The Tyranny of Pop Music

[Bryn]

And we have done it here, recently and much better.

The judging of music as 'good' or 'bad' is a different argument altogether, which Scruton as a 'philosopher' should know. But I don't have much respect for him as a 'philosopher' - or as anything else, really.

I am advised by one of his former students that he was an excellent tutor, though she considered his philosophy and music to be quite, quite dire.

[Lat-Literal]

Oh dear. He believes that heavy metal outfit Metallica had "something to say" at the Glastonbury Festival. I would love to know what exactly. A few titles from their 1983 album "Kill 'em All" - "Motorbreath", "Phantom Lord", "No Remorse", "Metal Militia", "Seek and Destroy". Place in the box "dark fantasy", perhaps, while recalling the controversy before their performance in Somerset on a stage adorned with posters for Greenpeace: "Should they be cancelled because of the apparent support of the lead singer for bear hunting?"

Well, they weren't because Eavis is content to play devil's advocate if eye-catching coverage boosts income for a good cause. While that band wasn't formed until 1981, it could easily have emerged in 1971 but not before 1969 as "that sort of thing" hadn't yet arrived. Given that Scruton is 71 in age, his selection of what is "better" rather than worse in "pop" music is actually very revealing. Whatever he suggests, this is a man who when in his mid to late 20s may well have given scrutiny to the trends at that time and half grasped nuances. His "thinking" about Metallica being superior to Lady Gaga is a lazy carry-across from broad ideas in his youth that Deep Purple were superior to Sandie Shaw.

What Britain is he living in now? I don't recognise it. One of the biggest social changes in the last ten or more years is the removal of music from restaurants and especially public houses. In the 1950s, there was a jukebox in every coffee bar and from the 1960s until the 1990s one in every other pub. Today there are hardly any jukeboxes and most drinking places are eating places where the volume of sound all round is comparatively low. There is almost certainly less live music beyond concert halls and fields than in some earlier decades although that is a matter that has tended to wax and wane and it may be on the increase slightly. There is still some "elevator" music but it is rarely in "elevators" now.

As for rhythm being the sound of life, surely the sound of life is crazy speed and sudden stops as everything grinds to a halt. We had 6 million vehicles in the 1960s and now it is more than 36 million. Many people don't recognise just how much traffic levels have changed but they experience it in feelings of cacophony. There is no evidence that the use of the word "like" emanates from music even though the majority of records can seem banal. It is more likely that it is spread via peer group chat. In contrast, it is recognized that large parts of one generation now in young middle age use intonation acquired from the Australian soap "Neighbours". Most are women. I have heard conscious attempts by several professional women on the radio to find ways of minimising it. Ironically, while it is in Kylie Minogue's speaking patterns, it is not at all perceptible in her "very pop" records.

[Serial_Apologist]

Didn't Mr Screwtop support that Holocaust denier on grounds of freedom of speech? I may be mixing him up with someone else, but free speech is one of his hobby horses, along with blood sports, English village life, the C0fE, and generally cap doffing to the squirearchy, whose demise he allegedly considers symptomatic of national decline.

[Richard Tarleton]

along with blood sports, English village life, the C0fE, and generally cap doffing to the squirearchy, whose demise he allegedly considers symptomatic of national decline.

Indeed - for a philosopher he commits surprising category error in his support of fox hunting - talking about the moral/ethical aspects, whereas the arguments against it are overwhelmingly ecological. Support for it is ecologically illiterate.

Sorry, OT.

[eighthobstruction]

....this all old hat Roger S....he had a television programme (which Catherine Bott turned up in) a couple of years ago covering the same subject....and I suppose, YES the time has come around again (using the phiosophers mean magic interval as a guage) when RS is allowed once again to strain his thoughts upon us ...but once again Roger I generally have more regard for the grouts....get thee gone Foxy....

[jean]

Am I right in thinking that Sydney's use of the word "prep" is intended to mean what we now tend to call "First Schools" (as opposed to the now defunct use of the terms "Infants" and "Junior" schools...

Probably not, because Primary would have been the obvious choice.

[Lat-Literal]

Didn't Mr Screwtop support that Holocaust denier on grounds of freedom of speech? I may be mixing him up with someone else, but free speech is one of his hobby horses, along with blood sports, English village life, the C0fE, and generally cap doffing to the squirearchy, whose demise he allegedly considers symptomatic of national decline.

