Noel Gallagher on Shakespeare - "*********** gibberish"

[TubbaBlubba]

The purpose of music is that it be pleasing to the ear. Lyrics are secondary.

Um, this depends on the song. Sure, lyrics are not important in some songs. But in others, they are AT LEAST as important as the melody. Take one of my favourite songs, Leonard Cohen's "First we take Manhattan". It would not be nearly as good if not for the extremely well-written, poetic lyrics.

 

[EGarrett]

Um, this depends on the song. Sure, lyrics are not important in some songs. But in others, they are AT LEAST as important as the melody. Take one of my favourite songs, Leonard Cohen's "First we take Manhattan". It would not be nearly as good if not for the extremely well-written, poetic lyrics.

Really. Ian Anderson, Roger Waters and many, many others would be very interested to hear that.

The sound without the words would still be music. The words without the sound would be poetry. Not music. So first of all, yes, lyrics are secondary. If you are producing poetry, with a musical accompaniment, then the words are most important and the accompaniment is secondary. This is just basic terms.

Furthermore, the purpose of music is to please the ear. That's why it developed as an art form. Human beings do things because they please them, ease pain or otherwise satisfy urges. The urge to learn, the rush of adrenaline, the urge to fuel to the body or procreate, etc. So basically all widespread patterns of human activity will emerge BECAUSE they serve a specific purpose to humans. In the case of music, it developed and became widespread because the sounds are pleasing to hear. Period.

You can put together some other random mishmash of noise and CALL it a song, but if it doesn't serve the purpose that music serves, you're not actually doing anything and won't accomplish much (by and large people won't buy it or spread it or applaud it etc etc., and the few who do will usually be doing it as an attempt to gain respect or social status by claiming to like it, this has been proven by those prank shows where they purposefully make bad or random art and get a small number of critics to claim it's great)...in the same way that you can start driving a car and SAY you're in a race, but if you're not actually competing with someone else to reach a point before they do, you're not actually doing it.

This a clear and logical explanation of what music is, and can actually, if you pay attention, be extended to art as a whole. Thus, maybe you can understand why calling a piece of music "pop" is an invalid criticism. People liking something, in and of itself, is not a testament to it being bad. What you're probably seeking to say is that it's unoriginal or cliched...but I'll stop there.

Also, Wonderwall, much like the rest of Oasis canon, is mediocre pop trash.

Re-read what I said in post 41 and post 69. More than a decade after the fact, Wonderwall was voted the best and second-best British song of all-time by separate polls. You can claim it's mediocre or trash but you have no basis...and I can say it's absolutely brilliant and have more to back that up.

 

[BobHaulk]

Pointing out that he is largely uneducated is not a personal attack, it's simply acknowledgement of reality.

As the Poet Laurette Peter Doherty said "You're so clever but clever ain't wise"

 

[gumboot]

Weird thread. A musician who has had some success doesn't like Shakespeare, or finds it hard to follow or whatever, and apparently we're supposed to care?

I quite like Oasis, but I'm generally inclined to judge art on my own tastes, not someone else's.

As for Shakespeare, I find I have little trouble understanding the language, and find the turn of phrase utterly beautiful. I certainly agree that Shakespeare is best performed (that is, after all, how it was intended to be experienced), however a word of warning; as you might expect the quality of the performance can make or break the experience for you.

Worse yet, there's a rather substantial sub-set of Shakespearean theatre types who insist on an awful, soul-less melodramatic style of delivery where the meaning and emotion of the play is totally lost in a blind circle-jerk to the language itself. Avoid such productions at all cost, because they are awful.

When you find a production with quality performance, in which the actors are actually thinking about what they're saying and how they're saying it, you'll find it much easier to appreciate and understand Shakespeare.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

The sound without the words would still be music. The words without the sound would be poetry. Not music. So first of all, yes, lyrics are secondary. If you are producing poetry, with a musical accompaniment, then the words are most important and the accompaniment is secondary. This is just basic terms.

Furthermore, the purpose of music is to please the ear. That's why it developed as an art form. Human beings do things because they please them, ease pain or otherwise satisfy urges. The urge to learn, the rush of adrenaline, the urge to fuel to the body or procreate, etc. So basically all widespread patterns of human activity will emerge BECAUSE they serve a specific purpose to humans. In the case of music, it developed and became widespread because the sounds are pleasing to hear. Period.

You can put together some other random mishmash of noise and CALL it a song, but if it doesn't serve the purpose that music serves, you're not actually doing anything and won't accomplish much (by and large people won't buy it or spread it or applaud it etc etc., and the few who do will usually be doing it as an attempt to gain respect or social status by claiming to like it, this has been proven by those prank shows where they purposefully make bad or random art and get a small number of critics to claim it's great)...in the same way that you can start driving a car and SAY you're in a race, but if you're not actually competing with someone else to reach a point before they do, you're not actually doing it.

This a clear and logical explanation of what music is, and can actually, if you pay attention, be extended to art as a whole. Thus, maybe you can understand why calling a piece of music "pop" is an invalid criticism. People liking something, in and of itself, is not a testament to it being bad. What you're probably seeking to say is that it's unoriginal or cliched...but I'll stop there.

Re-read what I said in post 41 and post 69. More than a decade after the fact, Wonderwall was voted the best and second-best British song of all-time by separate polls. You can claim it's mediocre or trash but you have no basis...and I can say it's absolutely brilliant and have more to back that up.

