Think about your favorite band/musician. Not your favorite one today, or who you've been listening to the most recently, or your "new favorite". Chances are, his/her/their music is something you've been listening to for years and, though there may be periods you don't listen to it much, if at all, you always end up coming back to it. My assumption is that you would qualify this music as being good. (I suppose there is a chance you don't feel this way, but if so, you're probably just a contrarian and I'm not that interested in your opinion. Sorry.) My question is this; what makes you consider this music good?
I'm not asking you to defend your choice. Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time with me has probably had to deal with me doing that anyway. (I spend a lot of time thinking about why people do things, and occasionally actually get people to question these things themselves. This may come across as criticism, especially if I disagree with whatever the topic in question is, but it's just sort of what I do.) What I'm asking you, more specifically, is what is your definition of good? What is it about that music that makes you consider it "more good" (a phrase that makes sense in terms of this piece of writing) than other music?
Surely, this is not the only band or artist that you would consider good, but there is a reason I asked you to think of your favorite. Most people, myself included, like some music (other mediums apply to this line of questioning, but more on that in a minute) outside of our normal range of taste, and like it for reasons that are probably quite different from why we like our favorite musicians. A song that reminds you of someone or a certain time in your life (many of the largely forgotten singles from the early and mid-90's). A band so catchy that you can't stop yourself from listening to them (Phoenix and, in particular, their single "Lisztomania", a song that sounds like what would happen if Franz Ferdinand wrote songs exclusively to be used in commercials for hybrid cars). A few of us might be willing to admit that, somewhere, lost in our iPods and CD collections, is music that we acknowledge as bad. We might even like it because it is bad (which is how I feel about almost anything I listen to from the 80's). Your favorite band isn't subject to these kinds of whims. You may have memories associated with them, but they either came after you had already liked them, or whatever memory you have is just what introduced you to them.
Labeling something as "good" is subjective, but we rarely mean it that way (if you don't believe that last sentence is true, the next time someone tells you that a certain band is good, reply with "no they aren't" and see what happens). When we say something is good, we don't mean the same thing as when we say we love or like something. When we say something is good, we are giving it a value that we feel others should be able to recognize. Even the more exclusionary of us out there, those who don't want others to like what they like, take pride in feeling that they see this value that others have missed. We may not think about it, but calling something good says more than simply stating that we like something.
So, where does the value associated with "good" come from? The easiest conclusion to make would be that how good something is comes directly from how much talent it took to create it. This makes sense on the surface, but doesn't hold up for long. Yngwie Malmsteen is widely viewed to be among the most technically skilled guitarists to ever live, yet his music has never really experienced widespread recognition. If Malmsteen is the heads of this proverbial coin, The Ramones would be tails. The Ramones knew 4 chords, wrote 3 songs, and are one of the most influential and well known bands of the past 40 years. You could make an argument (and probably a pretty accurate one) that their music, and the music they inspired (punk) was as much about the message and aesthetic as it was about the music, but does that make it somehow less good than the music of Malmsteen? What of the bands that took the philosophy put forth by The Ramones and punk? Bands like Guided By Voices and Pavement that seemed to actively try to hide their music in lo-fi recordings, largely ignored for large stretches of their careers, but have shown a heavy influence on later bands and found a place in the hearts of critics. Surely, there are people who enjoy Malmsteen simply for his talent, just as there are those like The Ramones for not having any (or, more likely, not flaunting it). So does technical skill even apply to the conversation of what is "good"?
Let's shift gears for a second. Start this whole process again with your favorite movie or television series. Again, I would assume you would describe whatever show or movie you came up with as being good. But what makes them good? You could make the case for talent again, but that rationale makes even less sense when applied to acting. Follow me for a moment: All of us, as fans of music (assuming you are), can recognize a technically skilled musician, even if we don't like the music they make. There might be some discrepancy in opinions on who is the most technically skilled, but we all see the ability that is there. How does that recognition of talent apply to acting, when opinions tend to be much more varied? Don't believe me? Ask a few people about Jack Nicholson's performance in The Departed. Chances are you'll get at least one person who thought he was incredible and a perfect choice for the role, and you'll get at least one person who thought he was embarrassing and should have taken it as a sign to spend less time in movies and more time watching basketball at The Staples Center.
You could make the argument that measuring a piece of film or television by the talent of its performers doesn't take into account the talent of the writers and directors who created the work (unlike music, where the performers and the creators are often the same person/s). Perhaps, but how do we measure that talent? Awards? Even if you put any stock in Emmys and Oscars (and it seems like fewer and fewer people do), that doesn't necessarily translate into success (another semi-meaningless measurement of value). No Country For Old Men won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and I can count on one hand the people I know who even think it is slightly above okay. Arrested Development won 6 Emmy Awards and was nominated for 22, but lasted only three seasons before being cancelled.
When we say something is "good", we are really saying that we think something should be important, understanding that if we said "this should be important", we would sound pretentious or ridiculous, and often both. So if we accept this use of good, but acknowledge that there isn't a clear, universal way to measure it, does the word have any meaning at all?
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe we can figure it out the next time we talk about why my music is better than yours.
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