles in a proper context, within the context of a rational man.

Particular instances (note: I ommitted the criteria of performance and production \ sound engineering since they had been yet to be fully discovered prior to the period when the composer became the main performer and before he was, which means, prior to jazz music) (as mentioned above, this is my own judgement; not to be confused with Objectivism) (inspired by the finals of Rubinstein Piano Master Competition):

Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto is a well-considered composition, making quite a great sense that one could write a whole mathematical theory on its grounds.

It projects the clear, confident feelings of better ages in Europe and America, and it is, along with modern architecture and cinematography, Ayn Rand's romantic realism and fantasy literature one of the last famous-meaningful-explicit remnants of the 19th century in the 20th. As much as it makes me wish I lived in this period.

It has a thus great sophistication that in a mere technical respect it might cause to shake a man, and its harmonic genius is breathtaking and hair-raising.

Its dialogue between piano and orchestra as if between man and his surroundings, a genius physicist and NYC's skyscrapers is perfect, as in real life, as for the most realist and reasonable and consistent people.

Rachmaninoff's sense of life is likely of man 'as he might be and ought to be,' in a rational world where there is no one to disturb him.

Tchaikovsky's very first piano concerto is commonly logical, westerly logical and original and its own. Ultimately, it expresses a common, direct, realistic, honest sense of civilized joy.

In contrast, there is Prokofiev's piano concerto no. 2.

This piece makes no sense, either in the developed or in the Muslim sense.

It has nothing to be challengeably perceived, since it has nothing to perceive at all.

Even despiteful artists such as Stravinsky (who is regarded moderner than the (alleged) classicism of Prokofiev) have some admirable stylistic motives which can convince and impress a sane person.

A special trivial quality of it is the fact that, replaced by tonal-rational-enlightened-western music, it would technically (while ignoring sound as if it were a romantic music per-se, yet, when there is no such thing as 'theme' or 'composition' and all you have is quick chromatic walks, none of this in effect matters.

As to Prokofiev's subjects, presuming it DOES have any existence, they deal merely with his own inherent, primacy of consciousness assuming, emotionalist eternal anxiety,

an anxiety to be unavoidable, inalienable, metaphysical as in a Munch painting.

I appreciate Rand's musical taste a lot, since she actually attempted to enjoy music qua romanticism even despite the hardship of proving it.

Now, what YOU (and all the rest in this thread) determine to be your standard of music is not even a musical:

it goes something like as follows: He put forward the capitalistic through his lyrics; he cared to remind a popular novel by Ayn Rand; therefore, it music be an "Objectivist" music.

And even if reference is your standard, note that the fact those punkists said something artificially consistent with Ayn Rand's philosophy doesn't mean they are Objectivist or intellectual or more than any other tattooed man-hater, neither do they implicitly nor explicitly.

Being a self-asserted Objectivist does not make one's art objective according to Objectivist philosophy's standards (like all those 'Objectivist' novelists who try to copy Miss Rand's style but cannot ever get into he depths or even fit her esthetic criteria)---they are NOT Objectivists at all.

Now, let me state that I have nothing against you and your blogsite in particular. What I'm saying is a mere objective criticism of your ideas and practices according to my philosophical doctrines: way more constructive AND objective than any other 'Cool negga' and then of course along with the famous three ':)'s.

I won't lie as much as I haven't until this moment. It is going to be HARD to fix it due to how many and how fundamental your intellectual mistakes, either in regard to real-life or to Objectivism, are.

I suggest you start by changing your name from 'Objectivist Music' to '[A]esthetics via Music' or 'Objective Music' or anything like that, because really, it is not Ayn Rand who hired those pop-rock singers masqueraded to John Galt and Dagny Taggarst.

Secondly, close blog temporarily due to 'some thinking work.' Then, after you finish all the stages, you can decide whether to reconstruct it or open a new one. Go and take yourself the book The Romantic Manifesto with an emphasis on the article 'Art and Cognition,' which you may read even twice or three times. Re-read my post. Try to observe what Ayn Rand called a good-art in actual works, why she did so and if she was right or wrong in this context. If you want your blog to look serious, you MUST listen to the music Rand appreciated, then decide whether you have to give your taste or your blog's common style a reboot towards hers. You can accept it or not, there are lots of great-moral-genius Objectivists who have a different one. The important thing is really you understand the artistic standards of art.

