What the fuck does "challenging music" even means?
A lot of reviewers often use this term, like "this record challenges the listener", "you need to enjoy being challenged", etc.
What the literal fuck? How does music challenge people?
Is humanity finally going insane in its last moments of existence?
Challenging music
Jonathan Roberts
Other urls found in this thread:
nytimes.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
soundcloud.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
twitter.com
Eli Cox
Ok, I'll bite. Try to listen to a Kanye West album. That shit is challenging.
Brandon Hill
Im sorry, I cant stand nigger music
Lincoln Brooks
I've listened to a few Kanye West tracks because people gush about him so much. It's just trendy pop music with rap, nothing "challenging" about it.
Then again, I'm not even sure what "challenge" means. Nobody can "win" or "lose" when listening to music, it's not a game.
Kevin Peterson
>implying all music isn't indirectly nigger music
Jose Gonzalez
Well then, therein is the challenge.
Andrew Myers
Challenging is just a buzzword for being even slightly experimental by people who don't listen to experimental music
Logan Rogers
Retarded Jew-speak.
Christian Nguyen
Some notes go in places where notes shouldn't belong. Those notes that don't belong birth other notes that should belong either. Then a family of notes that don't belong spawn, until it's a colony, a swarm, a collective. Soon, the notes that belong start to die off, starting with the elder. The wise, sage-like bloomer ends his sentiments with a fade and a twinkle. The second one knows his fate as well, and he perishes away. The third, fourth and fifth see their future carried off by a floating heart. Soon, the notes grab on to the hearts, too. Then, the notes that fit the puzzle evaporate under the snails hiding under the cracks of your ears. It all ends into beginnings. The notes that intruded usurp the elders' place, and balance is restored... until a note wanders into the unknown.
Levi Torres
This. It's just a way to give music with shit messages a free pass.
>You don't like this song that tells the youth the they should have a lot of promiscuous sex and do a lot of drugs? You need to accept it! This song is challenging you to open your mind!
Anthony Williams
>Some notes go in places where notes shouldn't belong. Those notes that don't belong birth other notes that should belong either.
This user knows.
Like a said, retarded Jew-speak.
nytimes.com
An actual challenge is to climb the Everest or to listen to Der Ring des Nibelungen, not to submit yourself to marxist aesthetics or other forms of kikery.
Eli Ross
>or to listen to Der Ring des Nibelungen
But that's beautiful, there's nothing challenging about enjoying that work of art.
Unless you mean actually being informed and understand all the religious/mythical themes Wagner incorporated in his works, but I still don't consider that a "challenge"; you can still listen to it and enjoy it even if you don't know about the concept themes or understand the lyrics.
Aaron Long
there is pop music that uses standard musical conventions (4/4 time signature, familiar instrumentation, verse/chorus/verse structure)
this music is very easy for most people to listen to because its sound rarely deviates far from the established formula
there is other music that doesn't rely on these conventions much or at all, artists like Captain Beefheart, Faust, Jon Hassell, The Residents, Slint (just to name a few), or entire genres like noise.
these artists/styles would be considered "challenging" because they stray far from normal conventions and sound too abrasive or unusual for people who are accustomed to radio-viable pop music
Lincoln Jones
I understand your point and that's probably what reviewers meant, but I still think it's kind of weird to talk about "challenge".
You either like something, or you don't.
I was just watching a memetano video about experimental music and how he says he enjoys noise because he feels like he's being "challenged".... and I thought to myself, wait, I actually enjoyed noise from the first time I listened to my first Merzbow track back in early 2000s, I never felt "challenged".
To me you either like something, or you don't.
You can understand music better, for example if you study music theory. I get that, that's fine. But music doesn't "challenge" people, you will never lose (or win) by simply listening to music.
But it's not only the semantics what bothers me, as I said, the concept of "I like this thing because it "challenges" me" seems the snobbiest thing ever. If you don't enjoy noise then don't listen to it, prick. Noise is not trying to "challenge" you.
Justin Watson
Eh, I guess I have a different view of what is meant by "challenging"
I don't see it as a win/lose thing, as if it's a competition to see who can understand the music, I see it as "I didn't even know this kind of music was possible so I wasn't sure how to feel about it upon the first listen". That being said, the term probably does get applied to music that really is not "challenging" to any listener that is loosely familiar with semi-experimental music.
Jaxson Fisher
Don't expect to get it the first time around. That's the challenge, it takes dedication and commitment
youtube.com
youtube.com
A (((challenge))) is different, it means:
"be-a-good-goy-and-listen-to-this-shit"
It implies that, somehow, you're defective and need to comply. There's always that sanctimonious factor.
Hunter Barnes
im not denying that the music criticism field is left leaning but i think you are significantly overstating the use of challenging as a way of saying "these are radical politics that are probably 2edgy4u"
Brayden Bell
soundcloud.com
get challenged faggots
Gabriel Williams
Scott Walker - SDSS14+13B (Zercon, a Flagpole Sitter)
Alexander Jenkins
>caring about messages
>at all
fuck outta here mom
David Flores
>implying all black music isn't completely derivative of western classical genres
Eli Watson
challenging is a buzzword for 'shitty music you force yourself to like'
Easton Nguyen
i agree
also, any novels more complicated than Harry Potter are actually just shit that people force themselves to like
Elijah Williams
Here is some music that will challenge you:
youtube.com
youtube.com
>How does music challenge people?
by making them experience something they don't find pleasant, or presenting them with something that cannot immediately be understood. The challenge comes from the composer: "here, I wrote this piece of music, I challenge you to sit through it, enjoy it and get something out of it". Listeners that do not enjoy being challenged will immediately turn it off as the music is unpleasant or doesn't meed their expectations of what music should be.
Listeners who enjoy a challenge will attempt to make sense of the piece; reading the programme notes, learning why the composer wrote the piece, learning about the theory used to create the piece or the way the piece is performed. In this way they learn as part of the challenge; they discover that a kind of music they really didn't enjoy at first will, after some exposure and background information, become enjoyable.
Bartok is another composers whose music can be challenging, but it is well worth sticking through as his music is incredibly beautiful and masterfully constructed (his economy of material is up there with the best).
This piece for example:
youtube.com
When I first listened to it I thought it was "tough listening / difficult listening", but after a while I came to enjoy the moods, rhythms, the harmony, the way the material develops, everything about the piece. It became one of my favorite string quartets. Thus I rose to the challenge presented by the music.