Unquantifiable

Why I think music can't be rated

You may have noticed that I've been talking about music a little more lately. I try to shake up the variety by doing that sort of thing. As this is primarily a reviewal page, you might be weirded out by the fact that I never attach any finite numbers to songs, albums, whatever. As I touched on during my rant over the Grammys a few months back, I'm against the whole idea of deciding how good or how bad music is.
There's really no established criteria for rating music. I have no idea how those ass-clowns over at the Grammys decide which songs are better and which are worse but they apparently have some sort of secret formula that they input the music into which produces an answer.

This isn't fun! This is science!

Now, obviously, I know that that's not what they do but in all honesty, how they choose the winners is a complete mystery to me. I think that it's immoral to stamp numbers onto music based on how "good" it is. Why? Because music is an art.
They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that couldn't be more accurate when you're talking about music. Testament to this is the fact that music itself is so diverse. How does one even compare two totally different genres and pick the better song?

Decide which is better. Start by comparing and contrasting.

However insanely different those two songs are, they're both music no matter how you look at it. You may not be crazy about Daft Punk (because I know there's no way you don't dig some Goregrind), but there's no denying that simply it's existence goes to show that someone out there is, otherwise the music wouldn't exist.

While it's true, however, the way you were raised has a direct effect on the music you enjoy, your taste is generally out of your conscientious control. It's a bit like fetishes in that you don't choose 'em, they choose you.

Weirdos.

But to digress, music is an art and I don't think DiVinci ever competed with anyone to make the prettiest canvas. Furthermore, rating music takes away from the creative ocean that is music. You have a group of famous, respected judges take a bunch of songs and say, "Yes, this is good. We like that." what do you think everyone is going to try and do?

Make that happen again so they can get a big shiny sticker on their latest single.

Art isn't a contest, it's a form of take-it-or-leave-it expression and music is no different. Even though genres like pop are based on doing the exact opposite of what I'm talking about here, it still applies. Giving music a rigid this-is-good outline is what made the Baroque period an imaginative wasteland. With music, you have to be willing to create and experiment and try things that have never been done before. Music is the penultimate of creativity.

Therefore, saying "You like things I don't like. Your music sucks." is bullshit and makes no sense in my brain. It's one thing to joke about that sort of thing over the internet but it's another to act that way in anything official and I'm looking at you again, Grammys.

Because this is what music is all about.

Music is an art. An unquantifiable idea that cultures have created and personalized over all of human history and while I still think that you're a fucking idiot for listening to Grindcore, you can do what you want because, hey, it's your fetish. In music there are no laws, no truths and no right and wrong. There are only opinions and ambiguity.