Man I didn't even see your response to that! I was wondering where it all went...cron wrote:I was responding to the post directly above mine, which claimed the Crazy Bus theme to be "objectively bad". Ironically, the Crazy Bus theme is a literally perfect piece of music from the objective viewpoint because it flawlessly served its function as a quick and dirty test of the author's sound driver. It is subjectively bad because the listener has no way of knowing this, and listens to it believing that it represents something grander than it was ever supposed to be.cron wrote:You straight-up cannot have "objectively bad" anything because "bad" is itself a strictly subjective term. This isn't complicated stuff. Let's pretend for a moment that it isn't and argue from here on in using exclusively objective terms and language, or failing that, simply show me the data. Good luck.
All I'm really getting from this thread is the sense that most people don't know what the terms subjective and objective actually mean. Even if every single creature, in every infinite multiverse, thought something was bad, it still wouldn't sum up to an objective fact. If something requires a subject to appraise it, you're not in objective territory.
Subjective is not an antonym of universal.
I agree entirely that when we have a predefined framework against which to measure something (e.g. the conventions of symphonic form, the expected function of an umbrella) then the subject is taken away because we have an objective, inflexible framework to compare against. I was thinking less about whether the umbrella broke after one use, and more about whether or not I like the pattern on it.
So I'm just gonna say there's definitely some metric for whether production music is good or bad. Art music? everything is shades of f*ckin gray. Production music? It either works or it doesn't.
On the production angle, Crazy Bus' soundtrack is objectively bad music because it doesn't work with the end product. Whatever the intent was, whatever the producer was doing with it initially, the end result is that it sucked at being decent soundtrack for the game. That's bad music. If you want to get all technical, because we always need more technicalities for shit like this, it's bad production music. F*ck me, why not? But I just don't see it that way. For me it's either built for purpose and succeeds or fails at it; the music is either good or bad for the product or situation.
Now if you want to take it from another angle, like yourself listening to it for the first time without that context or any expectation for it to fulfill, there's really no solid way to judge it. I mean at this point, it's being looked at like post-modern art shit, so who cares? I guess that comes with the territory that says everything is great because nothing is, and effort is meaningless and all that shiggy. I don't live there so I can't subscribe.
