# Art confessions--"I don't see what's so great about..." **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2007, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026 "2007-06-30T10:00:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/141 "2007-07-04T06:04:54Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] I’m with you on this one…and my contribution in a similar train of though: **The Beatles** I just don’t get it. What is/was so great about their music? That they invented whole new musical concepts (except didn’t)? That they used these concepts and turned them into commercial successes (which isn’t a measure of artistic success)? Or another argument I’ve been unconvinced by, that they did so many different things but always were recognisably The Beatles (and why is this important?). [/QUOTE] There was a great series on Channel 4 last year by some bloke who is a musicologist - explaining why The Beatles were so influential on Western popular music. I can’t remember the title for the life of me, but it was cool to see how McCartney and Lennon used meter, medieval scales, and all kinds of great stuff and brought it into popular music. What’s more amazing is that I’ve heard Paul confronted with some of this stuff, and he has no idea why he wrote Eleanor Rigby with the chords he did, etc. aside from it just sounded better that way. And tape loops! Overdubs and stuff like that, par for the course in pop music now, but before The Beatles, those techniques weren’t used very much. I’m not a muso so I’ll bow out now. But I don’t think everything they wrote was brilliant, so I’m with you on that. Pink Floyd? In small doses, interesting. Love the videos they have of stuff blowing up. Large does, my head starts to hurt. Many years back Q Magazine labeled Radiohead “the new Pink Floyd…” ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/142 "2007-07-04T08:32:50Z")
It was our old friend Howard Goodall, in the series [_Howard Goodall’s 20th Century Greats_](http://www.howardgoodall.co.uk/presenting/20centurygts.htm). And boy, does he like Lennon/McCartney. I think he called them the greatest composers (that’s what he said, not just songwriters) of the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/143 "2007-07-04T12:43:51Z")
[QUOTE=Lakai] I hope I’m not being wooshed here, but if you don’t get music in general, I don’t think anyone can explain it to you. [/QUOTE] He’s not the only Doper who feels this way. There was a thread some years back that had a few people who _didn’t like it at all_. I was shocked. Until then, I always thought that music was a “universal tonic” and people just differed in the type of music they liked. Finding out that wasn’t so kinda blew my mind. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/144 "2007-07-04T14:26:39Z")
You know, I used to dig music. Now, I don’t listen to any of it anymore. It’s all just very “meh” to me. Every once in a while, I’ll hear something as I’m driving down the street or something that one of my friends might be listening to, and it might sound nice for a couple minutes, but I’ve no interest to track it down and/or find more of it. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/145 "2007-07-04T22:31:35Z")
I love music, but can’t stand opera in general, Wagner in particular. I also have no love for haute cuisine. Not that I don’t like good food, of course, but I don’t enjoy paying large amounts of cash for small-nay tiny-amounts of dinner. Any meal that leaves me wanting to grab a burger afterwards is not a good meal. And John Byrne can go in the same box as Miller. ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/146 "2007-07-05T03:39:23Z")
Maya Angelou Jack Kerouac Conan O’Brien ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/147 "2007-07-05T11:38:49Z")
[QUOTE=kellner] Music. Yes, music in general. [/QUOTE] I feel the same way about art. As for music, I do enjoy it…but not enough to like, _buy_ it! I never even listen to it outside the car anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/148 "2007-07-05T11:43:13Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] I think Frank Zappa was so off the mainstream (particularly his sense of humor and his lyrics) that sometimes his musicianship got lost amidst the absurdity. I saw him once, and I gotta say he had the tightest band I’ve ever seen. I know he’s not everyone’s cup o’ tea, and I wouldn’t presume to tell you what you like or dislike, but I found his music to be interesting and complex – not to mention lyrically hilarious. Here is an interesting biography. [Frank Zappa Biography - hotshotdigital.com](http://www.hotshotdigital.com/WellAlwaysRemember.3/FrankZappaBio.html) I’ve heard on more than one occasion that he was kind of a dick. ☹ [/QUOTE] I read a biography of Zappa and decided he was a dick also. My husband likes Zappa, and I know he’s well thought of by some of the intelligent people of the Dope…but I can’t understand why. Also, I keep hearing that he’s hilarious, yet apparently I’m missing the joke. Is it don’t eat the yellow snow? ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/149 "2007-07-05T13:42:52Z")
