One of many examples:

I seriously believe that Bartok's string quartets (especially no. 5) are more creative, more complex, more interesting than anything produced by a rock musician...Sgt. Pepper's, Pet Sounds, Tommy, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Disco Inferno...despite the big studio productions.

No rock song makes me feel the same. There's a lot missing in rock music.

The fact that Bartok took a well worn, non-electronic medium and made music that interesting speaks for itself.

You are completely ignorant of music in general and you have decided to rationalize your limited exposure to the world. You can rationalize anything.

It's pointless to argue back and forth about this.

60s rock is not the greatest thing since sliced bread. If you'd like to delude yourself like the majority of the world, then go ahead.

It's called Kontakte.

KS didn't strum a guitar over it after dropping a vial of acid, so it might be a little too much for you.


You need to work on your social skills a little more. To be honest, if I never heard another rock tune from the 60s & 70s again, I would do just fine. There are plenty of people my age who feel the same. Those two decades are an insignificant drop in the bucket. Only important to those who lived through it or aren't intelligent enough to find anything better.

wow this is a harsh thread. and i thought i was crashing and burning when i got into it about chiva getting a temp ban a while back....

the clincher is lyrics? yee god man...

basically what i'm seeing here is syd trying to showcase song as music... sex as love. it's just not going to fly. you can't have song without music but you sure as shit can have music without song and rock & roll is based almost entirely around song. you seem to be hung up on songs that have affected you directly, which is fine but it doesn't necessarily make it high art for the rest of us. i've NEVER heard another piece of music that touched me the way 'jungle man' by the red hot chili peppers did that first time, but i'm not delusional enough to say that their F# / E funk ditty about being a jungle man and getting all the bush they can is high art simply because it touched me. i wouldn't even consider putting jungle man near the same level as eric dolphy's 'you don't know what love is' simply because it touched me.

the idea that lyrics are the determining factor is solely dependent upon the listener. lyrics are generally the LAST thing i notice in music. the bass and the drums are what grab me initially and the unheard rhythm within their relationship is what moves me. if i'm in a guitar phase then that's what i noticed first, lyrics until very recently have always been final fiddle.

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No, rock isn't better, I just feel rock (or modern music) offers more possiblilities... It is a simple fact, modern studio craft offers up more sound creation possibilities than anything that came before... All music since say 1955 has benefited from this... I am not saying that previous masterpieces of music in any style are inferior... I am just saying that modern music has had the benefit of a wider landscape in which to work from... And my biggest point is the title of this thread, that rock can be as good as classical (or any style) of music...

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Now you have finally made an opinion that is yours with an exact example... We are getting somewhere...

Many may agree with you about the Bartok string quartets...

I do have an interesting question... Do you ONLY consider music that is challenging or music that is complex hight art?

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I guess a statement like this is just once again some personal psychological hang-up you have with something in your past... You have no clue what my background in music is... Or my exposure to the world... Oh, I could give you a list of published acomplishments and productions I have in music, or lands I have traveled... But that serves no purpose... I am actually sad for you that you take such personal offense to my very rational analysis of what makes good rock art...

To be honest (I could be wrong) but I think you probably have been exposed to a wide variety of classical music and it has moved you (which is great). The result seems you feel you now actually have better taste in music than others... I have yet to read anything of substance that you have written about jazz, folk, gospel or other important musical forms... I don't deny classical music's greatness, why do you have such a hard time denying the greatness of rock music?

See, I have been down your path... I once thought that my exposure to classical music and my resulting enjoyment of it led me to be on some higher plane in terms of music appreciation... That was over 20 years ago and I have since realized that for me classicial was too limited... I didn't really start exploring jazz until the late 1980's and since then I have found the same thing I did in classical and original blues music... I prefer the melting pot of modern music where you can take elements from all previous original organic music and work from there... That doesn't mean I prefer all rock to everything in jazz or classical... By far the traditional classical music I have been exposed to is great for what it is (organic music using a relatively small variety of instruments)... I agree with you that the vast majority of modern musicians (especially those in rock) have dropped the ball... But, rock musicians have been far more open to the exploration of exotic instruments... Rock musicians tinker with alternate sounds, etc.... The traditional classical music of the great composers just didn't have the tools available to them what modern musicians do (this includes the exposure to exotic instruments), and the modern classical composers haven't seemed to be able to reach the heights of the past masters...

The melting pot of rock offers for me everything I could ever want in music. Although I am still waiting for the next big thing in music... Not sure when that will come...