Thirds,I even got a suggestion for you. If you loved Rush, you can love it with a great effort.

Throughout the seventies, an artistic Renaissance occurred in semi-popular semi-underground music.

They call it progressive or art rock.

The rebirth was, rebirth of reason, rebirth of an appraisal of reason, rebirth of beautiful, serious art, an art to deal with values.

The music did not attempt to take a slice and document the current society of the time and its deficiencies, nor fit itself to its standards.

Rather, they built a separate-differ world where enlightenment was possible, and good and evil were the only alternatives.

he struggle has not been completed yet.

The music has not always been so all-romantic. It did not necessarily stand for triumph and thus, in few cases, even individualism. But in the sphere of rock music, it was essentially characterized by seriousness---nonconformity---greatness---reason.

It did not take a long time until the materialist (the Marxist philosophy regarding the 'scandal' of the 'belief' in reason, not the Marxist slogan regarding people who 'believe' in reason) punkers (yes, the same ones you give advertising through your blog, only in the costume of Galt and Taggart) finally compulsorily snatched the ball out of the 'bourgeois' white hands of the actual artists.

(The use of 'compulsorily' is certainly metaphorical; I do not actually think that the lack of freedom is responsible for the fall of prog rock, quite on the reverse: their philosophy expressed in their art caused and causes it.

What I mean by 'compulsorily,' as unclear, is that it was regardless of the objective artistic reality.)

The next generation now turned from autodidact honest artistic into a monstrous brute that tries to revolt against society while in fact promoting its own premises: the next Avant-Garde musicians, who rejected the fashionable simplistic music, and concluded that they should do a much 'deeper' music: a music which makes no sense, a music which expresses nothing fashionable, only worse.

It began by Van Der Graaf Generator. Qua composers, they where usually as good as the others at the scene, had some ideas, and not as good as actual great composers. Qua artists, they were at the highest level of evil I know.

There on the path was paved. As a rule, there was no such thing as progressive rock during the 80's.

As an imperfect being, I love to describe progressive rock in a single literary analogy: Fantasy literature.

It did not have a great stress on characterization and on realism, but on universe and some romanticism.

If you want to get introduced to it, I recommend Lizard by King-Crimson, Close to the Edge by Yes and Selling England by the Pound (yes, ignore the title) by Genesis.

Personally I love this music. It describes an entire period of my life.

Now, after that historical introduction here is my suggestion:

That Was Propaganda by Kurt Rongey.

Just send me a private message if you want to know where to buy that.

Since the album is certainly far from perfect and very complex, so let me advise you how approach it:

I like Peikoff's metaphor on production as compared to Rand's three novels.

In case you don't know: he suggested that his book The Ominous Parallels, as an analysis of the greatest evil, is like Rand's We the Living; OPAR, as an honest statement of an optimistic philosophy of life, is as Romantic as The Fountainhead; whereas his upcoming book, DIM, is a great combination of both, just as Atlas Shrugged.

In regards to music, such romantic famous composers as above are The Fountainhead; Kurt Rongey's hard yet rational music is We the Living; Atlas Shrugged in not in a status of existence today.

The progressive rock album deals with the evil of the 'disease called collectivism' (according to Rongey himself) and with how even a man of sense of life cannot deal with it.

It is very desperate (it made ME actually cry once), but one does not have to drop the facts' very context: the album's heavy message even in context of the lives of heroes is not metaphysical, but rather volitional, as stresses Rongey.

As to its style, Rongey's better moments are hyper-melodic, almost becoming equal to symphonic compositions (and Rongey has academic education in classic composition).

His music contains a great sophistication and intelligence: a time signature that gets shorter in a quarter every bunch of verses; the tempo in one ending that can be described as an exponential function; the major anthem that continues while getting upper in half a tone every two bars; and more than all, a great harmonic and melodic GENIUS that I cannot describe through these forums. All this, I should clearly mention, makes a lot of sense: Rongey's music (that which can be described as music, i.e., as the album's actual content) has nothing to do with any mental or Avant-Garde music.

With modern technology and the performance abilities of Rongey, it is makes a differences as between a novel and a well-stylized film.

As it can seem, as modern "prog" "artists," he does make a connection between rational music and the need to get out of any frame, which means about one to three of the album can go the toilet, but it is forgivable as in more Nietzschean periods of my life I derived similar conclusions plus the album is after all very long (about 70 or 75 minutes).

If lyrics is of your primary interests (even though I suppose that the issue is reference so you have nothing to do with it, as well as it is not purely musical), take a read.

The sound-samples, by the way, are not always so good, neither in the piece selections nor in their particular samples themselves.

Sincerely,

Tomer

Edited by Tomer Ravid
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Tchaikovsky's very first piano concerto is commonly logical, westerly logical and original and its own. Ultimately, it expresses a common, direct, realistic, honest sense of civilized joy.

In contrast, there is Prokofiev's piano concerto no. 2.

This piece makes no sense, either in the developed or in the Muslim sense.

It has nothing to be challengeably perceived, since it has nothing to perceive at all.

Even despiteful artists such as Stravinsky (who is regarded moderner than the (alleged) classicism of Prokofiev) have some admirable stylistic motives which can convince and impress a sane person.

A special trivial quality of it is the fact that, replaced by tonal-rational-enlightened-western music, it would technically (while ignoring sound as if it were a romantic music per-se, yet, when there is no such thing as 'theme' or 'composition' and all you have is quick chromatic walks, none of this in effect matters.

As to Prokofiev's subjects, presuming it DOES have any existence, they deal merely with his own inherent, primacy of consciousness assuming, emotionalist eternal anxiety,

an anxiety to be unavoidable, inalienable, metaphysical as in a Munch painting.

I appreciate Rand's musical taste a lot

The Prokofiev 2nd makes no sense? Let’s see, it starts of with an arresting, limpid melody, giving way to a pungent second subject, both developed and juxtaposed skillfully, with thrilling virtuosity displayed by the soloist. What’s not to like? His third concerto is one of the most performed pieces today, as popular as the Rachmaninov ones (2 and 3), while the second is somewhat less well known. The third was used memorably in the climax of the film The Competition, worth seeing.

Your weird invocation of “Muslim sense” reminds me of the writings of Lindsay Perigo, who is prone to statements like “Sibelius is for dyslexic empiricists”. He’s not kidding, and he’s one very silly fool posing as an Objectivist authority.

It seems you reject Prokofiev's work in toto, so I will point out, much as I dislike anything that smacks of argument from authority, that one of Ayn Rand’s favorite pieces was his march from the Love of Three Oranges, a piece she liked to play at gatherings and conduct using her cigarette holder. Beyond that one, which is a rather pungent piece, I suggest you try the Balcony scene from his ballet Romeo and Juliet, which has some of the most romantic (or is it “post-romantic”?) music ever written. I can only link two videos per post, so you’ll have to look for it yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWASdK3EKRk

Now, you claim the Tchaikovsky 1st is “logical”, yet it begins with a memorable, soaring melody which never recurs. Please explain the logic in that. Compare to the second movement of his First Symphony, which also has a memorable melody, but which is repeated (arguably) too many times, with little development to show for it.

Perhaps I’ll disabuse you of the notion that Stravinsky is “despiteful” if you’ll first explain what that means.

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The Prokofiev 2nd makes no sense? Let’s see, it starts of with an arresting, limpid melody, giving way to a pungent second subject, both developed and juxtaposed skillfully, with thrilling virtuosity displayed by the soloist. What’s not to like?
Read again.

I said that the beginning actually makes sense, but then it just goes into a desperate dissonance.