[QUOTE=Captain\_C] Can I say all of poetry? I just don’t get the point. It might be because I’m personally not very creative, but I don’t think I’ve ever been ‘moved’ by poetry. If you are talking about a flower, say “a flower”, not some metaphorical love lost on endless seas wrapped in an enigma… see, I can’t even make up a fake poetic reference for a flower. That’s how much I don’t get it. [/QUOTE] Read it all. It’s by the same guy who wrote **The Shooting of Dan McGrew** and **The Cremation of Sam McGee**. But as you will see Robert Service has a serious, highly empathetic side. Fleurette (The Wounded Canadian Speaks) My leg? It’s off at the knee. Do I miss it? Well, some. You see I’ve had it since I was born; And lately a devilish corn. (I rather chuckle with glee To think how I’ve fooled that corn.) But I’ll hobble around all right. It isn’t that, it’s my face. Oh I know I’m a hideous sight, Hardly a thing in place; Sort of gargoyle, you’d say. Nurse won’t give me a glass, But I see the folks as they pass Shudder and turn away; Turn away in distress . . . Mirror enough, I guess. I’m gay! You bet I am gay; But I wasn’t a while ago. If you’d seen me even to-day, The darndest picture of woe, With this Caliban mug of mine, So ravaged and raw and red, Turned to the wall — in fine, Wishing that I was dead. . . . What has happened since then, Since I lay with my face to the wall, The most despairing of men? Listen! I’ll tell you all. That poilu across the way, With the shrapnel wound in his head, Has a sister: she came to-day To sit awhile by his bed. All morning I heard him fret: “Oh, when will she come, Fleurette?” Then sudden, a joyous cry; The tripping of little feet, The softest, tenderest sigh, A voice so fresh and sweet; Clear as a silver bell, Fresh as the morning dews: “C’est toi, c’est toi, Marcel! Mon frère, comme je suis heureuse!” So over the blanket’s rim I raised my terrible face, And I saw — how I envied him! A girl of such delicate grace; Sixteen, all laughter and love; As gay as a linnet, and yet As tenderly sweet as a dove; Half woman, half child — Fleurette. Then I turned to the wall again. (I was awfully blue, you see), And I thought with a bitter pain: “Such visions are not for me.” So there like a log I lay, All hidden, I thought, from view, When sudden I heard her say: “Ah! Who is that malheureux?” Then briefly I heard him tell (However he came to know) How I’d smothered a bomb that fell Into the trench, and so None of my men were hit, Though it busted me up a bit. Well, I didn’t quiver an eye, And he chattered and there she sat; And I fancied I heard her sigh — But I wouldn’t just swear to that. And maybe she wasn’t so bright, Though she talked in a merry strain, And I closed my eyes ever so tight, Yet I saw her ever so plain: Her dear little tilted nose, Her delicate, dimpled chin, Her mouth like a budding rose, And the glistening pearls within; Her eyes like the violet: Such a rare little queen — Fleurette. And at last when she rose to go, The light was a little dim, And I ventured to peep, and so I saw her, graceful and slim, And she kissed him and kissed him, and oh How I envied and envied him! So when she was gone I said In rather a dreary voice To him of the opposite bed: “Ah, friend, how you must rejoice! But me, I’m a thing of dread. For me nevermore the bliss, The thrill of a woman’s kiss.” Then I stopped, for lo! she was there, And a great light shone in her eyes; And me! I could only stare, I was taken so by surprise, When gently she bent her head: “May I kiss you, Sergeant?” she said. Then she kissed my burning lips With her mouth like a scented flower, And I thrilled to the finger-tips, And I hadn’t even the power To say: “God bless you, dear!” And I felt such a precious tear Fall on my withered cheek, And darn it! I couldn’t speak. And so she went sadly away, And I knew that my eyes were wet. Ah, not to my dying day Will I forget, forget! Can you wonder now I am gay? God bless her, that little Fleurette! And while you’re at it, google on The Cremation of Sam MccGee. It’s funny. ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/150 "2007-07-05T14:14:17Z")
_A Fairytale of New York_ That horrible, horrible bottle-fuelled Celtic sentimentalism that puts it’s arm round your shoulder and slurs in your ear “Y’re me bes’ mate yer ‘re. I rilly, rilly lurve yeow” before throwing up all over your shoes. The moment Shane McGowan lurched over into self-parody. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/151 "2007-07-05T14:58:30Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] You know, I used to dig music. Now, I don’t listen to any of it anymore. It’s all just very “meh” to me. Every once in a while, I’ll hear something as I’m driving down the street or something that one of my friends might be listening to, and it might sound nice for a couple minutes, but I’ve no interest to track it down and/or find more of it. [/QUOTE] I’m not big on today’s music, but I still listen to the music of my generation. I haven’t gone on the Quest For Music That Doesn’t Suck in '07, but I know it’s out there. It requires more effort than I’m willing to expend right now. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/152 "2007-07-05T15:06:16Z")
[QUOTE=Boulter’s Canary] _A Fairytale of New York_ That horrible, horrible bottle-fuelled Celtic sentimentalism that puts it’s arm round your shoulder and slurs in your ear “Y’re me bes’ mate yer ‘re. I rilly, rilly lurve yeow” before throwing up all over your shoes. The moment Shane McGowan lurched over into self-parody. [/QUOTE] Hmmm, I was never under the impression that the people singing this were stone serious. Then again I’m no familiar with their other work so I never thought it was a self-parody, per se. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/153 "2007-07-05T15:54:51Z")
