Hendrix: Classic or Dud?

MUCH OF THE WORLD OVER TIME: "Hendrix, the tragically cut short legend, the greatest guitarist ever, the master visionary of rock and roll, etc. etc."

YOUNGER ME: "Mm."

(eventually hears songs along the way, some of the albums, etc.)

YOUNGER ME: "Huh. Er, okay. Some good songs, yes."

(relistens over time)

NOT-AS-YOUNGER ME: "Well, you know, I can see more where others were listening in but still, I don't really want to listen to any of this all that much..."

(more or less the present day)

MUCH OF THE WORLD OVER TIME: "Hendrix, the tragically cut short legend, the greatest guitarist ever, the master visionary of rock and roll, etc. etc."

ME NOW: "Mm."

I do appreciate what you've said about why you like Hendrix above there, Ben -- I do find that very relevant! It says much more about the music than many commentaries on the man, as does Paul's take. I'm just not agreeing with you on Hendrix's end worth when it comes to me as a listener.

I will certainly say that I was rather flip in the initial exchange, but we were both dealing in oversimplifications of our thoughts on the matter, surely.

Even if VU could be credited with this breakthrough (and I haven't done enough research to make a judgment), it could hardly be considered as influential as Hendrix's innovations with the guitar. Sure there are a few (mostly poorly selling) "alternative" bands that take this approach, but you won't find many bands on the charts that combine pop structures with abstract noise. However, Hendrix's guitar innovations continue to be found all over the place (witness the popularity of nu-metal, for instance).

The greatness of hendrix lies in the fact that some of his solos are very nice rock-improv but he also wrote songs within that and combined w/studio trickery. I don't know abt specific innovations with the guitar but he got some amazing sounds out of it. Though that can be said for many guitarists in the last 30 years.

''Sure there are a few (mostly poorly selling) "alternative" bands that take this approach, but you won't find many bands on the charts that combine pop structures with abstract noise. However, Hendrix's guitar innovations continue to be found all over the place (witness the popularity of nu-metal, for instance).''

I think you can find the 'influence' of VU in many many indie bands (though it's not 'sister ray' it's more 'pale blue eyes' type things which i do not enjoy). From what I've heard nu-metal riffs are over- produced power chords which is not something Hendrix did.

I'm not saying that the charts dictate quality, but I think if we are going to debate influence, then the charts are as good a measure as any.

hendrix's stuff is 'psychedelic'. I've heard electric ladyland and 2CD band of Gypsys live set and there's hooks with improvisation and certain 'effects', and feedack but not just the two as you describe above, which is why I don't get your references to the charts.

The velvets had far more of a 'feedback assault' in them.

I wouldn't really call Hendrix's songs "pop hooks" and I don't think he had as much to do with the invention of metal as, say, Black Sabbath. Whereas there are thousands of bands that copied VU--as the cliche goes, they "invented indie" (unfortunately).

For one thing, Sabbath came much later. It seems pretty clear to me that Hendrix paved the way for the invention of heavy metal. It's debatable whether or not he invented it himself, but clearly the seeds are there in the way he structured his songs around highly- amplified, distorted blues-based riffs. This is the vein that later metal groups like Zeppelin and Sabbath would go on to mine.

There are pop hooks in Hendrix's songs, but perhaps they're harder to spot because they are mixed with blues and jazz as well. Songs like "Wind Cries Mary" or "Manic Depression" are catchy pop, among other things.

(I have never knowingly heard Jimi Hendrix, hah!)

I wish more indie bands (Ha! I almost inadvertently typed "blands".) used violas.

Pretty much the only thing we can debate. Or we get:

"I hate Hendrix"

"I disagree. He's great"

"Nothing to disagree about. I hate him."

No debate possible.

"I hate Hendrix."

"How can you? It says in this book here that he is the greatest ever! And it has facts 1-5 to prove it."

"Oh, sorry. I guess I must bow down under the weight of this independently verifiable evidence. Hendrix is a god."

(the secret of subjectivity in re ILM is not just allowing people to decide whether an artist is great or not but, more importantly allowing them to debate the criteria by which said greatness is judged. The arguments discussed upthread have little to do with the criteria a person listening might bring to a Hendrix record, and everything to do with what a historian might write down for the public good. This is what I object to)

When I said "taste in the public domain" I meant judgements on quality which seek to gain universal recognition. Which is clearly not what you thought it was - I grant there may be better ways of putting it, but I don't think its a totally incorrect usage of the term.

The notion of debate presupposes that, of two conflicting views, there is at least the potential for one to be more valid than the other.

If the value of art is determined purely subjectively, no sincerely held opinion is less valid than any other. So no meaningful debate is possible.

If we're going to accept your definition of "meaningful debate" (ie. debate which necessarily arrives at a consensus - though note that you've totally ignored the possibility of changing people's subjectively held opinions via persuasion) I guess I'll just have to sacrifice meaningful debate then. I'm sure that at least a couple of people on the boards will be happy to indulge me by participating in what is clearly pointless and mindless nattering.

the existence of ilm answers — indeed, completely dissolves — arf arf's argument

I don't think Arf Arf's arguments were defeated there, more that they were lost track of, ignored, etc.

