Eh. I mean, emotionally I want to agree with you, but isn’t the process of writing lyrics and setting them to pitch/rhythm included in the word “composition”? Or rather, couldn’t it be?
OK, then what’s a bard playing the region’s traditional music at a wedding? Pop or not pop? The bard is a professional, and expects to get paid. How about if the bard improvises and rewrites some of the song?
More than that, folk music is, pretty much by definition, popular. If you want to split a hair between pop and popular, I can do the same with the statement below, and say that “Classical music” commonly refers to a Western art music tradition which doesn’t stretch back further than the Medieval period.
I think you and Exapno Mapcase should talk about the relationship between commercial music and pop/popular music.
The process of writing lyrics is definitely EXcluded. Setting the pitches and rhythms is included, but as a composition, would need to be judged by the same standard as music that has no lyrics.
But then it’s not an award for “music”, rather, it’s an award for a very specific kind of music. Which is all good. Have awards for whatever you want, but don’t call it a “music” award, call it the “Award for music in the Western classical/orchestral tradition” or something. The idea that music is only worthy of recognition if it’s been written down using a particular type of notation and can be performed using specific instruments or approaches is pretty narrow and ultimately not inclusive of all things that qualify as music.
No snark intended, but excluded according to whom?
Take a song. How about Zadok the Priest by Handel. Is it the same piece of music if we replace the words with “la la la”? If not, then how can you claim that the writing (or setting) of the words to music is not part of the compositional process?
As far as judging by the same standard I agree with that. Or rather, I think it’s impossible to truly judge all music on the same objective scale; there are too many different ways to do music that all have different qualities that can be superlative. “Distinguished musical composition” is a pretty loosey-goosey criteria, full of subjectivity and completely lacking in objectivity.
First, folk musicians are the easiest to identify. Folk musicians (musicians, not folk song writers) expect that they will never be paid beyond someone buying them a beer, they are fine with that, and they play anything they like but it’s usually traditional. Folk song writers (who are probably also folk musicians) write what they like, they expect no pay beyond that beer we talked about, no marketing beyond word of mouth, and no publication beyond handwriting and the photocopy machine. New folk music is therefore strictly local, though the best folk songs become part of a tradition and might eventually be published and marketed.
There are popular musicians who play in a traditional-folk-sounding style, but who “turn pro”. Once they do that, they are not folk musicians anymore. Bob Dylan, etc.
[“To be continued” :)]
You’re right, but not THAT right.
Literature is a tradition, and there are literature experts and literature lovers. Broadway musicals are a tradition, and there are experts in and lovers of that tradition. Music composition - same thing, it has experts and there are people who love it.
Let’s say that, 100 years from now, hardly anybody cares about Broadway musicals anymore. Should the Tony award for best new musical that year go to a pop music album?
On the other hand, let’s say that for some unknown reason the Monday Night Football crew decides to do one Monday as a full-on Broadway musical, they convince the players and coaches to sing, the half-time band plays the whole time, it’s dramatic, it’s brilliant, it’s hilarious, and it hasn’t been a great year on Broadway - then I think they deserve a shot at a Tony, because they changed what they were doing and made themselves part of a tradition they normally don’t belong to.
Heavily snipped and with tons of respect intended.
Hip hop is a 50 year old genre. It’s not just a new genre anymore. At its best it’s picking up where both beat poetry and jazz left off (and while there is great jazz being made still, let’s not pretend it still is what it was 50 years ago) . It’s not always at its best, but that is true of all art forms.
This is simply incorrect due to lack of exposure. That’s not your fault, if you haven’t heard much of his music you would not know. If you aren’t familiar with hip hop you might not be able to “hear” it anyway.
This is undeniable IMO. Most of what “the kids” are listening to these days bores me to tears. But not Kendrick. Doesn’t apply.
This is, disappointing. It also speaks of ignorance of the genre, but there is a lot of depth not just lyrically but sonically as well. You get improvisation, just that most of it is lyrical. The second track on DAMN the entire end of the song was done “freestyle” or unwritten. Kendrick just went in the studio and started rapping until he was out of things to say. This is a skill as impressive to me as any jazz improvisation because of how intricate the rhyme and rhythms need to be. You get lots of musical variety with the “beats” as well. Hip hop beats have changed pop music across genre as well. Good producers mix beats in a way that is also very similar to jazz. They take snippets and phrases of extant material as well as original material and interpolation of popular works and combine and rearrange them to make something unique.
You also get the most sonic innovation in hip hop of any current genre. They are pushing what you can do with audio recording in a way no one else cares about until a break through happens.
Add to that the storytelling aspect that you don’t get anywhere else outside of folk music. I appreciate that you are acknowledging the virtuosity necessary but I feel like you haven’t really given the genre more than a surface level look based on your other comments. You should look deeper.
