The official “speedracer is a fucking idiot” thread

Has rock become less majestic, or lost its majesty altogether? Can rock ever hope to once again ascend to the throne it once occupied?

Any music you don't like or dislke but play anyway? Perhaps because it is compelling on some other level? Or on the other hand not interesting but just a background, or just for the relief of having music on that doesn't demand attention. Or for no reason at all?

Started thinking about this reading the Astrud Gilberto Eastern Airlines music thread. I love Astrud, but I can't say if I like or dislike this music, yet will play smooth bland music like this while working on things that don't allow for distraction.

Another big one , but not in the bland background at all, is late John Coltrane. I honestly have no love for these sounds, nor do I find them repulsive, but am fascinated and engaged by the phenomenon.

Yes, sometimes it can be a challenge or a puzzle, or an engagement with patterns or nothing at all, something else other than pleasure or pain, outside of like/dislike.

...I do the same at times, listen from an analytic standpoint when copping chops or simply trying to figure out what I am hearing

An example from my listening would be the music of Berg. "Lulu" conveys the emotions and actions of the opera, without appealing to esthetic rules the way traditional opera does. I love Maria Callas singing Puccini. By contrast, I find "Lulu" utterly absorbing but "like/dislike" is not part of the equation.

How "liking" and "disliking" are not the only ways to perceive music. Or anything else for that matter. When watching the waves by the seaside, like/dislike becomes almost meaningless, when the mind engages with pure phenomena. Music can be that way too, nature beyond our definition.

I really don't hear this way much with pop or rock, I hav strong like/dislike there, other than towards the more free form, which can become simply engaging sounds. This phenomenological view of music may be more with jazz and classical, experimental, or the utterly foreign.