[QUOTE=Kalhoun] I’m not big on today’s music, but I still listen to the music of my generation. I haven’t gone on the Quest For Music That Doesn’t Suck in '07, but I know it’s out there. It requires more effort than I’m willing to expend right now. [/QUOTE] Yeah, but that’s a bit of a cop-out to me. I don’t even bother listening to music I’ve heard a billion times. I might want to hear a song once a year or something like that, but I certainly wouldn’t want an iPod for access to it. So..the whole lot of it is just chucked to the side. ---
**Author:** ![rivulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rivulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rivulus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/154 "2007-07-05T16:24:06Z")
**Jazz**. I like some big band, Ella Fitzgerald, ragtime in small amounts, and bits of “jazz influence” in other forms, but jazz in general leaves me either cold, bored, or irritated. Which is too bad, because some of my colleagues whose musical tastes I otherwise very much admire love jazz in various forms. Sadly, I just don’t get it. Which kind of bothers me, because I feel like I must be missing out on something. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/155 "2007-07-05T16:29:18Z")
I’d forgotten about jazz. I don’t get it one bit, either, and don’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/156 "2007-07-05T17:02:57Z")
Oh yeah. I like swing, but most jazz puts me to sleep. I can’t drive and listen to jazz. ---
**Author:** ![Paladud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Paladud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paladud)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/157 "2007-07-05T22:36:04Z")
Contemporary music, with few exceptions. Brahms - not especially bad, but severely overrated and overplayed. Most 19th century fiction and poetry. Exemptions for Poe, Coleridge, London, and Verne. Bonus hate for Dickens. Pynchon and Joyce. Nabokov. Asimov - readable but overrated. Clarke. Pretty much all Western art between Rembrandt and today. Exemption for Goya. **Miller** , please do yourself a favor and pick up “The Sirens of Titan”. I’ll happily admit that much of Vonnegut’s writing is crap, but this one is as funny as the better Pratchett novels. “Mother Night” and “Cat’s Cradle” are also worth reading. ---
**Author:** ![Charger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2007, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/158 "2007-07-05T23:33:02Z")
Nirvana/Kurt Cobain The Doors These are bands whose music bores and depresses me, so I cannot fathom the appeal. Kurt Cobain wrote music that will stick in my head, and if that was his goal–well done. But then I have a song I loathe stuck in my head. I feel like most Nirvana songs, if played at just the right volume, would get neighbors pounding on the ceiling shouting, “Learn to get along and agree to disagree.” Jim Morrisson’s voice sounds like a constant yawn, and has the typical effect on me. The “time to entertain” was through the moment the song started. When I walk into a room and hear a song by either of them, I cringe and start humming the last song I heard, just to block it out. It doesn’t help that _Light My Fire_ is a song that lasts for three days. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/159 "2007-07-06T01:03:09Z")
[QUOTE=Nikki Tikki Tavi] Please don’t kick me off the board for admitting this: I thought The Godfather was one of the most boring movies I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through. I read the book and liked it, but I found the movie dull and cheesy. [/QUOTE] I like [Peter Griffin’s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poqr2BuillY) take on **The Godfather**. “It insists upon itself.” (Note: I have not yet seen **The Godfather** , so I can’t agree or disagree with this.) I don’t see what’s so great about \ ***The English Patient**. An hour in and new characters are _still_ being introduced? Can you get around to introducing a point or something? Yeah, the desert shots are majestic and scenic, but I’m watching this movie for a story, not a pretty picture. (I’ll give the book a try. I have a feeling the movie was trying to capture things that can only be expressed in text.) \*Bob Dylan. I woke up to a bagpiper playing at the Sunrise Service across the street from my friend’s house Easter morning and I thought he was playing his new Dylan CD. Although I will say that he (Dylan, not my friend) can sure write some great songs. He just shouldn’t sing them. \*Harry Potter. Why are so many people obsessing themselves into convulsions over this series? ---
**Author:** ![Landshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/77aa72/32.png) [@Landshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Landshark)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2007, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026/160 "2007-07-06T01:27:46Z")
I have one huge “I just don’t get it”: rap/hip hop music. I also find I have no interest in country music. Also, I’m yet another who generally has no use for poetry, but I do have an exception: haiku. I find myself enjoying a well-written haiku when I happen to run across it. I think I appreciate that due to how they are constructed a haiku has to be very short and get right to the point. But any other form of poetry simply does nothing for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/art-confessions-i-dont-see-whats-so-great-about/410026.md?page=9)