His third concerto is one of the most performed pieces today, as popular as the Rachmaninov ones (2 and 3), while the second is somewhat less well known. The third was used memorably in the climax of the film The Competition, worth seeing.
I don't think that popularity gives any new information.

Your weird invocation of “Muslim sense” reminds me of the writings of Lindsay Perigo, who is prone to statements like “Sibelius is for dyslexic empiricists”. He’s not kidding, and he’s one very silly fool posing as an Objectivist authority.
Dyslexic or not, the "Muslim Sense" of music (or more correctly; oriental integration) does NOT mean
but more like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjzFq3R0qgE.

I don't know about you, but to me anything it expresses (if it does) is unintelligible, incomprehensible, and I have grown in a much more eastern society than most of you.

It seems you reject Prokofiev's work in toto, so I will point out, much as I dislike anything that smacks of argument from authority, that one of Ayn Rand’s favorite pieces was his march from the Love of Three Oranges, a piece she liked to play at gatherings and conduct using her cigarette holder. Beyond that one, which is a rather pungent piece, I suggest you try the Balcony scene from his ballet Romeo and Juliet, which has some of the most romantic (or is it “post-romantic”?) music ever written. I can only link two videos per post, so you’ll have to look for it yourself.
I do not know all the compositions of Prokofiev, and I am certainly going to listen to that.

I did say that Prokofiev is a bad musician, I simply gave a particular instance of the embodiment of my standard and how it actually distinguishes between good and bad music.

Not everything that an artist does is art.

Now, you claim the Tchaikovsky 1st is “logical”, yet it begins with a memorable, soaring melody which never recurs. Please explain the logic in that.
"Logical" simply means "integrateable."

How much you are repeating music that fits my standard and how much it strengthens \ dismisses the enjoyment is another issue.

Perhaps I’ll disabuse you of the notion that Stravinsky is “despiteful” if you’ll first explain what that means.
Ever before I heard Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky used to be one of my favorite composers.

But I had to come to realize that the artistic standard to contain only the style is destructive.

Stravinsky, be he genius as he could, deals with evil subjects at least 50% of the time.

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I gather English isn’t your primary language, and as written, you contradict yourself to the extent that I can’t reliably determine your meaning on a couple points.

Read again.

I said that the beginning actually makes sense, but then it just goes into a desperate dissonance.

No you didn’t. If you’re going to accuse me of careless reading, please provide a quote from your post. What did I miss?

You disapprove of “desperate dissonance”. As opposed to what, “confident, light-hearted dissonance”? As found where, in the Rachmaninov concerti?

I don't think that popularity gives any new information.

I’m recommending you listen to Prokofiev’s 3rd Piano Concerto. Have you heard it? I bring up its popularity because you are criticizing one of Prokofiev’s lesser masterpieces. Try picking on Romeo and Juliet, Cinderella, the Fifth Symphony, the “War Sonatas”, Alexander Nevsky, or Lieutenant Kijé.

Dyslexic or not, the "Muslim Sense" of music (or more correctly; oriental integration) does NOT mean

but more like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjzFq3R0qgE.

I don't know about you, but to me anything it expresses (if it does) is unintelligible, incomprehensible, and I have grown in a much more eastern society than most of you.

I take this to mean you don’t like anything that isn’t based on the modern Western tuning system. It has nothing to do with Prokofiev, except that both fall in the category of music you don’t like.

"Logical" simply means "integrateable."

How much you are repeating music that fits my standard and how much it strengthens \ dismisses the enjoyment is another issue.

"Integrateable" by you. Can you accept the possibility that your ability to integrate musical data is undeveloped, or in other words, that you’re ignorant?

I’ve spent many hours listening to Indian music, and while I enjoy it, I still regard myself as ignorant in that area. I certainly wouldn’t presume to say that a particular Dhun or Raga is “evil” if I don’t like it.

Ever before I heard Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky used to be one of my favorite composers.

But I had to come to realize that the artistic standard to contain only the style is destructive.

Stravinsky, be he genius as he could, deals with evil subjects at least 50% of the time.

