It’s tough to tell who in here is being serious and who’s 'avin a laff. So many anemic counterarguments that’s it’s difficult to know where to start.
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The things you learn here.
It’s unusual to find people strong in both composition and lyrics (hence so many songwriting partnerships I guess), but having classical texts or Goethe to fall back onto must be pretty handy. I have a musician friend (who’s never quite made it) who felt he’d gone a little stale lyrically, so released a CD featuring Blake’s poetry set to his music (sensibly avoiding Jerusalem).
With your background I’m surprised you haven’t joined the throng in a walrus yet.
You’re out by 10 years there so I guess that makes it the latter.
Yup, I love 80s but 90s >>>
85 to 95 is the best music ever made. It’s science. 
I would like to @bestof the whole thread. I thought it would be a dumpster fire, but this is such an unexpectedly intense discussion on art. I’m in heaven.
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I hear you on this one. Def Leppard thinks about this very thing. It’s why they compose the vocal melody as part of the music composition, then cobble together whatever lyrics sound good regardless of whether it’s word salad nonsense. And yet even within that, they’ve often found lyrical genius or at least cleverness, such as in their classic Armageddon It (Are you getting it? Hyuck hyuck).
I was only a second year before leaving music school for psychology (and then dropping out of that too). Nowhere near your expertise and would love more music stories and insight at your leisure.
They can be used well. A film score is another layer on top of that.
“Shut up, Jamie!” the man said angrily. “I know what cookies taste like!!” The man was very mad, and his anger was increasing. “Why can’t I appreciate this experience without you knocking me over the head with your own projections!!” The man was still quite mad and seemed to be getting more mad.
Stop. Stop doing it.
How about this: is watching a film more like reading a book (where there is interaction between artist and reader, a need for active participation, more than one interpretation) or is watching a film more like an orgasm (a sensation that washes over you, a passive experience, one that rejects “interpretations” because there is nothing to interpret, the event happens and its only meaning is a bodily sensation)?
If there is no difference between watching Kubrick’s 2001 and eating a block of cheese, then I guess we should embrace scores and be done with it.
I have for sure done way too much of the former and am only recently pushing myself to explore the latter. So far it has been quite rewarding.
Watching a film is like watching a film
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How does your partner feel about the idea that having orgasms is an entirely passive experience? BURN!!! < cymbal crash >
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Horror movies wouldn’t exist without a musical score. When John Carpenter filmed the first Halloween, he showed it to people with no score and they didn’t care. Then he added his score on top of it and it terrified people.
Candyman wouldn’t be anything without the Philip Glass score.
Can we close the Movies thread then? There isn’t really much to discuss if movies are just pleasure pumps. An interesting consequence of this view, I suppose, is that films can be ranked objectively. The most widely enjoyed film is IN FACT the BEST film.
I’ll endorse this sick burn, but I had in mind the moment of ejaculation. There is nothing to interpret, nothing active, nothing outside the phenomenal experience.
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It depends on the film. For example, Koyaanisqatsi is closer to your orgasm analogy. It’s not meant to be experienced intellectually. Something like Arrival is an intellectual journey much closer to a great novel. Both have amazing scores.
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I don’t think I can get fully on board. There are a ton of things that annoy me in film, and cue-based scoring derp is certainly one of them. For instance, the moment everyone realizes some minor character is the real bad guy about to blow up a Cheesecake Factory:
A lot of scoring is just that dumb trope dressed up a little bit. That said, I can’t imagine not having music and sound as an artistic textural element in film. I’m talking more like an ambient feature that complements and helps define the world. For example, Bladerunner isn’t nearly as significant without its score.
I could really live without the cue-based cornball shit though. The Star Wars hero theme on blast whenever the GOOD GUYS do a GOOD GUY THING is for children’s cartoons. Setting the film against an impression of what a space western is supposed to sound like is perfectly fine with me though.
JUST pleasure pumps?
I don’t understand. Are you claiming that movies are MERELY pleasure pumps, nothing more, and therefore there isn’t really much to discuss?
Or are you saying the mere fact that we can experience them as pleasure pumps IN ADDITION TO many other modes of engagement means there isn’t much to discuss?
In order words, audiences are capable of multiple modes of engagement, but if we are capable of one you don’t like, you would throw out the baby with the bathwater?
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Depends on the type of song. I don’t care about lyrics in Verdi’s Requiem. They’re just another instrument to me
In a cappella, it’s obviously all that matters.