This is factually inaccurate.
Cite:
You may not like the music. But clearly there is music. And since when do lyrics not count?
The Pulitzer board hasn’t required written or printed scores since 2005. In any case, this isn’t the first time a recording got a Pulitzer—that happened in 2007, when Ornette Coleman’s Sound Grammar (a recording of a live, improvised performance) won.
I’m a classical music guy through and through—I own exactly one jazz album (Kind of Blue, natch) and I barely know who Kendrick Lamar is. But I can’t think of a single compelling reason to limit Pulitzers to a particular genre. Most of the music Pulitzers have gone to composers in academia and/or composers who are old and haven’t won yet. In most cases the works are performed a few times and quickly forgotten. Looking down the list of past music Pulitzers, I’d say that the most recent winner that is still regularly performed is Barber’s Piano Concerto from 1963. I think it’s commendable that the Pulitzer board is trying to get out of the academic, Eurocentric box they’ve been in for decades.
I’m just going to refrain from commenting at all because my opinions about a lot of people’s opinions on this thread aren’t out-of-the-Pit-worthy.
It’s up to the people defining what the prize is for to decide whether or not lyrics count. And to say that they do not would be a perfectly legitimate choice, if they’re consistent about it.
Looking over the list of past winners, it appears that the clear majority are instrumental works, but there have been some vocal works (operas, cantatas, etc.). Were those works awarded the Prize on the basis of their lyrics, or only their music?
To my mind in any work with lyrics the lyrics are inextrricably intertwined with the music. This is why opera is not typically sung in translation. The Marriage of Figaro sung in English isn’t really the same thing.
You’ve got it exactly backward. What matters is not the band playing it but the reason the music was written. Is it a traditional folk piece? Then it’s folk. Is it a classical aria? Then it’s classical. Is it commercial pop? Then it’s pop.
No, by definition people’s folk music is “of the people.” It’s not pop music. It may or may be in fact popular, i.e. widespread throughout a population. It can be small and local. Filk, the punning name given to songs sung at science fiction conventions with lyrics related to f&sf, goes back farther than rock music, has a dedicated fan base, and has scheduled performances at almost every convention, but it’s folk music that is minuscule in societal terms.
Not all commercial music is pop music. But pop music is very broad. That’s why the maligned Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has at bottom gotten it right by including in its inductees pop musicians of numerous genres, which they happen to lump together as rock and roll instead of pop.
Pop music does not include jazz or classical music, though, but that’s for historical reasons. Same with country, which is in every respect pop music. If your wedding band plays a country song, are they a country band? No. And if your local high school chorale sings a Beatles song they’re not a rock and roll band either. Pop music emerges from the structure of the industry, and that industry starts in the 19th century. It drew upon traditional music from many nations and cultures but became something new and different.
An opera, if it’s good enough musically, can be enjoyed by listeners who don’t understand the language it’s sung in.
One could argue that the best way to judge an opera purely as music would be to judge it based on how well it holds up for someone who doesn’t understand the words. Or, conversely, one could argue that the music should be judged on how well it enhances the story and meanings and emotions conveyed by the words. (Analogously, a movie score could be judged by how well it can be appreciated apart from the movie, or by how well it works within the context of the movie.) IMHO neither approach is wrong. And one advantage to the former is it seems like a fairer way of comparing them against purely instrumental works in a way that lets you judge them by similar criteria.
One can state that the best rap music (like Kendrick Lamar) has lyrics that can be enjoyed not just for their content but for their musicality, especially as complementing the instruments.
I don’t disagree. But the sound of the words and their rhythm is part of the music. Hip hop is not that different from opera in a foreign language for many people. You will frequently not be able to understand every word being said when a high speed rapper is rapping. The rhythm and music of the words is important in those instances. The meaning is an extra layer.
Kendrick Lamar cite for music of the words. Not that the meaning is unimportant (it is!) but the song is about the rhythm and sound of the words. Go to 1:45 and listen through to the end if you don’t believe me but don’t want to listen to the whole 2 minutes.
Or, if you want to go for hip hop generally:
Even not fast songs. Check out Andres verse onSo Fresh So Clean (minute 2, but it’s more obvious in contrast to the previous verse).
Again, Figaro is in Italian because it sounds right in Italian. The sound of the words is important not just the meaning. Same in hip hop. More maybe.
I’d argue that the prize was created specifically for the academic Eurocentric box, that it was intended to remain that way, and that this particular case of “out of the box” is simply a polite way of describing “lost the plot”. There are lots of awards that are genre-specific. Should Kendrick Lamar win the World Series for this album too? He’s more popular than the Chicago Cubs.
Oh or surreal rap like
MF Doom. Not fast but the lyrics aren’t telling stories. It’s about the music the rhymes make.