This is obviously a matter of taste. I really like Ode to Joy, but that’s the only old music that has a ghost of a chance of competing for my affections on a par with my favorite show tunes or other more recent selections. If you like a lot of old music and not a lot of new music, it just means that you a) have common tastes with people who were rich music patrons in the Golden Age of your choice, or b) you’re succumbing to some signaling effect having to do with the perceived absolute quality of old dead white musicians’ work. If there is something like objective musical quality out there (which is a matter of open debate in aesthetics), it’s probably very fuzzy. Maybe Ode to Joy is objectively better than Sk8er Boi, but the jury is out and they don’t seem inclined to come back soon.
Obviously it’s a matter of taste, yes. (And I do think about the signaling effects of my musical tastes from time to time; it is rather an interesting topic.) I was only putting forth my “no good music has been written since the death of Gershwin”* opinion to contrast with taw’s “no good music was written before 1975″ opinion, in order to produce a synthesis that would support gwern’s original contention that enough art now exists that we needn’t subsidize more of it.
This is obviously a matter of taste. I really like Ode to Joy, but that’s the only old music that has a ghost of a chance of competing for my affections on a par with my favorite show tunes or other more recent selections. If you like a lot of old music and not a lot of new music, it just means that you a) have common tastes with people who were rich music patrons in the Golden Age of your choice, or b) you’re succumbing to some signaling effect having to do with the perceived absolute quality of old dead white musicians’ work. If there is something like objective musical quality out there (which is a matter of open debate in aesthetics), it’s probably very fuzzy. Maybe Ode to Joy is objectively better than Sk8er Boi, but the jury is out and they don’t seem inclined to come back soon.
Obviously it’s a matter of taste, yes. (And I do think about the signaling effects of my musical tastes from time to time; it is rather an interesting topic.) I was only putting forth my “no good music has been written since the death of Gershwin”* opinion to contrast with taw’s “no good music was written before 1975″ opinion, in order to produce a synthesis that would support gwern’s original contention that enough art now exists that we needn’t subsidize more of it.
*not actually my opinion, but close