[Discussion] Should music be gender defined and what makes music art?

[NaNaNaaaaa]

So a small discussion broke out in the 1D thread in the music section that lead me to make this thread as it is an interesting topic to me.

Firstly let me quote myself

Music is music, people should not be intimidated into not liking certain kinds because other people think they shouldn't, in a way its a form of sexism. For instance, if a guy happens to like the music one direction sing and lets be honest 99% of all music is love songs, he is considered weird, same if a girl likes heavy metal. Music should not be defined by gender.

Do you think this is true? Do we define music too much based on what we think is gender appropriate? That it is not OK for guys to like music such as boy bands because it is thought of as girls music or that it is not OK for girls to like heavy metal because it is considered music for men.

Also let me quote SasukeTheEmo

Difference is that metal is art whilst 1D is entertainment designed to distract.
There's nothing useful to take out from their music.

He makes an excellent point here but at what point is music considered art? Art is highly subjective so at what point is music a product and an art?

I have heard people say that a band is a product if they don't play instruments or write their own songs but some of the most respected musicians, Elvis, Frank Sinatra and so forth, OK I know that these are the classics but they are still highly respected today, never wrote their own music or songs.

So is there a definition between singer and musician? And if so why is it that we cannot make that definition now?

The Beatles in their day were a boy band, most of their fans were hysterical girls and yet now they are considered male music, what changed?

The floor is open

 

[Complex]

"Who cares what others think". I think that should be installed in everybody head.

 

[TakeoSusumu]

I like to believe that it is okay for guys to listen to boy bands and okay for women to listen to the most obscene type of music. But society might think different. One thing is music from different artists has it's own identity.

[video=vimeo;124659895]https://vimeo.com/124659895[/video]

 

[Punk Hazard]

No, music shouldn't be gender defined at all. Nothing is truly gender defined(excluding obvious biological shit like childbirth), nor should they be.

As for art, art is anything where you express meaning and emotion through a medium. What 1D does is art. Not appreciating art doesn't make it any less art.

 

[Yusuke Urameshi]

I didn't read most of it, just the end. The Beatles were a boy band until they got pissed off and started writing their own stuff. The Beatles' early music was bubblegum pop stuff, but their later stuff, the better stuff, isn't anything like that at all. To say that The Beatles were a boy band is ignorant. And who said or defined them as "male music?" That's a stupid thing to say.

These are my own definitions, but I'm sure they're not far from the legitimate definition.

singer - one who sings (commercially for money)
musician - one who makes or performs music (typically for money)

The difference between music nowadays and music back then is that music now, for the most part, is so reproduced and devoid of any legitimate talent. I'm not quite sure what you're saying by the whole "why is it that we cannot make that definition now," part, though.

 

[Pumpkin Ninja]

Nobody should listen to 1D. End of story.

 

[iBrezeeh]

no it shouldnt be because i also sometime listen to beyonce, rihanna and so

and its just stupid those people just have issues

and yes as already said art is art no matter if you like or dislike it

 

[snake orochimaru]

To each his own.

While I agree that some genres appeal to certain ages, it's also true that one can listen to anything he/she desires, based on their mood.

Regarding music as art: opera and classical music.

 

[ComplexCity]

Lol wut? Guy in your OP seems ignorant


OT: Pretty much. Art is art, and is subjective to each own person. If I paint a banging picture of a the most feminine thing you can't think of, does that make me feminine?

 

[ComplexCity]

To each his own.

While I agree that some genres appeal to certain ages, it's also true that one can listen to anything he/she desires, based on their mood.

Regarding music as art: opera and classical music.

Chill bruh, I still listen to Dora the Explorer

 

[Jazzy Stardust]

No that's extremely silly, don't let that nonsense bother you.

 

[Melanin]

Music is spiritual to me and what is spiritual cannot be bound to anything nor defined by anyone.

 

[Kaneki Kun]

Like you stated Art is highly subjective.
To me personally there is a line drawn between artistic music and a commercial product.
As far as one direction goes I'm a male and I don't mind listening to a couple of their tracks if it's played, would I go out of my time to listen to them? No, is music gender biased? It depends on the topic and the sound of course, females are more likely to listen to One Direction for their music than males because they can relate to it, enjoy, and just overall enjoy it better than let's say the beatles. Males can also enjoy it and nothing's wrong with that but there is a gender bias.