It’s pointless for me to attempt a substantive reply to this, the grammar is nonsensical. You claim a level of knowledge of Stravinsky’s voluminous output such that you can pass a moral judgment on 50% of it, yet you’ve never heard Prokofiev’s march from the Love of Three Oranges?

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No you didn’t. If you’re going to accuse me of careless reading, please provide a quote from your post. What did I miss?
Sorry, I forgot to write about it.

Anyway, I swear it was my first impression, that the three first minutes are beautiful.

As a matter of fact, I don't have to swear, I can prove it:

From my messenger history, five twenty-seven:

". . . Prokofiev had started nicely (two first minutes *MAXIMUM*) and then moved to some weird chromatic walkings on the grounds of the classical technique."

I can send you a screen-printing of the conversation history if you really want me to.

As found where, in the Rachmaninov concerti?
I am not a great harmony expert, but I know that you can use dissonance selectively and under a certain contextual.

If you just use it qua primary attraction, i.e., cacophony, then it will be just as much as . . . Well, nothing.

I take this to mean you don’t like anything that isn’t based on the modern Western tuning system. It has nothing to do with Prokofiev, except that both fall in the category of music you don’t like.
Why are you dropping my context?

Or you think I have to fit my standard to the ("axiomatic") fact that Prokofiev's second concerto is not artistically good?

"Integrateable" by you. Can you accept the possibility that your ability to integrate musical data is undeveloped, or in other words, that you’re ignorant?
The same applies to philosophy, mathematics, physics and nature in general. My presumption is that I do NOT live within a Cave of Platonism.

Factually, the perception of music has some objective nature.

Proof: Only human beings can enjoy music.

Therefore, men are characterized by some mathematical faculty that perceives an organization of notes.

I’ve spent many hours listening to Indian music, and while I enjoy it, I still regard myself as ignorant in that area. I certainly wouldn’t presume to say that a particular Dhun or Raga is “evil” if I don’t like it.
The term "evil" is not applicable to them.

I have never used that word in order to describe them.

You claim a level of knowledge of Stravinsky’s voluminous output such that you can pass a moral judgment on 50% of it, yet you’ve never heard Prokofiev’s march from the Love of Three Oranges?
Concrete knowledge is not hierarchal. Edited by Tomer Ravid
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Why are you dropping my context?

Or you think I have to fit my standard to the ("axiomatic") fact that Prokofiev's second concerto is not artistically good?

What context? You failed to communicate what you meant by “Muslim sense”, you merely linked to a piece of Arabic sounding music rendered with a pop drum beat. It didn’t have any complex harmonies, all that was notable was that it sounded out of tune according to the 12-tone, even tempered tuning method. I’ve been giving you the most charitable reading I can manage.

I feel I’ve done what I came to do, answer your statements about Prokofiev. The bizarre non-sequiturs you’re engaging in, evoking Plato’s Cave and this pseudo-Chomskian claim about “some mathematical faculty”, it’s beyond my level of interest to engage further. However, it does call to mind Leonard Bernstein’s Harvard lectures, and since they’re freely available on YouTube, you might learn something.

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  • 2 months later...

I love some of Daft Punks later music. Especially the soundtrack to TRON. They have created a veritable symphony orchestra from a decisive, adept, acoustic perceptiveness of each individual synthetic sound and how it flows and fits together as a unit. The tone of the songs in this album tend not to be as ascendant as I would like, but they each bear their own, nuanced and personal emotion that makes the album worth listening to for both their aforementioned skill and the journey through an evident variance of timbres.

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In spite of the several condemning tirades written in this thread, I am here to defend atonal, virtuosic, prog-rock/metal/jazz fusion bullshit music.

Using two music groups as my examples, I will briefly outline three reasons why atonality and overcomplexity (difficulty of listening, as some would call it) kicks ass.

In an effort at being well-defined in my argument, the kinds of music I'm talking about is this:

(Behold... The Arctopus)

(Spiral Architect)

You can see that it's a nebulous genre. And here are my three reasons why it's also the best genre:

1)It doesn't fuck around.