I don't see any way out of his basic argument here. If Mr. Iconoclast says, "I hate Jimi Hendrix" and Mr. Canonical says, "I love Jimi Hendrix," there isn't really the grounds for an argument over whether something is or isn't the case (unless they want to question whether or not the other is telling the truth). There's no disagreement any more than there is if one person says they like chocolate and someone else says they like vanilla. Mr. I's "I hate Jimi Hendrix" and Mr. C's "I love Jimi Hendrix" can both be true assertions.

But if Mr. I says, "Jimi Hendrix, considered overall as an artist, sucks" and Mr. C says, "Jimi Hendrix, considered overall as an artist, is great," there is the basis for an argument. Both assertions can't be true.

I assume this is obvious enough, so where is the weakness is this argument that I am missing?

"True for me" I don't really get. I have read discussions of this way of speaking, pro and con, but it seems to me to turn the concept of truth on its head. (Are you asserting that something is the case or not, damn it?)

Despite basically agreeing, I think, with Arf Arf's argument, I'm also not that concerned about it when it comes to discussing music. I understand his frustration at seeing people constantly appear to be making assertions, but when called on it just saying that it means "true for me."

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I do agree that Arf Arf seems to underestimate the amount of meaningful discussion that can still take place if I says "I hate" and C says "I love." C. can always say (as someone here has said to Gareth), "But don't you see how similar Hendrix is to this other music you like?" Without asserting that Hendrix really is or isn't good, you can still try to lead someone to hear him more like you hear him.

mark s, could you come down from your laconic heights to explain this?

No it isn't.

Quite right, which is how Paul's and Ben's further explanations are most worthy. :-) There's a realm for negotiation and deeper understanding, though it need not necessarily mean a situation where 'both assertions can't be true' as you state, DeRayMi -- but that's the difference between us on the 'true for me' part.

Taking that more thoroughly -- I know that it's very VERY true for me that MBV are my favorite ever band and that "Soon" my favorite ever song. Nothing has made me feel like that before or since that first cataclysmic listen, and it still connects with something deep in my heart whenever I hear it since. But I can't force anyone to *agree* with me on that point, and I can't necessarily argue in depth to the point where someone will then agree with me by my arguments alone. They're going to have to hear the song and decide, and indeed, maybe my talking about the song will have given them a different perspective on it. But they could still disagree and not think much of the song -- and I'm not going to be wounded or annoyed with that assertion, because they'll have heard the song and decided, same way that I could hear something -- Belle and Sebastian, say, specifically one of the songs that nearly every fan really loves -- and still consider it to be bleah even though there are many, many passionate believers in said song's worth.

On the other hand, I am not convinced that there are objective aesthetic values, and Arf Arf's attempts (elsewhere) to account for this, isn't entirely convincing; though I think he takes it in the most plausible direction possible (an appeal to some sort of community consensus--but can "intersubjective" ever translate into "objective"?--rather than, say, an appeal to some sort of Fort Knox of Platonic ideals to back up the currency of our judgments!). Arf Arf's argument paraphrased above is an argument about the implications of language, assertion, etc. It doesn't prove that values are objective.

I'm not sure where that leaves me. As I've said before, I am a subjectivist, but am not particularly comfortable about that, partly because it sometimes seems that when we have these discussions we are arguing about the real properties of particular works of art, artists, etc.

I wonder if it's worth starting another new thread.

"purely subjective" = failing to understand meaning either of word "purely" or of "subjective" (or of "meaning", come to that) (or "value", since that's the word arfarf actually did use)

objectivity = kill the people and the meaning will remain? this is what dayremi sneakily means by "overall" eg considered beyond time and history => but hendrix's "greatness as an artist" has no meaning beyond time and history (at which point, being meaningless, the statements stop being contradictory)

in the real, non-mystical, temporal-historical world, "jimi hendrix is shit" requires a socius to provide meaning and/ or usage (if these are different) for the four words between the quotemarks = byebye "objectivity vs subjectivity"

arguments are not won by "demonstration of validity" (eg reduction to purely logical form) they're won when you have something pointed out to you that matters to you that you hadn't thought of, probably a relationship to an aspect of the world that you'd allowed yrself to get dissociated from the question under discussion (pure logic can't even ground arithmetic, the much-cited exemplar of so-called "objective knowledge") (haha kurt gödel co-owns those threads)

I'm not underestimating the amount of meaningful discussion you can have about music even if you are - for want of a better word - a "subjectivist". The example you give is a perfect illustration.

But I was focussing explictly upon the idea of debate about value. It is only meaningful if you believe that subjective judgements can be validated to some extent by non-subjective criteria. And here, non-subjective criteria can only be the opinion of other people, either in the mass (in which case great art and popular art is the same thing) or a subset of the population agreed by consensus to have "good taste". Which is why I objected to the notion of debate being reduced in value if it has reference to "taste in the public domain": in fact it can only have any meaning at all if it has reference to "taste in the public domain".