Not sure.......but isn't the decision to have music in your own establishment free speech? When he sets foot in a restaurant he is in someone else's property. He isn't forced into going there and yet he wants to object to the way they do things there. The point about the ears working differently in the modern sound world is right but the hands and arms work differently if someone decides to learn to play the guitar or sits at computers. I also noted the phrase "you have nothing to say". It was a generic "you" and not a "we"!!!

Having had a look at his website, there is no doubt that he has considered music in depth. It is academic. He has written an opera. Most of us could probably agree that if there was a jukebox in every public house, modern content would not make that experience enjoyable for us. We can probably agree too that it is often better to listen to music rather than having it as background. But when Classic FM is on the radio at the dentist, it helps to soften whatever is happening with the dentistry. At times, some kinds of music can alleviate the tooth-pulling impacts of social bustle and hubbub. Broadly, he could appear to be in line with FoR3 objectives but there are distinctions. We are all "contracted" into the BBC so we are required to be in its "house" in money terms. It is also a point about whether a national broadcasting provider should be providing a certain kind of national service.

[David-G]

There is plenty of artistry, profundity, beauty and subtlety in contemporary rock music which actually is the music of our time. It is his loss, if he is stuck in his backward-looking elitist rut.

I would like to think that that was the case, but I have never found artistry, profundity, beauty or subtlety in rock music. In fact, I find myself allergic to rock music - I try desperately to switch off or escape. That is perhaps my loss; but I hope you will not call me elitist. I don't see why preferring one sort of music to another should be regarded as elitist.

[Don Petter]

What Britain is he living in now? I don't recognise it. One of the biggest social changes in the last ten or more years is the removal of music from restaurants and especially public houses.

Well I don't recognise your Britain! Every eating place and pub we visit (apart from Wetherspoons - top marks) seems to have music in the 'background', which always seems to be what we term a 'screaming woman'. Presume this is the current pop flavour of the month, in which case has nothing changed in the pop world over the last five years or so?

In answer to others, it is not always convenient to go elsewhere when you find that such music is present, though we have often turned round on the doorstep when it was possible. What about the places that wait until you are sat down and have placed a food order before they start the speakers up?

[ahinton]

Not sure.......but isn't the decision to have music in your own establishment free speech?

Yes, it is and this is where there is and will I imagine forever remain an irresoluable conflict between free speech, equality and the rest on the one hand and different viewopoints on what might and might not be of lasting value to society on the other.

The point about the free speech that Roger Scruton sought to defend in what I accept was a manner more controversial than would customarily be associated with him and his work is that, just as with rights come responsibilities, with free speech comes the courage to be able to listen to such speech but not necessarily be influenced by its content. Listening to a Holocaust denier does not obligate the listener to believe a word of what's being said by that denier. Like so much else in a world that values free speech, the listener needs to posses and call upon intelligence and powers of reasoning in order to be able to accept or reject what he/she hears and/or reads.

When he sets foot in a restaurant he is in someone else's property. He isn't forced into going there and yet he wants to object to the way they do things there.

But in the world of free speech that he advocates, the restaurateur, his/her customers and others have as much right to disagree with any or all of his objections as he has to voice them in the first place.

The point about the ears working differently in the modern sound world is right but the hands and arms work differently if someone decides to learn to play the guitar or sits at computers.

Not necessarily; the mere fact that the hands and arms (and feet in the case of the organist) work to produce music doesn't mean that everyone who performs will have the same pairs of ears working in identical ways; if that were the case, every performer would be after precisely the same things and doubtless wish to perform the same repertoire.

I also noted the phrase "you have nothing to say". It was a generic "you" and not a "we"!!!

How to let yourself down by the mere use of a single pronoun! - and yes, I think that, here, he did just that, however inadvertently. The fact remains that not all pieces of music or generic kinds of music have the same or similar amounts to say.

Having had a look at his website, there is no doubt that he has considered music in depth. It is academic. He has written an opera. Most of us could probably agree that if there was a jukebox in every public house, modern content would not make that experience enjoyable for us. We can probably agree too that it is often better to listen to music rather than having it as background. But when Classic FM is on the radio at the dentist, it helps to soften whatever is happening with the dentistry. At times, some kinds of music can alleviate the tooth-pulling impacts of social bustle and hubbub. Broadly, he could appear to be in line with FoR3 objectives but there are distinctions. We are all "contracted" into the BBC so we are required to be in its "house" in money terms. It is also a point about whether a national broadcasting provider should be providing a certain kind of national service.

