Perfect songs and tracks

[Numanoid]

What songs for you are perfect in every way?

The whole Kraftwerk Man-Machine album, it's difficult to find any thing wrong with it at all, it's like 99,5% perfect

[aMUSEd]

Perfection has no place in talk of music, because perfection is static.

And yet here we are discussing it.

All I mean by "perfect" is songs or tracks that for you have no flaws; where every note and word is spot on. That isn't static though; over time any person's tastes may change, they may find even better songs or even grow tired of them (although I doubt that will happen with my Laura Nyro stuff it's that good), but none of that changes the fact that right now it is possible to play a track and think "that track is spot on in every way". That is all we can discuss on this topic since we can't see into the future and if we have things we used to think were perfect but don't anymore then they no longer are.

[Numanoid]

Perfection has no place in talk of music, because perfection is static.

I dunno, I first got to listen to Man Machine in 1987, and I'm still gobsmacked listening to it now 26 years later, that is static perfection as I see it

[replicant X]

deleted.

[Sendy]

Ok, look, the point I made wasn't ideally expressed. I could have done a better job. Sometimes you just, you know, relax and put your guard down. My mistake. I don't like the concept of perfection in art, even with the caveat that perfection means "near perfection". I can have a perfect or favourite rendition of a particular song, or a favourite example of x or y, but not a favourite/perfect track existing in some contextless void. I've never had a favourite band or favourite song and probably never will. I could list tracks I really like, but which songs I liked the most can change from moment to moment.

I have a knee-jerk reaction to the concept of perfection in art and should have treated this as a "name a song you really really like" thread. I think the quest for perfection, when creating music, is a trap, which is why I discourage it.

[aMUSEd]

Well it was meant as something different from just another "name a song that you really like" thread. If it was that the list would be much longer, but there are lots of songs that I really like but not so many I think are perfect (or as close as if that suits you better)

[jancivil]

I think the quest for perfection in music is just very noble. I find NO FLAWS in Rishab Prasanna's performances. If we're going to push our own ideas out there, I think "I discourage" the quest for perfection sounds too much like someone convincing one's self with a 'good' excuse.

[jancivil]

the word isn't defined for everyone. a negative definition of perfect isn't useful to me.
I think a perfect record like Watermelon in Easter Hey isn't very anal, and the 'idiosyncracies' as a holism sums as perfect. (People throughout the ages have talked about the flaws in a diamond as part of its perfection. Words aren't always that adequate for the ideas.)
And that the phrasing was experimented with for quite some time, and here was the right moment to hit record and get it once and for all.

I have certain idea of the perfect timing or phrasing that I chase, whether or not I'm ever going to catch it. And that could change tomorrow, a little tiny bit. But I would not discourage this behavior in myself.

[PurpleCatfishBettie]

[Sendy]

I think the quest for perfection in music is just very noble. I find NO FLAWS in Rishab Prasanna's performances. If we're going to push our own ideas out there, I think "I discourage" the quest for perfection sounds too much like someone convincing one's self with a 'good' excuse.

*gets comfortable on the chaise longe* No doubt some of my opinions and thoughts contradict themselves on some levels, maybe I even talk crap sometimes (it's an occupational hazard) but I do "discourage" my own thoughts of perfection because they represent some destination, and I'm more into the zen-like no-mind approach to music creation. I'm a bit more pragmatic when it comes to mixing - hearing my old tracks which had some good ideas but were often mixed badly has created an "arrow" that guides my decisions (hopefully, away from bad mixes, at least that's the plan). But when it comes to music creation there is no "arrow" pointing towards some perfect track.

My music creation rituals have formed largely in a bubble, and I make idiosyncratic music, so I think it's expected that my thought process is odd in some ways. I'm in no way trying to discredit other people's notions of perfection in music - if they're useful to others - good! Or maybe this is just some quirk of how I think of the word "perfection".

[ariston]

A zen master might put it this way:

you take care of yourself, the music takes care of itself, and perfection takes care of itself.

I agree, I see striving for perfection as an impediment as well. It takes me out of the moment and into the future, which is like trying to jump over your own shadow.

And that's not my only reason. Perfection is an abstract, man-made concept with no equivalent in nature. Nature doesn't produce things like perfectly-formed square bricks. A perfect world would be static, and nature is always on the move, like an experiment that never stops.