I still don't understand your point.

objectivity = kill the people and the meaning will remain? this is what dayremi sneakily means by "overall" eg considered beyond time and history =>

I appreciate being credited with sneakiness, but I don't think I was being sneaky. I was trying to find some way to make sure that no one could say both statements could in fact be true. Even Aristotle qualifies saying that the same statement can't be both true and false, by adding "in the same respect," or something of that sort. That's what I had in mind. (Hendrix could rule technically, but suck in terms of expressiveness or creativity, or something of that sort. That's what I had in mind.)

Logic is not the only consideration in philosophical debates, but it should be given some credit. It may not win the war, but philosophical debaters generally agree to acknowledge that it can win specific battles. To jetisson the importance of logic is, in my view, to no longer be doing philosophy*. But again, that's not to say that everything that matters in philosophical argument is reducible to logic, something I definitely don't belive.

Your remaining points I need to think over. I don't think Arf Arf is appealing to anything atemporal or mystical, though.

*--I suppose you could reply: who said anything about doing philosophy?

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mark s, if it makes you feel any better, I have a headache as well.

i have no plan to jettison logic, but 'in the same respect" is a weasel phrase, but it just hides the thing you actually want to discuss inside "same" or "respect" (or possibly "in" but NOT "the", phew): when you translate ordinary language into logical form, you're always sedimenting assumptions along the way, and contrasting versions of this translations are a great of flushing out said assumptions, but the conclusion (the "victory") comes with the production of the forgotten-suppressed-overlooked stuff, not the logical contradiction itself. That's just a tool (I mean, it's a great one): for example, the proof by non-contradiction of the converse of the parallelism postulate in Euclid of the existence of geometries in which said postulate didn't obtain wasn't considered interesting or convincing until Lobachevsky and the Bolyais and Gauss and Reimann had all come up with their different maps (and with them, uses/meanings, mathematically speaking) of hyperbolic and parabolic geometry. The logical argument was the start. The arguments against Cantor's endless nested infinities didn't really bite, because despite the apparent contradictions (what does it mean to say one infinity is "bigger" than another), there were already practical uses/meanings for the distinction ahd the gradation. Brouwer's painstaking grounding of calculus on a method which DIDN'T involve "arithmetic" of infinitesimals was considered an irrelevant sideshow.

I am striving to render our headache objective.

objectivity = postponed until the conclusion of all arguments and plus the total course of this sorry veil of tears

The imprecision of language may be a problem (and I can see the difficulty with non subjective criteria since some metaphysicists would of course argue there is no such thing). But that doesn't mean that debate about aesthetic value doesn't have its own peculiar difficulties.

Taking the statement

"The Beatles music is better than the Beach Boys music"

The question I'm addressing is not "is this statement capable of proof" (I agree it is not, and assume that is common ground); but "does this statement have any meaning whatsoever".

The logical conclusion of a purely subjectivist position (and I don't like the language either but nevertheless I think the meaning is clear enough) is "no".

Which is fine, I don't have any problem with a subjectivist position sincerely believed, with all the implications that has for what can be validly discussed, and proper respect for other opinions.

What I object to is people hypocritically adopting a dogmatically subjectivist position when it suits them (usually to reject the notion that some other point of view - the Canon, music magazines - may be more authoritative than theirs); but feeling perfectly free most of the parade their "good taste" and disrespect the taste of others.

Some kind of evaluation must precede argument or there would be no basis for it. Admittedly argument can alter valuation, but only if you believe the argument has meaning (and the concept of aesthetic value has meaning). The logical conclusion of a subjectivist position is that you believe neither of these things.

ned to thread i suppose, and NO PRIVATE LANGUAGES mr raggett!!

Ran into a Hendrix cd lot on the Bay at a good price, so got a bunch of the recent live remasters in a single shot, including a couple I never had before.

So for the last three weeks I have been on a pretty big dive into Jimi James.

First, for all the crap his sister and they get, I do have to say that Eddie Kramer has done a good job using modern tools to get pretty lush mixes out of these 60s recordings. Cheese ball marketing and some of those studio demos probably should have been left on the shelf, but these live recordings are fairly well done.

Miami Pop 68 was a new one for me and it is one of the tighter Experience performances.

Forum release is much better sounding than the Reprise one from 90s. Got to wonder how much software used, even if remodeled it is fairly seamlessly done. That was a good show anyway.

Atlanta Pop I had before and parts of it I always thought was some of my favorites, especially that ‘Here My Train A Coming’. I’ve got it planned in my head to listen to it and Allman Brothers Atlanta Pop as road trip soundtrack some long drive this coming summer.

Berkeley I had before but never caught me as a great show, as he had some tuning issues but in this few listens - I Have to admire opening the show basically developing material on stage. That Machine Gun with Mitch is pretty hot. I Don’t Live Today is grebt.

Winterland (highlights single disc)…I always really liked the old Ryko disc, but this single disc is all killer and no filler. Sound was good but this one is excellent. I’d say a definite recommendation to check out.

This always happens in movies, and I guess most people don't notice, but it can be distracting for me when they take a poster of a Jimi Hendrix exhibit from 1992 (with the kind of art and design that screams '90s) and use it in a scene that happens in 1980.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq0LycNDU8o