Is a simple scale intrinsically “better” than a complex pattern? Is a song with lyrics intrinsically “better” than one without? Does swearing or topic in a song make it intrinsically “worse” than one without it? Is a meal for $110 at a fancy hotel intrinsically “better” than a $20 one you make yourself at home?

You might be in the mood for a piece of filet mignon at the house, and not a hamburger at The Four Seasons in Jakarta.

Opinions and judgements about subjective subjects, like this one do not have an answer.

If I’m in the mood to listen to somebody bang on a pan with a rock and scream, it’s better, to me, at that point in time, than Der Ring des Nibelungen Perhaps you’re not that fond of opera or listening to one for that length of time either, or you like to listen to your child hit a pan with a rock and scream.

Now, you can have panels of judges coming to a conclusion on music based on some criteria or by judging popularity, as in American Idol for example. I can’t really stand the bands usually on there, but certainly I can appreciate judging them on how they would do in the popular music scene or that they have a good voice or whatever. Even if I don’t like their music. But that doesn’t make it bad or good in and of itself.

For other anecdotal evidence of old songs with ridiculous lyrics, I’d like to submit two Stephen Foster classics that are state songs - for KY (”My Old Kentucky Home”) and FL (”[Way Down Upon The] Swannee River”).

What’s most frustrating to me is that I occasionally find a musician or group that I think is worth something, and by album 3 or 4, they either break-up or start putting out trash - as if they didn’t wear protection from MQDD (”musical quality decline disease”) the last time they went to the recording studio.

Most disheartening to me is the lack of originality in entertainment - be it “sampling” in music or resorting to making 70s TV shows into movies.

as needed

8 has something called grammar

7 does not

8 it not patently offensive

7 is not

8 has no recognizable English language, as determined by the Webster dictionary

7 has both English language and a story

since quality can be suggested to be a proxy for information content, and since there is no known information in 7, 8 must be higher qualtiy

May I submit these lyrics from a #1 song in 1939, as performed by Mr. Kay Kyser:

Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool
Swam three little fishies and a mama fishie too
“Swim” said the mama fishie, “Swim if you can”
And they swam and they swam all over the dam
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
And they swam and they swam all over the dam

“Stop” said the mama fishie, “or you will get lost”
The three little fishies didn’t wanna be bossed
The three little fishies went off on a spree
And they swam and they swam right out to the sea
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
And they swam and they swam right out to the sea

“Whee!” yelled the little fishies, “Here’s a lot of fun
We’ll swim in the sea till the day is done”
They swam and they swam, and it was a lark
Till all of a sudden they saw a shark!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Till all of a sudden they saw a shark!

“Help!” cried the little fishies, “Gee! look at all the whales!”
And quick as they could, they turned on their tails
And back to the pool in the meadow they swam
And they swam and they swam back over the dam
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem Chu!
And they swam and they swam back over the dam.

They certainly don’t write ‘em like that anymore! I also have it on good authority that the above-described escape occurred on a snowy day from a Vermont dam…

No, old music is not necessarily good music, or even better music, than new music. But any old music, picked randomly, has a higher chance of being good than any new music.

Yes, lyrics matter. I went to the site ohhla.com, which compiles lyrics on modern songs, and then clicked on one song randomly. Here is a snippet.

Artist: Ese Daz (Spanish F.L.Y.) f/ Fingazz
Album:  Pocos Pero Locos: Soundtrack
Song:   Play On

Rolled up, new Coup, brand new, all blue
Chrome shoes, hey dudes, and I make fools bow
Poppin' my collar, you better holler right now
Pimp for life
I want my dollars right now
Smokin' that chaffey, I rolls with my heat
Bitches see me rollin', tryin' to flag and stop me
So they can tell the homegirls that they roll with papi
A Mexican with braids, so that's why they jock me
I changed up the game, now they're trying to copy
Hatin' so much, that they're trying to pop me
They do it too sloppy and they can't stop me
From stompin' 'em like a bitch in the hotel lobby (Putos!)
That's how we roll
In my area, fool
We bury ya, fool
Just for tryin' to caring, you fool
I'm tellin' you fools
Don't try to fuck with us (Heh, ha)
Don't try to fuck with us

True, nothing about snow in Vermont there.

Of course, I fully expect that you can search for a modern song that has better lyrics than any song sun by Bing, but that does not disprove my contention.

What of modern lyrics that are funny or border on poetry? I think, on lyrics and expression alone, the past 30 years can best some of the wheezing ballads of point 1 on your grid.

I don’t remember Bing Crosby singing about anything deeper then a Connecticut snow.

I could be wrong and I don’t know if lyrics figure into your music debate.

I like Duffey’s Tavern and Box 13. The former often had Bob Crosby’s band. Not wonderful, but it wasn’t awful. But I think that if you were to hear music in public somewhere in 1940 (or so), the chance that it would be better than any you’d hear today would be high.

Mr Oregon,

Let’s see. I’d agree with you about “taste” if you can say that the difference in appreciating a simple scale played on Schroeder’s piano and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #1 is just a matter of taste, and that one piece was not intrinsically better than the other.

Briggs

Taste.

What makes my spaghetti better than that served at Spaghetti Factory?

Taste.

What makes a woman prefer sweats, rather than a dress?

Taste. But if you reverse the questions, the answer remains the same. Taste.

If we went back a thousand years, would a music preference curve be best described as a “hockey stick”? And if so, what would it prove…if anything? Does my love of Bach and Debussy simply serve as statistical outliers? Would, or better yet, should a preference curve be smooth?

I’m a fan of old-time radio and have listened to many hours of shows like “The Great Gildersleeve,” Fred Allen, Jack Benny, “Duffy’s Tavern,” and so on. Many of these shows featured a musical interlude with what I assume is a representative popular song of the era. And man do they suck.

Replacing today’s bad music with the bad music of the 1930s and 40s would not do anything for me. And the supermarket where I buy my toilet paper has not so bad music, with classic Motown, rock from the 50s and 60s, and occasional newer tunes from the likes of Basia and Swing out Sister. Bad older music would definitely be worse.