If that is true (I'm not saying it is, it's my pov), then maybe there's something like an imperfect perfection (or a perfect imperfection?). Thelonious Monk's "Ugly Beauty" is the sonic equivalent of this. An ungainly, lumbering melody that's still strangely beautiful precisely because it's so ungainly. Or take Lisa Bolkonskaya out of War and Peace: she has a slight mustache, and it makes her beautiful (I read this twenty years ago and have forgotten nearly everything but this charming little detail).

That's what informs my personal aesthetic in music and art in general. There's a downside, though: it can also be a comfortable way of dodging the responsibility to go and try your best. Seen in that way, a love of imperfection becomes a rationalization for laziness. I don't want that, and I do fall into that trap quite often, especially when it comes to mixing a track or playing a solo again because one note's a little off.

So the dilemma is: how can you strive for perfection without trying to be perfect? There's a koan for you.

[nix808]

from listening to the tracks posted, this is so unquantifiable in an objective sense.
Anyway the mazzy star one made me think of this, which is about the best I could do. Hope it seems exceptional.

These are both from triple j's(OZ non-commercial radio)hottest 100 in 1994

[jancivil]

A zen master might put it this way:

you take care of yourself, the music takes care of itself, and perfection takes care of itself.

I agree, I see striving for perfection as an impediment as well. It takes me out of the moment and into the future, which is like trying to jump over your own shadow.

And that's not my only reason. Perfection is an abstract, man-made concept with no equivalent in nature. Nature doesn't produce things like perfectly-formed square bricks. A perfect world would be static, and nature is always on the move, like an experiment that never stops.

It's a word. Like I said, words are not sufficient. You just went to make a modifier, 'perfect' in 'a perfect square', the <definition of> perfect*. Your "impediment" is tied to a concept I wouldn't tie myself to. You're forcing words to suit you, so you'll take 'striving for perfection' as 'instead of in the moment it's into the future'. You don't HAVE to do that! That's just some words. Why, how is perfection NOT moment-by-moment? *This is cart before the horse stuff.

Why is 'the future vs. the present' an obstacle? Why would I do that, rather than attend to the thing at hand? That {TIME} seems like a matter of chops more than anything else, and in terms of a zen!

[jancivil]

I think the quest for perfection in music is just very noble. I find NO FLAWS in Rishab Prasanna's performances. If we're going to push our own ideas out there, I think "I discourage" the quest for perfection sounds too much like someone convincing one's self with a 'good' excuse.

I do "discourage" my own thoughts of perfection because they represent some destination, and I'm more into the zen-like no-mind approach to music creation. I'm a bit more pragmatic when it comes to mixing - hearing my old tracks which had some good ideas but were often mixed badly has created an "arrow" that guides my decisions (hopefully, away from bad mixes, at least that's the plan). But when it comes to music creation there is no "arrow" pointing towards some perfect track.

Well, one thing here is I come from a live performer background/position. Every time out is going to be different. There is going to be possibly a more-or-less ideal take, though. This is why people in the recording paradigm 'comp' takes, there is maybe a composite that is better than any one take. Being subject to jury or an audition, there is definitely 'more perfect' you have to try for.

Beyond the +/- thing of a fixed composition evolving in interpretation, Rishab Prasanna is going to do some fairly different moves in the next performance as the execution involves improvisation, the response of the drummer is intimate and sensitive, constantly listening and matching an impulse as closely as possible.

So I don't have any use for 'static' or these other things, a circle or a square as a meaning for 'perfection'.
If we like to say it's impossible, what's the use of that? Let's say it's about 'striving for perfection'.

old tracks... I had a number of those, execution too imperfect , mix doubly so, wasted gobs of time 'improving' or 'fixing', and one day I found that quality of attachment suspect if not corrupt. Cut my losses. Deleted the project files. I reckon I had a bit of fear, that I would fail to have ideas as good as those?

How is a mix dichotomous vs the other thing, it's all execution. You could have live mixes for that matter and a dynamic of more perfect the next time, or more failure the next time. The definitions of words seems like the trap or impediment to me and unnecessary.

[jancivil]

I am intensely aware of time in the sequencer and how one could 'correct' the life out of a virtual performance. But there is such a thing as 'too sloppy' I believe, so it's a balance. I find 'quantization of time' (even 'groove quantize', as though you're going to find something eminently repeatable) the most tiresome thing in the world, it isn't perfect musically, it's just dull. 'Perfect' as 'static' or really non-dynamic really is nothing to me.

my own thoughts of perfection represent some destination

you can think of this differently though, if you like. notice 'represent' there.