I feel music is an art when it takes a different deep approach, captivates you in the environment it creates with it's sounds, spreads a positive/negative realistic message.



I listen to Drake and The Weeknd more than most females out there and I'm not ashamed about it or looked down upon, doesn't make me any less of a "man".
I like to listen to the Beatles and Led Zeppelin even though the area I live in (younger crowd) heavily favors Rap/Hip-Hop.
Some of them ask me "what the **** am I listening too just because they don't like it and immediately call it trash when it's very far from it.

I have no idea where I went with this lmao.

 

[NaNaNaaaaa]

I didn't read most of it, just the end. The Beatles were a boy band until they got pissed off and started writing their own stuff. The Beatles' early music was bubblegum pop stuff, but their later stuff, the better stuff, isn't anything like that at all. To say that The Beatles were a boy band is ignorant. And who said or defined them as "male music?" That's a stupid thing to say.

These are my own definitions, but I'm sure they're not far from the legitimate definition.

singer - one who sings (commercially for money)
musician - one who makes or performs music (typically for money)

The difference between music nowadays and music back then is that music now, for the most part, is so reproduced and devoid of any legitimate talent. I'm not quite sure what you're saying by the whole "why is it that we cannot make that definition now," part, though.

Any band made up of several men is technically a boy band but I made the definition because the Beatles main fan base was hysterical girls. I defined it as male music because the Beatles current fan base is predominantly male.

Elvis Presley, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones and many, many classic singers never wrote their own music and yet they sung some of the most famous, popular and acclaimed music of their day and they did it through a love of music not just for money.

My point is that nowadays when someone sings music they have not written themselves, they are wrote off as commercial, why when these older singers are shown so much respect and where no different.

 

[SasukeTheEmo]

Extract from this interview:

You must be registered for see links

Could you expand on those ideas which DMU aims to spread? Why do you, as DMU, not consider metal a form of entertainment? Do the roots of heavy metal make it special – or different – from other genres?

“Entertainment” is such a condescending word. You entertain a small child, or a Weimaraner, or maybe a room full of senile elderly. Entertainment essentially means distraction, or some nonsense show that keeps people clapping their hands and singing songs for long enough that their caretakers can take a break. To my mind, pop music and radio music are quintessential entertainment. You take nothing from those songs because they’re designed to be non-useful. They’re not there to enhance your time; they’re there to distract you from what you’re going through. Sometimes that’s great, having Whitney Houston singing in the background to think about while you’re at the dentist; you wouldn’t want Wagner or Beherit for that.

But when you sit down to listen to something, you want an experience that changes you. Something that you can take away from the experience and enjoy, like you would after reading a good book. It’s not necessarily factual information, although that may be a component of it, but really good art — like literature, a poem, a movie, or a painting — changes you because it forces you to look at the process of getting from one state of mind to another. In contrast, advertising and entertainment deal in end results. Buy this product, you’ll have a bigger schlong. Listen to this song, you’ll get laid. Art is… art forces you to see the void and find something meaningful in it. By the void, I mean uncertainty in life; we can’t even be sure of what life is, much less what it isn’t, so for all we know it’s a computer construct, the playground of a thoughtful God, a tiny slice of all that exists, or a free-for-all where demonic forces battle for supremacy. Thus to look into the void is to look into that uncertainty, to face nihilism and the realization of potential nothingness, and yet to find out who we are. What we value. All good art takes you from point A to point B and along the way you learn something, and it subtly shapes how you view the world and gives you the energy of having new thoughts to play with.

Metal does not entertain. It is by definition “heavy,” or in the hippie lexicon of the time of its birth having weighty subject matter, and thus it is the opposite of entertainment. Entertainment is Shakira, the early years of the Beatles, Jay-Z, television and Adam Sandler movies. When Black Sabbath formed, the idea was to make music that sounded like horror movies. These attract a different audience and hide their more serious subject matter under a gloss of pulp fiction and amateur filmmaking. But it’s a disguise, whether intentional or not, for the more intense stuff that waits within. Heavy metal is a confrontation with mortality and thus, a question about what life means and how it should be lived, which leads to an intense morality that’s more developed than “do what other people find inoffensive and sell them stuff.” It’s closer to philosophy or religion than the song and dance of entertainment. When Black Sabbath started out, they were reactionary contrarians. Everyone else was celebrating flower power, peace and love and the new order of the Age of Aquarius. Why are you harshin’ on my buzz, man? Bringing me down with all those songs about war, Satan, death and evil? Metal is not here to enhance your buzz. It’s here to enhance your sense of meaning to life. That brings it into the realm of art, not entertainment.