I'm not seeking here to impose my opinion but, having just been to the dentist, I can tell you that I really do NOT want to hear either a load of mindless "pop" junk of the most meaningless and contentless order or indeed the C# minor quartet while I await treatment or during it; I'm not denying that music can have therapeutic powers, but I just cannot bring myself to believe that such a manifestation of it is an example of how that can work in practice. Again, where's the rôle for that silence for whose value which Roger Scruton pleads and whose power in musical creation has been well understood by many composers, perhaps most notably the composer of the C# minor quartet?

[Lat-Literal]

Well I don't recognise your Britain! Every eating place and pub we visit (apart from Wetherspoons - top marks) seems to have music in the 'background', which always seems to be what we term a 'screaming woman'. Presume this is the current pop flavour of the month, in which case has nothing changed in the pop world over the last five years or so?

In answer to others, it is not always convenient to go elsewhere when you find that such music is present, though we have often turned round on the doorstep when it was possible. What about the places that wait until you are sat down and have placed a food order before they start the speakers up?

Yes, Don, I do know that "screaming woman". She is Melisma. That is a version based on distorted definition since the mid 1980s. We have discussed her before. There are many fellas in that category too. You will accept there are few jukeboxes and that in their day they tended to be loud? Perhaps there is a distinction between time and place so far as our eating experiences are concerned. These days, it is the occasional lunchtime - no evenings - and I choose the local corners that can with imagination be considered rural. No towns.

[Lat-Literal]

Yes, it is and this is where there is and will I imagine forever remain an irresoluable conflict between free speech, equality and the rest on the one hand and different viewopoints on what might and might not be of lasting value to society on the other.

The point about the free speech that Roger Scruton sought to defend in what I accept was a manner more controversial than would customarily be associated with him and his work is that, just as with rights come responsibilities, with free speech comes the courage to be able to listen to such speech but not necessarily be influenced by its content. Listening to a Holocaust denier does not obligate the listener to believe a word of what's being said by that denier. Like so much else in a world that values free speech, the listener needs to posses and call upon intelligence and powers of reasoning in order to be able to accept or reject what he/she hears and/or reads.


But in the world of free speech that he advocates, the restaurateur, his/her customers and others have as much right to disagree with any or all of his objections as he has to voice them in the first place.


Not necessarily; the mere fact that the hands and arms (and feet in the case of the organist) work to produce music doesn't mean that everyone who performs will have the same pairs of ears working in identical ways; if that were the case, every performer would be after precisely the same things and doubtless wish to perform the same repertoire.


How to let yourself down by the mere use of a single pronoun! - and yes, I think that, here, he did just that, however inadvertently. The fact remains that not all pieces of music or generic kinds of music have the same or similar amounts to say.


I'm not seeking here to impose my opinion but, having just been to the dentist, I can tell you that I really do NOT want to hear either a load of mindless "pop" junk of the most meaningless and contentless order or indeed the C# minor quartet while I await treatment or during it; I'm not denying that music can have therapeutic powers, but I just cannot bring myself to believe that such a manifestation of it is an example of how that can work in practice. Again, where's the rôle for that silence for whose value which Roger Scruton pleads and whose power in musical creation has been well understood by many composers, perhaps most notably the composer of the C# minor quartet?

Yes - thank you.

I would not wish to silence him even when he was saying that many others have nothing - that is nothing - to say. In contrast, it is very evident from his website that he has plenty. However, two relatives arrive for lunch and each is critical of the meal. The first was obliged to pay towards it and attend - we need not concern ourselves with why and how - and the second just turned up and on request paid some money towards it. That is the difference between a BBC licence payer and someone who decides to dine at Chez Gaga even if not realising ahead of time what it entails. There is required investment in the first and in the case of the second no such requirement but there is finger wagging.

I can recommend places where the loudest sound on a Tuesday is the munching of crisps by a red setter and ones with gardens where it is rustling leaves and twittering birds. Believe me, if everywhere round here was as Don describes, I would venture out even less than I do. What I don't expect is an experience identical to the one in my own home.

[ahinton]

Didn't Mr Screwtop support that Holocaust denier on grounds of freedom of speech? I may be mixing him up with someone else

It might have seemed like that (if I can be permitted to use the word "like"!) and I did hear the programme concerned, but I've sought to respond to this in my previous post here. What I think that he aimed to do there was support the Holocaust denier's right to express his/her views on that subject, however unpalatable they might be to most of us and however unsupported they are by incontrovertible evidence - in other words, he seems to be giving Holocaust deniers enough rope with which to hang themselves rather than seeking to have them silenced. Charles Ives famously wanted people to sit up and take their dissonce like a man and, however revoltingly sexist the manner of his expression on the subject was, he clearly preferred that people do that rather than deny it and push it under the aural carpet as though it didn't and/or shouldn't exist.

but free speech is one of his hobby horses, along with blood sports, English village life, the C0fE, and generally cap doffing to the squirearchy, whose demise he allegedly considers symptomatic of national decline.