It's sort of self-explanatory: this music is hard as fuck to write and harder to play. It's technical, mathematical, and all-around mindblowing. "Virtuosic" is a common word for this style of music, but one must consider that typical "virtuoso" pieces of the classical and baroque periods were intended for one virtuoso with a group to back him up. These new guys put four or five virtuosos in one room and have them all take center stage. The fact that a clusterfuck doesn't result is an achievement in itself.

2)It makes you focus.

Try listening to one of those three songs like you would elevator music; let it wash over you, half-hearing what the artist wants to portray. You can't do it, because this shit is right in your face. This is not background music; to appreciate its splendor, you must drop everything and concentrate solely on what you're hearing. It's like reading a book that's a little too difficult for you: no skimming allowed.

3)It shows you the universe as it is.

This one sounds sketchy, but hear me out. When you hear the first few phrases of each of those songs, it sounds like gibberish. All you can hear is atonality, lack of any dependable rhythm, and a general dismissal of all musical decency. It's like five-year-olds banging on pots and pans. But keep listening, and invest true focus and effort to uncovering the music that lives intertwined amongst the seeming madness, and you will shortly see the forest from the trees. Soon enough, given enough hard work on your part, you can discover (of your own means, no less!) the systematic, entirely logical way that these songs work. The time signatures are not random, they're just complex. The modulations are not liberally sprinkled around where they don't belong, you just haven't discovered the pattern yet. And when you do, you feel like Newton when he first watched the apple fall from the tree and learned: there is a law for this! Everything makes sense, everything in the world. This music just doesn't hand the sense over to you on a silver platter.

Sorry for being so long-winded; that was not my intention when I began writing.

In conclusion, I assert that, for these three reasons (heroic virtuosity, demand for focus, and infusing method and reason into complexities that seem to border on madness), this is the best, and most Objectivist, music in the world.

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I will briefly outline three reasons why atonality and overcomplexity (difficulty of listening, as some would call it) kicks ass.

I’m afraid this is going to come across as rather pedantic, but changing keys a lot does not make music atonal, nor does throwing in a dissonant chord here and there. I only listened to half of each of your selections, so maybe there’s some actual atonality in there somewhere, but I didn’t hear anything on the level of what Richard Strauss was writing circa 1900 (e.g. Elektra), music which is also not atonal. Compare a bit of Strauss, here vigorously pushing the limits of tonality, to Schoenberg, the genuine article.

Anyway, you’re evocation of five year olds banging on pots and pans pretty well captures my feeling towards your selections. Chacun à son goût!

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I love some of Daft Punks later music. Especially the soundtrack to TRON.

And then if you want some awesomely-mixed electro music, listen to the TRON remix album. Some of it will floor you (if you have big enough speakers that cover enough high and low ends).
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It's amazing what good audio reproduction will do for a track.

It's also amazing what really bad fidelity will do. (Are you listening to me, you morons with 500W of distortion per channel in your cars that rattle to the beat? Yeah you've made an impression on me and everyone else around you, but not in the way you might want.)

Anyhow to get back to the OP, I found the second track more coherent/cohesive than the first. It at least struck me as being one unified work with an identifiable motif; the first wandered all over the landscape in a drunkard's walk. I don't mind a complicated piece of music at all, but when it seems to be athemal (without a theme--I've no doubt there's a proper word for that but I don't know what it is) as well as atonal (or even if not atonal), that bugs me. Music that picks up a theme or motif, plays with it for about 15 seconds then, just as it seems it might develop into something truly awesome, puts it down and moves on to another one, never to return... drives me batty. Paying to hear such at the symphony is even worse; I want those hours of my life back.

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Well, you may have been busting em but that's something I think I will address. That piece of music is notorious for abandoning that opening theme completely after the first couple of minutes or so. But it's not nearly as bad as the pieces I was thinking of that couldn't stay on the same thing for more than about five or six measures, and you have to admit he did take that theme places, rather than leaving you with "well that could have become interesting if he'd spent more than fifteen seconds on it, but now he's hared off onto something else..." He at least developed it to the point where you felt it was OK to move on and look forward to its return later in the piece. (Alas, it did not!) You didn't get this sensation of "interruptus" every ten seconds. This was odd for Tchaikovsky, who would usually tie multiple movements together with the same theme.

