[atlantaprog] Artistic value...

In order to wake ya'll up a bit, I'm posting a comment I made to the artnews listserv, in response to a discussion thread about artistic value of certain type of art - it has a bit of relevance to some of you guys I suspect!

Quote:

I'm always engaged in this sort of debate about music. You'd be surprised how many otherwise progressive and forward thinking musicians I know don't think twice about bashing rap & hip hop as being somehow unworthy to be called music. Same with techno, industrial, improv, etc.

I always maintain that exposure is the key. If all you know of hip-hop is the bling-bling-booty-pop-a-cap-in-yo-ass video images - as is the case with most of my middle-age white friends - then yeah, you might have a hard time calling hip hop music. But I'm quick to point out that if the only thing someone knew of prog-rock were Wakeman's ice shows and Emerson Lake & Palmer's 30,000 Persian rugs on stage, then you might have a hard time seeing the artistry in THAT genre too (my friends are mostly a bunch of prog-rock geeks!)

But dig a bit deeper in any genre and the artistry emerges. I have yet to encounter ANY type of music that was devoid of artistic relevance. That doesn't mean you have to enjoy listening to it, but to deny it's artistic value is extremely short-sighted.


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