Favorite vs. Best

[Guest Speed Racer]

Hahaha, I think I was a bit misunderstood. I was trying to say, as Beltmann has (and have gone home sick with a head cold, if that helps ) that not all boxes weigh equally, which is exactly why logical cases for the "best" music can never be fully argued. That being said, I do believe that a universal "best" has somehow worked itself out over the course of time.

 

 

Nevertheless, 12-bar blues still sounds a lot more "right" than 13 or 15 or 3 bar blues.

[Beltmann]

...which is exactly why logical cases for the "best" music can never be fully argued.

Yeah. That also points towards the significance of subjectivity when discussing art. Not only is objectivity impossible, it's also not even particularly desirable. You're right that some common understandings about how and why art works have emerged over time, but even those "standards" don't mean much in the unique moment created between an individual work and an individual spectator. I remember Pauline Kael once chastised some fellow critics for their "saphead objectivity." What she meant, I think, is that art matters most in terms of what is exchanged between artist and viewer, the canon be damned. When we suppress those personal responses in favor of "objectivity"--when we deny our own personality, experiences, and biases--we suppress the very things that help us make meaning in the presence of art. In other words, we deprive the experience of its primary reason to exist.

 

This is not to say that history, academics, and science have no place in the equation. But those things should be used to help us refine and better comprehend our own subjective reactions, and perhaps develop more sophisticated subjective reactions, not steer us towards some mythical Land of Objectivity.