What's the difference between Art and Entertainment?

Exactly! The GGC is Liszt doing entertainment.

Case closed. It’s in the purpose. :wink:

Randomly… I don’t think entertainment should be looked down on here by comparison. Writing a Beatles song is hard, and requires lots of talent. I do think a lot more brainpower has gone in to great works we’d classify as art however.

Well I’ll step in here and defend GGC as a work of art :whale:

It’s a brief piece, it’s not expressing anything profound or life changingly painful.

But in the hands of Cziffra, it has an artistic impact on me.

It’s not just about technical show but also an exhilarating joyous romp. I find it moving.
Moving, not to tears, but to a sense of raucous bliss, it brings a massive smile to my face.

I’m not so quick to call that trivial, it’s a different experience to Mozart’s requiem for sure!
but it hits home with a feeling that’s powerful in it’s own way.

I hesitate to just call that experience throwaway entertainment actually. And to restrict ‘art’ to only expressing deep complicated feelings would be to diminish what it can be.

Are you calling the catalog of Beatles songs Entertainment, not Art?

Yeah that’s my point! It is art, but no more than Madonna’s Like a Virgin.

We aren’t here to judge whether something is good or bad art, just whether it is art.

Like a Virgin expresses something totally different of course :whale:

People often use the word art to elevate and entertainment to denigrate but really it’s not a matter of quality at all. Just expressive sincerity, in my book.

Hmm I think one definition of artistic merit is the level at which within the creative process clichéd thinking sets in.
(Generalising ridiculously here and being pretty frivolous in order to get the point across, but) -
Pop: three chord progression
Thalberg: let’s chuck in some arpeggios.

Lol, I think (with the exception of a few select songs) the Beatles are possibly the most overrated band in history, but whatever :laughing:

What have I been saying in every single one of my posts here? :wink:

The saying goes - you don’t judge a bird by it’s ability to swim, and you don’t judge a fish by it’s ability to fly.

So judging a pop song by it’s chord progression is very analogous to that.

Pop listeners don’t listen for sophisticated harmony, they listen primarily for rhythm and vocal hooks.

A propos of nothing in particular I would really like to know whether the story about Paul Simon writing “You can call me Al” as a response to Boulez refusing to remember his name at a party due to holding him in artistic contempt is an urban myth or not :smiling_imp:

But why on earth can’t writers do both hooks and decent harmony! It’s not that difficult!

The mention of brainpower just seemed to be a criticism of pop songs.

I don’t think complex art automatically = great art.

A composer can labour over Opus Clavicembalisticum for ages, might be art , might be shit.

A songwriter can write a pop song in 10 minutes and it can be great art. I’d equally defend that.

Certainly isn’t. Sometime it’s just pretentious garbage.

Yes and a pop song can be modest greatness :grinning:

Sure. I happen to think Queensryche’s Operation Mindcrime album is a minor work of art.

When you say decent harmony, I can even relate this to my experience trying to listen to more Mozart after a lot of Scriabin.

Mozart sounded boring as fuck harmonically, then I realized that it works completely on it’s own terms and the measure of it’s greatness is in striving to do and achieve something totally different but equally fascinating and wonderful in music.

So extrapolate that a bit and you can see why I do defend works in pop music.

I don’t defend all pop - 99.9% is throwaway trash.

But listen to the songs that still get played over a decade after their release…there’s something to that. They’ve stuck around and express something individual enough to earn their place.

But Scriabin didn’t write 5 part invertible counterpoint. :wink:

Ahh I remember buying that album when I was 15 just after getting into Dream Theater :grinning:

By pop music standards it’s not that modest, quite complex.

Not the proggiest of prog, but still not standard fare.

I could never deal with Labrie’s lack of fury. :sunglasses: