Pop Culture's Limits

[mjzee]

There's been some badmouthing of Terry Teachout here of late, but I think this essay is spot-on:

WSJ

(If the link doesn't work for you, try googling the thread's title.)

[AllenLowe]

I tend to agree with a lot of that but I would feel better if, under high art, he had mentioned Sonny Rollins, Duke Ellington, Charley Patton, Dasheill Hammiett and Gil Evans.

[JSngry]

I get what he's saying, but to me his tone sounds like somebody who equates complaining with having better taste.

[A Lark Ascending]

I get what he's saying, but to me his tone sounds like somebody who equates complaining with having better taste.

About as good a definition of a critic as I've come across.

**********************

I think he's right about contemporary media over-obsessing on the easily popular. But that's a by-product of a market-driven culture. What counts is what sells. You see it in the 'Arts' sections of UK newspapers and culture programmes which once were dominated by opera and classical music (not, to my mind, a good thing either) but now tend to aim for the resurrection of David Bowie or the social significance of Britney Spears (see this week's New Statesman; last week it was Lady Gaga) as a preference. Why, even high ranking politicians have been known to claim they have the Arctic Monkeys on their iPod!

My problem with his piece is that he still seems to want to segregate high art from popular culture. When to my mind they are a continuum (and a 3D one at that). Better to think of music that is not very complicated grading up to music that is very complicated (and sometimes the former would seem to be far more effective than the latter - given, at gunpoint, the choice of keeping your mid-20thC John Lee Hooker or Milton Babbitt CDs, what would you go for?). It'd be nice if the media would pay a bit more interest to that at the latter end because most of it isn't that complicated and could be very rewarding to considerably more people.

Of course the arts crowd constantly shoot themselves in the foot by insisting that the less obvious stuff is something quite separate, very hard and deserving of very special treatment. That might have worked in days gone by but without a return to the social structures of previous eras it just won't hold beyond that particular crowd. But I suspect, despite all their complaining, they quite like it that way. The complaining gives them the reassurance that they 'have better taste.'

Edited December 8, 2013 by A Lark Ascending

[John Litweiler]

OK, I won't send Teachout a copy of "Sundidos" to review.

[Chuck Nessa]

OK, I won't send Teachout a copy of "Sundidos" to review.

[paul secor]

Teachout's a guy who doesn't have much to say, but makes a living saying it anyway.

[Guy Berger]

So, if I were to take Teachout at face value**, would jazz fall into the "high art" category or the "popular culture" category?

**I think this essay is mostly (though not entirely) BS.

[Jazzmoose]

So, if I were to take Teachout at face value**, would jazz fall into the "high art" category or the "popular culture" category?

**I think this essay is mostly (though not entirely) BS.

Depends on his taste. He complains about pop culture limiting things, but obviously he's not against limiting, he just prefers to name the limits himself. Plus, he's one of a long list of people who apparently don't understand what the word "classical" means.