Crappy music you love

[donjuan]

What is some music you know sucks, but you love it anyway?

I say:

Liszt: Scherzo and March
         Capriccio alla Turca (on themes from Beethoven's Ruins of Athens)

randomly I say Hanson too.. 

[cfortunato]

"Build Me Up, Buttercup."

Well, you asked.

[Bob]

Britanny Spears 

No joke.  There is a moment in one song that I like.  Probably the chord progression and voice leading.  Not so much the style, her singing, or the song I think.


(Slurps down a Coke or Pepsi and says "ahh...")

[da jake]

These are pieces that either aren't great pieces of music to begin with, aren't played well by anyone else, or both.

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and Spanish Rhapsody, Certain transcriptions (such as Gounot Waltz De Faust), GGC, Polonaises (Cziffra) Transcendental Etudes 2,5,7,8 (Berman)

Rameau and Couperin  (Cziffra)

Moszkowksi showpieces, weaker Scarlatti Sonatas (Horowitz).

Hummel Rondo op 11. (Friedman)

Ravel, La Valse (Gould)

Chopin - Weaker Mazurkas (Horowitz, Friedman), weaker Waltzes (Lipatti)

[emmdoubleew]

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and Spanish Rhapsody, Certain transcriptions (such as Gounot Waltz De Faust), GGC, Polonaises (Cziffra) Transcendental Etudes 2,5,7,8 (Berman)

Completely disagree, all those are great pieces :-/, except maybe the first polonaise.

[jre58591]

These are pieces that either aren't great pieces of music to begin with, aren't played well by anyone else, or both.

Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and Spanish Rhapsody, Certain transcriptions (such as Gounot Waltz De Faust), GGC, Polonaises (Cziffra) Transcendental Etudes 2,5,7,8 (Berman)

Rameau and Couperin  (Cziffra)

Moszkowksi showpieces, weaker Scarlatti Sonatas (Horowitz).

Hummel Rondo op 11. (Friedman)

Ravel, La Valse (Gould)

Chopin - Weaker Mazurkas (Horowitz, Friedman), weaker Waltzes (Lipatti)

this music is NOT crap. how dare you categorize it as crap.
the hummel rondo and the ravel la valse are genius pieces.
TAKE IT ALL BACK NOW

[Mozartian]

Chopin - Weaker Mazurkas (Horowitz, Friedman)

.......................................................

take it back.

NOW.

[Tash]

i'm gonna have to say philip glass. i really don't think his music is that great but the repetition is randomly appealing sometimes when i don't feel like thinking.

if we're going to go into the realms of pop, i'm all for the spice girls, and aqua, provided i can make up actions to the chorus. now that's crappy music!!

but really, i find listening to pop in public places just plain embarrassing. like borrowing chick flicks from the video store. it's crappy and everyone knows it.

i wouldn't necessarily say that da jake's choice is crappy, maybe not the greatest, but definately not crappy. like i'm not a huge fan of the hungarian rhapsodies, they don't develop, but i wouldn't say they're crappy....

[da jake]

Hey guys, all the stuff I mentioned I LOVE when performed by certain people...but you'll never convince me they are great pieces of music.
GGC is utter trash - as are all the rhapsodies. That isn't to say I don't love hearing Cziffra play them every once and a while.

I love Lipatti's performance of D-Flat Major Waltz, but  a Waltz like that or A flat Major simply pale compared to Chopin's better Waltzes i.e., C-sharp Minor (64-2), and E Minor Posth.

[alejo_90]

Hey guys, all the stuff I mentioned I LOVE when performed by certain people...but you'll never convince me they are great pieces of music.
GGC is utter trash - as are all the rhapsodies. That isn't to say I don't love hearing Cziffra play them every once and a while.

I love Lipatti's performance of D-Flat Major Waltz, but  a Waltz like that or A flat Major simply pale compared to Chopin's better Waltzes i.e., C-sharp Minor (64-2), and E Minor Posth.

da jake, I think it's the second time you start judging Composers/works/performers according to your personal tastes. Please stop.

P.S What if I thought Lupatti's performance of the waltzes is rubbish, and is for people who can't discern between good music and crap?

Best
Alex

[da jake]

If you do not like my answers then cease asking scary questions. 

[alejo_90]

If you do not like my answers then cease asking scary questions. 

I'll stop asking scary questions if you cease posting annoying answers. 

Best
Alex

[steveie986]

This is actually an interesting question, IMO.

I absolutely adore Rhapsody in Blue, but objectively speaking it's a pretty weak piece (due to its very loose structure and lots of "filler" passages). Gershwin wrote it before he really learned how to compose music with structure and form (like his Concerto in F). His Second Rhapsody is less famous, but probably a better piece musically.