Well, whatever I may empathise with in what he says and writes, blood sports are anathema to me and at least he supports my right to free speech in order to be able to say so, English village life is probably more on the decline than the squirearchy but, in itself, much of it's probably relatively harmless unless one believes what one sees on episodes of Midsomer Murders, the Church of England (which is probably not as much "the Conservative Party at prayer" as once it was portrayed as being) has to take its rightful place alongside other formalised Christian practices as well as those of other religious persuasions and agnosticism/atheism in our multi-cultural society and if I had the misfortune to be a squire I'd b****y well confiscate and destroy the cap of anyone who did me the offence of doffing it to me.

From this, it should be clear that I do not see eye to eye with Roger Scruton on everything but, insofar as his "Tyranny of Pop" should more realistically read "Tyranny of Ubiquitous Muzak", I can at least identify with much of what he says on that subject; he's not even indicriminately knocking all "pop" but specifically its most mindless rhythmically/melodically/harmonically challenged mani(n)festations and, in any case, what he seems most vociferously to inveigh against is the enforced hearing of any kinds of musical sound, mainly in public places, by those who have not asked in advance to have it foisted upon them. This is nothing new, of course; in his book Mi Contra Fa: The Immoralisings of a Machivellian Musician, Sorabji devoted an entire chapter to Modern Popular Music as part of a Plan of Progressive Besotment - and that was during the 1940s (the book was published in 1947 but the earlier date of authorship of this chapter is uncertain) - and it came from a composer who thought highly enough of the songs of Cole Porter to distinguish their value (as he perceived it) from those of George Gershwin.

It seems to me that the thrust of Scruton's argments centre on the force-feeding of musical noises, many of which are very slender rhythmically/melodically/harmonically, upon people who have not actively sought them in those places where they are so often to be encountered; the implication here is of the wilfully intended dumbing-down of its victims' general response mechanisms that its near-ubiuquitous public presence is arguably designed to help bring about and, insofar as that is indeed the case, I cannot argue with his points. When Elliott Carter once deplored being regaled with "muzak" in hotel elevators, he was asked how he would feel if he heard any of his own when travelling in one, to which he replied that he'd press the red emergency button immediately; when I hear Schönberg's First Chamber Symphony or D minor String Quartet, potted highlights from Die Soldaten or the Fourth Symphony of Shostakovich forced into my ears like so many supererogatory ear-drops upon entering a shopping mall, I'll let you know, but I can guarantee in advance that I will welcome it about as little as I would any other sounds that someone wishes to force upon me there.

[Lat-Literal]

It might have seemed like that (if I can be permitted to use the word "like"!) and I did hear the programme concerned, but I've sought to respond to this in my previous post here. What I think that he aimed to do there was support the Holocaust denier's right to express his/her views on that subject, however unpalatable they might be to most of us and however unsupported they are by incontrovertible evidence - in other words, he seems to be giving Holocaust deniers enough rope with which to hang themselves rather than seeking to have them silenced. Charles Ives famously wanted people to sit up and take their dissonce like a man and, however revoltingly sexist the manner of his expression on the subject was, he clearly preferred that people do that rather than deny it and push it under the aural carpet as though it didn't and/or shouldn't exist.


Well, whatever I may empathise with in what he says and writes, blood sports are anathema to me and at least he supports my right to free speech in order to be able to say so, English village life is probably more on the decline than the squirearchy but, in itself, much of it's probably relatively harmless unless one believes what one sees on episodes of Midsomer Murders, the Church of England (which is probably not as much "the Conservative Party at prayer" as once it was portrayed as being) has to take its rightful place alongside other formalised Christian practices as well as those of other religious persuasions and agnosticism/atheism in our multi-cultural society and if I had the misfortune to be a squire I'd b****y well confiscate and destroy the cap of anyone who did me the offence of doffing it to me.