I wish I could remember exactly which piece I am thinking of that was so singularly ADD this way, but all I can recall is that it was a Russian composer.

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  • 1 month later...

I think the greatest anthem of self-respect out there right now is "Love Song" by Sara Bareilis. Not only is it amazing lyrically, it is also so profoundly different from most modern music melodically as well. If objectivism is to formulate a standard for music, it should start there.

I find much of Sara's music to be quite uplifting and empowered. I think she's a fan of Rand, frankly - far more celebs are than will admit.And while they're not as melodically or compositionally amazing - and I believe they're Christian, though not as a band - the Sick Puppies have some lyrics that fit with objectivism. Breaking Benjamin is a little less consistently so, but "I Will Not Bow" is rhythmically gratifying, decently melodic, and the lyrics are pretty inspirational.There's actually quite a bit of songs out there that I've been seeing as objectivist in notion. I'm a big fan of songs that advocate perseverance over dejection. It's great to write music about celebration and triumph, but it's also important to write music that inspires people to overcome life and it's difficulties.I guess I'm less of a purist in this sense - after all, I grew up with grunge. So I find the few songs that various artists put out that fit the mold and focus on the bands that put out more music of that sort.I've also restarted my forays into classical music and am open to suggestions there. I used to be in band in high school and played some really awesome music. I can't convince my wife to listen to classical, I'm sure, but I enjoy it from time to time.
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Also, and this is a band that grew out of that grunge movement - the post-Nirvana thing - but their newest album is a great departure from the pessimism of their previous albums:

Silverchair's Young Modern. Diorama was their album before Young Modern and starts the move towards this new outlook. The whole of Young Modern is very triumphant and complex. Taken as a whole, it's almost a concept album without the traditional markings of one (eg. all the songs are distinct from one another but tell pieces of a similar story).just my $0.05 (inflation's a b*tch!)

Edited by spectrm312
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far more celebs are than will admit

You know, that's not such a great compliment. To make it clear, observe that Rand advocated reason before egoism (which means a mathematician who loves his work but is a self-proclaimed altruist and socialist is morally superior to an "individualist" barbarian), and the egoism she advocated was rational egoism, not the Nietzschean "egoism." (Although even that doesn't apply to this case: They are ultra-conformist and reputation-driven creatures, which, to some extent, was opposed by Nietzsche.)
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This song always picks me up:

I think music is hard because so much of it is just people whining and wallowing is self pity. Everyone seems to thing that Depression is "Artistic", but to me it's just boring. Lyrics usually ruin songs for me because of the content, I have a hard time ignoring them.

Even though its somewhat sarcastic, this song has such confidence that I can't help but love it:

I'd really love to find some good, up tempo, lyric-less music - like Scott Joplin, but a bit more modern, and with a few more 'voices'.

I hear that. I was seven when I heard, Johnny Cash for the first time. It was his famous 1969 live recording of "Folsom Prison Blues". I flipped. The driving, pounding, powerful rhythm reminded me of a train barreling down the track and having its way with anything that got in the way. Because of that song, I wanted to be a locomotive engineer or a sledgehammer when I grew up!!!!!!!!

But the lyrics... ugh!!!!!!!!

Why do music lyrics always have to be so bloody depressing?

They don't. I pick guitar and I love to play jazz/blues/rock progressions. If I like the progression but don't like the lyrics, I just change them to say what I want.

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  • 2 months later...

Five Finger Death Punch is my current favorite - they are unabashedly pro-achievement and pro-capitalist, and their music just kicks ASS! Their latest album, American Capitalist, is their best yet. The music is fast and hard, and the lyrics are inspirational. They are the most objectivist band since Oingo Boingo.

Four tracks in particular, The Pride, American Capitalist,Menace, and Under and Over it really get my blood pumping.

Edited by CapitalistFred
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