[stevie]

this thread is a bit stupid, i believe great music is defined by the ear of the listener, there is no absolute crap music, if someone likes it, it has merit.

now what jake says, he puts forward pieces that he likes, that arent considered profound or great works by most 'serious musicologists'.

this is piss crap and shite.

alot of the music britney spears perform is GREAT pop music, its popular for a reason, great tunes and beats abound.

and the liszt polonaises and TEs are masterpieces, the first polonaise in particular is profoundly moving to me.

calling something crap when you like it is utterly oxymoronical and goes against my opinion on what good music is.

[musik_man]

Wow, People who can theoretically convince themselves that a piece is not as good as it sounds are amazing.  If you did some physics equations to calculate the trajectory of a ball you threw and the actual trajectory differed from the theory, would you say that the real data is wrong?  Your ear is what matters.

[musik_man]

this thread is a bit stupid, i believe great music is defined by the ear of the listener, there is no absolute crap music, if someone likes it, it has merit.

now what jake says, he puts forward pieces that he likes, that arent considered profound or great works by most 'serious musicologists'.

this is piss crap and shite.

alot of the music britney spears perform is GREAT pop music, its popular for a reason, great tunes and beats abound.

and the liszt polonaises and TEs are masterpieces, the first polonaise in particular is profoundly moving to me.

calling something crap when you like it is utterly oxymoronical and goes against my opinion on what good music is.

Britney Spears is terrible pop.  The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkle, and The Who are a few examples of good pop.

[stevie]

no...the songs she sings are written by some of the top pop songwriters of today, including max martin, he is a huge talent. its good music.

[pianoperfmajor]

no...the songs she sings are written by some of the top pop songwriters of today, including max martin, he is a huge talent. its good music.

yeah which just shows that even though her songs are written by the top songwriters of today, her singing and musicianship are enough to butcher the otherwise 'good' songs and make people think they are utterly terrible.

[stevie]

her singing is quite good, with the help of the studio.
point is, no music has sustained popularity without it being good in some way...

[musik_man]

her singing is quite good, with the help of the studio.
point is, no music has sustained popularity without it being good in some way...

Britney Spears has no sustained popularity.  You'd need to wait at least a decade to argue that.

[pianoperfmajor]

her singing is quite good, with the help of the studio.
point is, no music has sustained popularity without it being good in some way...

that depends on one's definition of 'good.'

[jas]

this thread is a bit stupid, i believe great music is defined by the ear of the listener, there is no absolute crap music, if someone likes it, it has merit.

I agree with Stevie, much to my own surprise.

this is piss crap and shite.

Well, ok... it all started to go downhill a bit here.

alot of the music britney spears perform is GREAT pop music, its popular for a reason, great tunes and beats abound.

And here it just totally hit the deck. But hey, I agree with the sentiment!

Jas

[donjuan]

this thread is a bit stupid, i believe great music is defined by the ear of the listener, there is no absolute crap music, if someone likes it, it has merit.

that's true; I even remember posting something in the past, critcizing all the snobs who were all about 'oh, that's terrible music -not worth listening to' to which I replyed something like 'if anyone likes it, then it's good music; stop being such a pretentious snob'

...but then I realized how much I love listening to bad music.  For example, a number of pieces from Lloyd Webber's 'Phantom of the Opera' musical -very repetitive, the motifs are kind of annoyingly catchy, yet not very good, and all the pieces follow a cookie-cutter pattern-  I am aware of these things -they bother me- but I must have seen the film version like 8 times.  Now why is that?? the music is really not very good, it is nauseatingly corny at times, but I love it!

[da jake]

now what jake says, he puts forward pieces that he likes, that arent considered profound or great works by most 'serious musicologists'.

Exhibit A: Scarlatti Sonata in E K, 380 - Performed by Horowitz in Moscow

https://beta.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=1AF7EFD753E34EEA

A stupid a little piece performed miraculously. Only Horowitz. 

If I heard the same piece performed by 9/10 other pianists in concert I'd walk out of the concert hall.

I find the same thing is true of Chopin's worse Mazurkas performed by anyone but Ignaz and Vlad, worse Waltzes performed by anyone but Lipatti, and a whole whack of Liszt performed by anyone but Cziffra. It is to the pianists' credit for making these pieces interesting.

You can't say all music is great. You can't say all music you enjoy is great. It's unfair to the composer, and unfair to yourself.

[emmdoubleew]

100% with stevie on this one.

Da Jake you are in no place to judge what "bad pieces" are. Everyone who has posted here has been saying they love them, and I agree that you have as much right to your opinion as they do to theirs, but "these pieces are horrible" is not an opinion but biased insult and banter disguised as an objective statement.

