The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
The cheapening of great art
Sam
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I got to thinking of Ode to Joy- as long as I've lived, I think I've only heard it played in a humorous or ironic context. It's almost like the pinnacle of ad music, but I'll be damned, someone actually wrote that, and it's a pretty amazing composition.
It made me wonder what our "media society" (buzzword, i know) is doing to other such classics that have generally been considered great or popular enough to stay in the collective conciousness for centuries. For example, In The Hall of the Mountain King is seemingly forever going to be associated with children's movies or slapstick comedy at this point.
It made me wonder what our "media society" (buzzword, i know) is doing to other such classics that have generally been considered great or popular enough to stay in the collective conciousness for centuries. For example, In The Hall of the Mountain King is seemingly forever going to be associated with children's movies or slapstick comedy at this point.
Sam on
0
Posts
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
The fact that I've mainly heard those pieces in ads and stupid movies suggests that's how most people of mine and subsequent generations are going to be exposed to it, as opposed to how we'd be exposed to music that is less ubiquitously exploited.
I actually agree with you. Its a crying shame. And nothing annoys me more that seeing works of art relegated to the ranks of the latest distraction... Or even worse, sampled or covered so that someone young and pretty can take the credit.
I'm kidding and I agree that it can be crass to commercialize some art. But I don't think it necessarily diminishes it's value for anyone who really cares about it. The mona lisa is printed on tea towels but it's still the fucking mona lisa! (I do not like the mona lisa.)
I think Ode to Joy is used quite heavily in Die Hard, so when you say 'stupid movies' I would replace that with 'at least one great movie'. Besides, being used in a movie isn't necessarily a cheapening of art: the sequence in 2001 where the Blue Danube is played springs to mind. Or some of Fantasia. Or What's Opera, Doc? Yeah, these are exceptions, but since all great art is an exception is an exception to the norm I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that great uses of great art are going to be the exception too.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
In their time, they were rock stars. Why should we be reverent about it? Because they're old? Should we have a system in place so that you can't use/disrespect music over 100 years old?
The argument is that these scores are artistic masterpieces that transcend time. These aren't just what everyone happened to like at the moment. They are pieces of astounding complexity and beauty that should be remembered and revered because of that. I agree that people should be allowed to do whatever they want to with the music. That isn't the issue though. The problem occurs when average person thinks of Beethoven's 6th as nothing more than classy background music because they don't know why it would be considered anything more.
I wouldn't call Beethoven's 6th (Ode to Joy is B's 9th though) "classy background music" but I sure as hell wouldn't call it a piece of "astounding complexity" or a masterpiece that "transcend time". There is a huge problem with that way of looking at art, putting it on a pedestal like it's a reflection of some greater truth... It's a highly destructive stand point, not at least towards art itself.
That said, editing these things to fit them into a commercial or whatever still drives me up a wall, simply because it always sounds so awful.
I didn't really realize at first what an epic and moving piece that was, and that if you were hearing it for the first time, you would have the same reaction as Christian Bale.
It's just that now any time someone hears that, all they can think of is Looney Toons or Apocalypse Now
It's weird
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
And works of art in their own right.
and damn entertaining
haha I realize that
I have mixed feelings on the subject
I mean on one hand I kind of envy that oh shit moment you get when you hear it for the first time, on the other hand I'm kind of thankful we have a culture where you can actually get desensitized to fine art
trouble is classical music is largely public domain so every shitty movie ever uses Beetoveens 5th.
So the makers of comedy will switch to something else, and the piece will regain its emotional component until it can be used again.
It's cyclical.
Sort of in the same way that the first couple Matrix parodies was fun, and every other parody of the Matrix wasn't.
BEEF: It's what's for dinner.
Also, this very thing is happening to Led Zeppelin right now.
Last time I actually sat and absorbed Ode to Joy for what it truly is, devoid of its bajillion contrived commercial contexts, I felt what you feel.
On the other hand, so what? Valkyries isn't any less beautiful because you happen to hear it in a movie. It's just as magnificent if it was written 30 years ago as opposed to centuries ago. The work itself persists, regardless of who gets credited with its composition. If the goal is to get people to appreciate art qua art, then furthering its dissemination via use in pop culture is a positive thing.
What I hate, though, is the bastardization of classical music as a background riff for shitty pop music. Canon in D is awesome as used in a wedding scene in some movie. Hearing it beneath the warbling of the pop-twinkie-of-the-moment makes me want to choke a bitch.
I mean what the hell led zepplin, what the hell, sean kingston and p diddy?
like all of daft punk's songs are samples
To be fair at least like 50% of Daft Punk's sound (at least in their best work) comes from sampling other people's music. I love them and all but it's pretty silly to say "HOW DARE THEY SAMPLE DAFT PUNK" when it's probably a sample of DP sampling someone else.
*edit* CURSE YOU VLAD
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light
it's less the sampling and more "Why the fuck am I forced to hear this shit instead of Daft Punk??!!"
I don't really believe in the silly high art/low art duality. There's good stuff on different merits in both categories. What I don't like is when people use someone else's art and violate the original intention. Devo's "Beautiful World" in that Target commercial, for instance. (they cut the commercial right before he says "not me")
Edit: Clockwork Orange is an example of the exception to this rule. There the music is perverted but the director is letting you know that it is being perverted by the character to make a point.
And now that it's been going for the five minutes I've been reading the thread, it's actually pretty cool.
As long as there's sampling there's gonna be good and bad products.
I mean Road to Joy is probably one of my favorite Bright Eyes songs, and the reason I think it's done so well is that even though it is Ode to Joy, if you'd never heard the song before it sounds just like any other Bright Eyes song.
But sir, it's Ludwig Van!
I'm not against the act of using pre recorded music to score a film, I'm against the abuse and consequent cheapening of the material- the art itself may not suffer, but what kind of stewards of culture are people that leave their children associating In The Hall of The Mountain King with any number of shitty goofball film sequences, or Spring from The Four Seasons with sitcoms using it to introduce a stereotypical pompous British character (nevermind that most British people you're likely to meet are in fact not descended from aristocracy or that Vivaldi was Italian.