From this, it should be clear that I do not see eye to eye with Roger Scruton on everything but, insofar as his "Tyranny of Pop" should more realistically read "Tyranny of Ubiquitous Muzak", I can at least identify with much of what he says on that subject; he's not even indicriminately knocking all "pop" but specifically its most mindless rhythmically/melodically/harmonically challenged mani(n)festations and, in any case, what he seems most vociferously to inveigh against is the enforced hearing of any kinds of musical sound, mainly in public places, by those who have not asked in advance to have it foisted upon them. This is nothing new, of course; in his book Mi Contra Fa: The Immoralisings of a Machivellian Musician, Sorabji devoted an entire chapter to Modern Popular Music as part of a Plan of Progressive Besotment - and that was during the 1940s (the book was published in 1947 but the earlier date of authorship of this chapter is uncertain) - and it came from a composer who thought highly enough of the songs of Cole Porter to distinguish their value (as he perceived it) from those of George Gershwin.

It seems to me that the thrust of Scruton's argments centre on the force-feeding of musical noises, many of which are very slender rhythmically/melodically/harmonically, upon people who have not actively sought them in those places where they are so often to be encountered; the implication here is of the wilfully intended dumbing-down of its victims' general response mechanisms that its near-ubiuquitous public presence is arguably designed to help bring about and, insofar as that is indeed the case, I cannot argue with his points. When Elliott Carter once deplored being regaled with "muzak" in hotel elevators, he was asked how he would feel if he heard any of his own when travelling in one, to which he replied that he'd press the red emergency button immediately; when I hear Schönberg's First Chamber Symphony or D minor String Quartet, potted highlights from Die Soldaten or the Fourth Symphony of Shostakovich forced into my ears like so many supererogatory ear-drops upon entering a shopping mall, I'll let you know, but I can guarantee in advance that I will welcome it about as little as I would any other sounds that someone wishes to force upon me there.

I wonder if there is a difference in perception depending on who it is doing the forcing? In the 1970s, we would all dress up - the men in jackets and ties and the women in evening dresses - for a bit of rump or sirloin, generally scorched, at a Berni or a Schooner "Inn". The so-called dividing line between pub and "restaurant" was that the latter was on some sort of suspended wooden rampart that was open at all sides. Just below it, one Joe Bloggs would be bashing away at a fruit machine. Another would be sticking money into a box for a third Abba song or more likely something heavy rock. Mostly we accepted that it was two distinct worlds although both were in the same place. They, of course, were also customers unlike those who pipe music "in" and are management and/or staff. These days I need to have a table in a corner, a seat looking towards a window and space between me and the push and shove of the general throng. But even I find it crackers that in all of the elbow barging and mobile phone conversation on an average train, individuals moan loudest about a slight sound of treble or bass leaked from a personal music system. I would have thought those who use them should be congratulated for a degree of containment.

[ahinton]

I wonder if there is a difference in perception depending on who it is doing the forcing? In the 1970s, we would all dress up - the men in jackets and ties and the women in evening dresses - for a bit of rump or sirloin, generally scorched, at a Berni or a Schooner "Inn". The so-called dividing line between pub and "restaurant" was that the latter was on some sort of suspended wooden rampart that was open at all sides. Just below it, one Joe Bloggs would be bashing away at a fruit machine. Another would be sticking money into a box for a third Abba song or more likely something heavy rock. Mostly we accepted that it was two distinct worlds although both were in the same place. They, of course, were also customers unlike those who pipe music "in" and are management and/or staff. These days I need to have a table in a corner, a seat looking towards a window and space between me and the push and shove of the general throng. But even I find it crackers that in all of the elbow barging and mobile phone conversation on an average train, individuals moan loudest about a slight sound of treble or bass leaked from a personal music system. I would have thought those who use them should be congratulated for a degree of containment.

I did not seek to suggest - nor, I suspect, did Roger Scruton (although of course I cannot speak for him on this or anything else) - that other kinds intrusive noise in public environments such as those that you mention are in any sense necessarily more desirable or less offensive in principle than enforced "muzak"; the differences between them, however, include but are by no means limited to the fact that the other such noises are made by individuals and add up to something larger than each individual noise-maker might have sought wilfully to intend, whereas piped "muzak" is the outcome of a deliberate and calculated cynical ploy on the part of those who foist it upon its victims. That difference is, I think, fundamental; add to it the fact that incessant piped "muzak" with very little rhythmic/melidoc/harmonic content ultimately risks undermining its victims responses to real music that challenges the ear, heart and mind and the fundamentaltiy of that difference becomes yet more apparent, I think. Music is designed to appeal to and challenge the emotions and the intellect; "muzak" seems intended to do pretty much the opposite.