The Atlantic had an article discussing music that was so bad, it’s good. Like movies, I struggle to thing of a musical example of this. I think it’s hard for me to relate or even conceive of this type of experience. The best I can come up with is that the music is so astonishingly bad that it evokes a strong sense of wonder. But no example comes easily to mind. What about you guys?
I feel like in general, you don’t relate to the concept, whereas I relate to it quite well, especially for movies. The good part has more to do with enjoyment than quality.
For example, a teen sexploitation film doesn’t make for a good film, but it can certainly be enjoyable. Or a funny movie may go for stupid, cheap, easy laughs but still make you laugh.
I frequently say I enjoy live music even when it’s bad. The musicianship may be elementary, the musicians may be worse players than me, and their repertoire might be the same songs all cover bands play. But I enjoy it because of the camaraderie and the expression of whatever it is that puts people together to try and make music. The participation itself, by the band and audience, makes a live performance good.
I’ve seen ninth-graders play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” really, really badly. They were still learning their instruments! They had only rehearsed it a few times. But they got up in front of the school and played their hearts out. Later, a senior came up to me and said, “Kurt Cobain is rolling over in his grave,” and I said, “I understand why you’re saying this, but Kurt was dead before you were born, and I’m telling you he would have loved it!” I’m a big Dave Grohl fan (slightly less now, because of recent non-music-related stuff) and based on everything I’ve heard him say about starting off in music when he was a kid, I’m certain he would have loved it too.
Similarly, I’ve seen bands play in worship service who were awful, but the sincerity of their message and the congregations’ spirit of fellowship or worship made most of that irrelevant.
I haven’t seen the Atlantic article yet, but I’ll seek it out, mostly because I can’t think of much recorded music I’d put in this category. 🙂 Although I suspect many of the bands I put in my guilty pleasures category might satisfy the requirements.
I think we need to distinguish between enjoying something while acknowledging it isn’t good versus enjoying something because it is really bad. I can relate to the former at least to some degree, but not the latter. And I think most of the examples in your post would fall into the former as well. I don’t have any trouble understanding how you find enjoyment and/or appreciation in most of the examples you mentioned.
I will say that I normally don’t enjoy campy movies/films. There are exceptions, though.
I recently gave up my apple music subscription and switched to Qobuz. Right now, I’m regretting that decision. I like taking away money from apple, but Qobuz sucks. Here are some issues I’ve had
Their catalogue seems smaller, at least for the musicians I like. For example, they don’t have any Brothers Cazimero albums.
Their software can be glitchy. For example, I have trouble enlarging the “now playing” bar. With apple music, I can’t remember any software problems.
They don’t post lyrics.
They have LLM to help, and I’ve gotten answers I’ve needed, but when I couldn’t, and requested a human, it took weeks before I got a response. (I’ve been trying to cancel my subscription and a partial refund, but I haven’t heard back.)
I would definitely not recommend Qobuz.
On a side note, do you like knowing the personnel on a recording? If so, you and I are part of an incredibly small minority. Both apple music and qobuz don’t provide this information. (Qobuz does it, but very inconsistently.) That these sites don’t include this information is really frustrating, partly because providing the information seems pretty easy.
For some reason I’ve been into “Tutu” lately, a song composed by bassist, Marcus Miller, and performed by Miles Davis’s groups in the 80s. Initially, this song never really did much for me. I think the tempo was slow and plodding, which doesn’t appeal to me, especially for funky, R&B-ish tunes. But I’ve come to love the slow-burn of this song, and I really like the dramatic opening. This is a nice version on David Sandborn’s Night Music
(It doesn’t seem like other groups have covered this song. I’d like to hear more versions by other musicians.)
The Atlantic had an article discussing music that was so bad, it’s good. Like movies, I struggle to thing of a musical example of this. I think it’s hard for me to relate or even conceive of this type of experience. The best I can come up with is that the music is so astonishingly bad that it evokes a strong sense of wonder. But no example comes easily to mind. What about you guys?
I feel like in general, you don’t relate to the concept, whereas I relate to it quite well, especially for movies. The good part has more to do with enjoyment than quality.
For example, a teen sexploitation film doesn’t make for a good film, but it can certainly be enjoyable. Or a funny movie may go for stupid, cheap, easy laughs but still make you laugh.
I frequently say I enjoy live music even when it’s bad. The musicianship may be elementary, the musicians may be worse players than me, and their repertoire might be the same songs all cover bands play. But I enjoy it because of the camaraderie and the expression of whatever it is that puts people together to try and make music. The participation itself, by the band and audience, makes a live performance good.
I’ve seen ninth-graders play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” really, really badly. They were still learning their instruments! They had only rehearsed it a few times. But they got up in front of the school and played their hearts out. Later, a senior came up to me and said, “Kurt Cobain is rolling over in his grave,” and I said, “I understand why you’re saying this, but Kurt was dead before you were born, and I’m telling you he would have loved it!” I’m a big Dave Grohl fan (slightly less now, because of recent non-music-related stuff) and based on everything I’ve heard him say about starting off in music when he was a kid, I’m certain he would have loved it too.
Similarly, I’ve seen bands play in worship service who were awful, but the sincerity of their message and the congregations’ spirit of fellowship or worship made most of that irrelevant.
I haven’t seen the Atlantic article yet, but I’ll seek it out, mostly because I can’t think of much recorded music I’d put in this category. 🙂 Although I suspect many of the bands I put in my guilty pleasures category might satisfy the requirements.
I think we need to distinguish between enjoying something while acknowledging it isn’t good versus enjoying something because it is really bad. I can relate to the former at least to some degree, but not the latter. And I think most of the examples in your post would fall into the former as well. I don’t have any trouble understanding how you find enjoyment and/or appreciation in most of the examples you mentioned.
I will say that I normally don’t enjoy campy movies/films. There are exceptions, though.
I recently gave up my apple music subscription and switched to Qobuz. Right now, I’m regretting that decision. I like taking away money from apple, but Qobuz sucks. Here are some issues I’ve had
I would definitely not recommend Qobuz.
On a side note, do you like knowing the personnel on a recording? If so, you and I are part of an incredibly small minority. Both apple music and qobuz don’t provide this information. (Qobuz does it, but very inconsistently.) That these sites don’t include this information is really frustrating, partly because providing the information seems pretty easy.
For some reason I’ve been into “Tutu” lately, a song composed by bassist, Marcus Miller, and performed by Miles Davis’s groups in the 80s. Initially, this song never really did much for me. I think the tempo was slow and plodding, which doesn’t appeal to me, especially for funky, R&B-ish tunes. But I’ve come to love the slow-burn of this song, and I really like the dramatic opening. This is a nice version on David Sandborn’s Night Music
(It doesn’t seem like other groups have covered this song. I’d like to hear more versions by other musicians.)