 

[snake orochimaru]

Chill bruh, I still listen to Dora the Explorer

Why are you telling me to chill? I'm not angry or anything...

 

[Kaneki Kun]

Extract from this interview:

You must be registered for see links

Could you expand on those ideas which DMU aims to spread? Why do you, as DMU, not consider metal a form of entertainment? Do the roots of heavy metal make it special – or different – from other genres?

“Entertainment” is such a condescending word. You entertain a small child, or a Weimaraner, or maybe a room full of senile elderly. Entertainment essentially means distraction, or some nonsense show that keeps people clapping their hands and singing songs for long enough that their caretakers can take a break. To my mind, pop music and radio music are quintessential entertainment. You take nothing from those songs because they’re designed to be non-useful. They’re not there to enhance your time; they’re there to distract you from what you’re going through. Sometimes that’s great, having Whitney Houston singing in the background to think about while you’re at the dentist; you wouldn’t want Wagner or Beherit for that.

But when you sit down to listen to something, you want an experience that changes you. Something that you can take away from the experience and enjoy, like you would after reading a good book. It’s not necessarily factual information, although that may be a component of it, but really good art — like literature, a poem, a movie, or a painting — changes you because it forces you to look at the process of getting from one state of mind to another. In contrast, advertising and entertainment deal in end results. Buy this product, you’ll have a bigger schlong. Listen to this song, you’ll get laid. Art is… art forces you to see the void and find something meaningful in it. By the void, I mean uncertainty in life; we can’t even be sure of what life is, much less what it isn’t, so for all we know it’s a computer construct, the playground of a thoughtful God, a tiny slice of all that exists, or a free-for-all where demonic forces battle for supremacy. Thus to look into the void is to look into that uncertainty, to face nihilism and the realization of potential nothingness, and yet to find out who we are. What we value. All good art takes you from point A to point B and along the way you learn something, and it subtly shapes how you view the world and gives you the energy of having new thoughts to play with.

Metal does not entertain. It is by definition “heavy,” or in the hippie lexicon of the time of its birth having weighty subject matter, and thus it is the opposite of entertainment. Entertainment is Shakira, the early years of the Beatles, Jay-Z, television and Adam Sandler movies. When Black Sabbath formed, the idea was to make music that sounded like horror movies. These attract a different audience and hide their more serious subject matter under a gloss of pulp fiction and amateur filmmaking. But it’s a disguise, whether intentional or not, for the more intense stuff that waits within. Heavy metal is a confrontation with mortality and thus, a question about what life means and how it should be lived, which leads to an intense morality that’s more developed than “do what other people find inoffensive and sell them stuff.” It’s closer to philosophy or religion than the song and dance of entertainment. When Black Sabbath started out, they were reactionary contrarians. Everyone else was celebrating flower power, peace and love and the new order of the Age of Aquarius. Why are you harshin’ on my buzz, man? Bringing me down with all those songs about war, Satan, death and evil? Metal is not here to enhance your buzz. It’s here to enhance your sense of meaning to life. That brings it into the realm of art, not entertainment.

I disagree completely, when I listen to metal I don't think about the meaning of life, religion, etc. It just entertains me and hypes me up as I play BO1 Zombies.
Subjective.

 

[SasukeTheEmo]

I disagree completely, when I listen to metal I don't think about the meaning of life, religion, etc. It just entertains me and hypes me up as I play BO1 Zombies.
Subjective.

Probably listening to crap metal like Cannibal Corpse then.
Burzum definitely evokes such feelings.

 

[ComplexCity]

Why are you telling me to chill? I'm not angry or anything...

It was a joke :|

 

[Kaneki Kun]

Probably listening to crap metal like Cannibal Corpse then.
Burzum definitely evokes such feelings.

Again, it's subjective.
Black Spell of Destruction oh the memories.