I think this entire thread is completely ironic: bad music you love?
If you love it, then it's good in your eyes :/, no one on this earth has the power to objectively say: "The Hungarian Rhapsodies are aweful music," because we're all unique and share different opinions.

[da jake]

OH btw. The Dante Sonata is terrible too. 

[lilypiano]

I agree with you, Stevie.

[jre58591]

OH btw. The Dante Sonata is terrible too. 

YOURE terrible

[Tash]

so can i ask, what is so good about the beatles? cos seriously, them, and elvis presley, i've never found them that appealing (though abba rocks my socks!)

[alejo_90]

Da Jake you are in no place to judge what "bad pieces" are. Everyone who has posted here has been saying they love them, and I agree that you have as much right to your opinion as they do to theirs, but "these pieces are horrible" is not an opinion but biased insult and banter disguised as an objective statement.

Jake, that's what I've been trying to tell you, could you please understand and stop doing it ?

Best
Alex

[pies]

Ligeti. No, I don't think his music is crap; my friends, on the other hand, wholeheartedly disagree.

[mig]

Exhibit A: Scarlatti Sonata in E K, 380 - Performed by Horowitz in Moscow

https://beta.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=1AF7EFD753E34EEA

A stupid a little piece performed miraculously. Only Horowitz.  Wink

That sonata is completely awesome. Pure genius. Anyone calling it a "Stupid little piece" has, imo, no understanding of what music is all about. And what's next? You're going to say Mozart is shallow and stupid?

[da jake]

Compared to Scarlatti sonata B minor L 449, the one I posted is lacking a bit in both substance and inspiration departments. Calling that sonata genius is cruel to Scarlatti. It demonstrates that you don't show proper appreciation for his better compositions. I think Horowitz's performance of that sonata is "pure genius".

Mozart was a great composer for sure. Since this is a piano forum, I see no problem in judging his scruples as a piano composer. He wrote some great concerti. But the value fo the solo works is easily determined by comparing Mozart's solo keyboard output to Bach. The better Partitas alone (1,2,4,6) establish Bach as the greater contributor to keyboard music than Mozart. Sonata 8 in A Minor is great, but can anything else stand up to such quality works as Goldberg Variations, Art of Fugue, Musical Offering, English & French Suites, Toccatas, Inventions, Well Tempered Clavier?

No.

[steveie986]

Compared to Scarlatti sonata B minor L 449, the one I posted is lacking a bit in both substance and inspiration departments. Calling that sonata genius is cruel to Scarlatti. It demonstrates that you don't show proper appreciation for his better compositions. I think Horowitz's performance of that sonata is "pure genius".

Mozart was a great composer for sure. Since this is a piano forum, I see no problem in judging his scruples as a piano composer. He wrote some great concerti. But the value fo the solo works is easily determined by comparing Mozart's solo keyboard output to Bach. The better Partitas alone (1,2,4,6) establish Bach as the greater contributor to keyboard music than Mozart. Sonata 8 in A Minor is great, but can anything else stand up to such quality works as Goldberg Variations, Art of Fugue, Musical Offering, English & French Suites, Toccatas, Inventions, Well Tempered Clavier?

No.

I must agree. Mr. Jake is also backed up in this particular opinion by the unassailable genius of a certain Mister Glenn Gould.

[da jake]

Musicians judge music they are exposed to all the time. Why shouldn't I?

[jre58591]

Ligeti. No, I don't think his music is crap; my friends, on the other hand, wholeheartedly disagree.

ligeti is a god of our generation. your friends are naïve idiots.

[emmdoubleew]

Musicians judge music they are exposed to all the time. Why shouldn't I?

For the same reasons Cziffra can pull off a random glissando in a Mozart concerto and you can't.

[bennom]

Musicians judge music they are exposed to all the time. Why shouldn't I?

I think you're absolutely right, da jake! It's good to have opinions. Just make sure you change them a bit every here and then, otherwise you will become an idiot.

The problem is that you're not very convincing in your arguments.

OH btw. The Dante Sonata is terrible too.

Define "terrible" music.
 

A stupid a little piece performed miraculously.

What's a "stupid" piece of music?

And so on... what defines a "weaker mazurka" and what makes a hungarian rhapsody "utter trash"? Are there, in your opinion, hungarian rhapsodies that are good? Or are you just dismissing the virtuoso gipsy style in all?

Just curious.

[rob47]

I find the subwoofah's diss of the hungarian rhapsodies a bit unlegendary. The hungarians gave Liszt a sword for those gypsy beats