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Did I ever say that??? No, what I said was the best in rock music can be masterpiece level art... And it just happened that rock musiciancs had a door opened to them in the mid 60's to explore a wider variety of sounds than at any time previously on Earth (due to technology advances, this includes the economics of creating and distributing music as well)...

You just seemd to be so hung up on a generational thing... I am guesing you are under 35... Like I said before 60's music wasn't even my era... I found it a decade after it came out and if you were more experienced in music you would realize how important that is to this debate because radio in the 1970's (mainstream) did not play much 60's classic rock outside of a few select large stations in large cities (heck, there wasn't even a term classic rock then)... There was no MTV and exposure to music for me and my generation was often by word of mouth... None of my friends had a clue about Hendrix... But I had heard my older brother play Axis Bold as Love once and I went exploring (I had accumulated 1,200 albums by the time I was 17... Most $1 used albums)... And every Sunday in my house when I was a kid we would listen to classical music all afternoon... It is quite a wonderful memory and a tradition I should start in my family...

This website has been a real eye opener to me over the last few years as it has shown me how taste in music is often shaped by society as opposed to the quality of music... I always thought if I found someone who dug basic rock they would dig all (or most) conventional rock from the 50's and on... How can someone who says they like rock say they hate Jailhouse Rock or Satisfaction, or Submission, or Smells Like Teen Spirit... All those songs contain the gritty pure essence of what rock is, and yet every week around here you will see people writing about how they love rock but hate certain songs based on things that have nothing to do with the actual music... It's all about exposure I guess and we all have a finite amount of time that limits this exposure... I have been lucky in that for all but 7 years of the last 30 I have been able to listen to at least 6-8 hours of music every day (if I so wished)...

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I'm glad I read this after my previous posts, it confirms my theory as to why you are so defensive... I can only hope a day will come where you can put the wall down and not care about image or "cool factor" and other petty peer pressures... When you do you will free yourself to enjoy the most trite ditty ever recorded as well as anything by Bartok... It will be a great relief, trust me...

I also wish you and I could time travel a few hundred years out so you would understand the importance of the 1965-1973ish period of rock and its lasting impact on music (at least in terms of influence, I won't say people will be listening to it in mass numbers, but it will be considered important in the history of music)...

My own personal example of your situation comes in the form of one Frank Sinatra... My parents loved Sinatra... As a kid and a teen I thought Sinatra was a joke... Oh sure I recognized that he was a popular entertainer and that many of my moms friends in their teens "swooned" for him... To me he was just an old fart... Well, in my early 20's I heard You Make Me Feel So Young and it really caught my ear... I realized that there was more to Sinatra than what I had thought and I dove into his music... What I found was magical. He really was an amazing vocal talent... Different than the rock singers I had known, his style was just so authoritative and yet welcoming and hip... I realized how immature I had been... I also realized it was a generational thing... It's the same reason people 25 years old today distance themselves from music of their parents... It's just so stupid but I guess we all go through it... I hope some of you around here can break that mold and invite all music into your heart...

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Interesting... I actually think of the collection of songs I like as one giant piece of music... I have 300 mix tapes in which I took way too much time in properly mixing them to create a variety of moods in music... Some tapes mix different genre because the songs fit well together... I have King Crimson following Miles on one tape, and on another I have Coleman Hawkins segued with Traffic... So I guess I disagree with you if I understood what you were trying to say...

And Panbient, if Jungle Man moved you more than virtually any other piece of music that is great... Who cares when it happens... Believe me things that moved you at 15 or 20 or 35 will move you later in life as well... Some may be nostalgic, but who cares, it may always put a smile in your face or a tear in your eye...

And if you read my whole point about lyrics I agreed with you that they are very often secondary for me, but at times they can take a piece of music and put it on even a higher level... It doesn't mean there aren't great instrumental pieces... The only classical music I love is instrumental (opera does nothing for me) and a good chunk of my jazz favorites have no vocals or lyrics... It is just that lyrics (and/or vocals) once again give modern music another tool to work with...

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Look fellas (or gals), I can't change your mindset in a matter of days... As humans we get pretty stuck in how we approach things (I am not different, I still have a hard time accepting many things in life, but I try to keep the door open)... All I ask is that over the nest few years think about this thread... You may come back to me down the road and see exactly where I am coming from...

Panbient, perhaps you could relay an experience you and I had many moons ago in a thread about the musical worth of The Monkees... You admited then you had rigid ideas of what they were all about (for the most part those who were not exposed to the Monkees full catalog didn't realize they had made some pretty good music)... I suggested The Porpoise Song to you, and while I don't think it was earth shattering for you, I do remember you having an eye (or should I say ear) opening experience... Right?

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