Victory by redefinition. How unexpected.

 

[hodgy]

The sound without the words would still be music. The words without the sound would be poetry. Not music.

The words in sound and / or meaning are often key elements in our enjoyment of the song.

 

[Damien Evans]

Victory by redefinition. How unexpected.

For his next trick, he'll declare himself to be "winning"

 

[EGarrett]

Victory by redefinition. How unexpected.

Read the post again and this time try to understand it so you can write a worthwhile reply. I'll give you a hint, the words "explanation" and "purpose" are key.

 

[VanillaCone]

My tuppence:

Shakespeare: Best playwright of his time, but a lot of his stuff sounds goofy today.

Oasis: A solid arena-rock band with some catchy tunes. On a scale from Vanilla Ice to Radiohead, they rate somewhere in the vicinity of Def Leppard.

Noel Gallagher: Kind of a jackass. His brother Liam is even worse.

 

[Piggy]

There needs to be an option between "World's Greatest" and "overly lauded".

How about "A true genius, but not better than Lope de Vega"?

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Read the post again and this time try to understand it so you can write a worthwhile reply. I'll give you a hint, the words "explanation" and "purpose" are key.

No. There are songs where the text is wholly key to the song being good (See: Just about any song by Cohen.) The songs would be just about equally good with any other decent arrangement.


What you're doing is redefining these songs into "Poetry with a musical arrangement", to exclude them from conventional definitions of music, and make your personal definition of music, which is in fact a subset of music, into the only member of that set.

 

[wollery]

I find it facinating that you continually try to back up the greatness of Wonderwall by reference to the fact that it was voted "greatest song of all time". This was a poll conducted by Virgin Radio, which had a total of fewer than 8,500 voters. Given that this is a top 100, and was a freeform poll, i.e. people simply sent in their 3 favourite songs, it's possible that Wonderwall received fewer than 500 votes! The following year they repeated the poll and Wonderwall was down to number 4, having been overtaken by Snow Patrol, Goo Goo Dolls and U2. In 2001 it was 22nd and in 2004 it was 19th. In other words what we have is a snapshot of a brief moment in time when the song became relatively more popular than other songs from the recent past, and its popularity then dropped off. And that's all it is, popularity. And not a very big test of popularity either.

So what you're attempting is an argument from popularity, which isn't much kop to start with, and a fairly poor measure of its popularity at that. But if that's the way you want to go then let's carry that on.

Almost 400 years after his death Shakespeare's plays are still amongst the most performed plays in theatre, and remain widely loved by performers and audiences alike. Google "the greatest plays of all time" and the lists you get back all have several Shakespeare plays in the top 20, and usually give a Shakespeare play as number one. Some of them have his plays at numbers 1, 2 and 3.

Even today Hollywood continues to make modern adaptations of his plays, many of which are critically acclaimed and highly popular.

So in terms of popularity Shakespeare was one of the most acclaimed artists of his time and that acclaim has lasted for 4 centuries. On the other hand we have Oasis, who were relatively successful for a short time, and whose popularity is already waning. When my son reaches his teens I'm certain that Oasis will mean no more to him than The Bay City Rollers did to me at that age.

But the real question is, why are you trying so hard to prop up the popularity of Wonderwall? Well, it's because you need that to prop up the validity of Noel Gallagher's opinion of Shakespeare. But the popularity of one song that he wrote is irrelevant to that. His opinion either has merit or it doesn't, and given that he isn't noted for either his use of language or his broad experience of the dramatic arts all we are left with is the opinion of someone who isn't really qualified to comment beyond his personal taste.

So Noel Gallagher doesn't like Shakespeare? Fine, I don't care, it makes no difference, Shakespeare will remain as popular as ever despite Noel's opinion, and Oasis will slide into obscurity as have so many other bands that were popular in their time.

 

[saraban]

I'm a Gallagherian. The theory that Liam went back in time and wrote the works of Shakespeare.

Probably the reason Noel's not too impressed.

 

[Sawbones79]

As for Shakespeare, I find I have little trouble understanding the language, and find the turn of phrase utterly beautiful. I certainly agree that Shakespeare is best performed (that is, after all, how it was intended to be experienced), however a word of warning; as you might expect the quality of the performance can make or break the experience for you.

Worse yet, there's a rather substantial sub-set of Shakespearean theatre types who insist on an awful, soul-less melodramatic style of delivery where the meaning and emotion of the play is totally lost in a blind circle-jerk to the language itself. Avoid such productions at all cost, because they are awful.

When you find a production with quality performance, in which the actors are actually thinking about what they're saying and how they're saying it, you'll find it much easier to appreciate and understand Shakespeare.

I've been to both kinds of performance, and I think the "Shakespeare read as poetry" has its charm too, though I won't disagree on a well-directed play being a lot nicer in the long run.

 

[Lamuella]

Apologies for dragging up a 2 month old quote, but...

Until this thread, I'd never heard of Gallagher or Oasis.

Nothing said here has given me the slightest curiosity about them.

I seriously doubt I've been missing anything.

As for someone or other claiming that Oasis wrote the best song he ever heard, I suggest that he get out more.

This statement speaks more to his lack of musical experience and taste than it does to the value of an Oasis song.

there's something ironic about someone starting by boasting about not having heard of a band and ending by lambasting someone for their lack of "musical experience"

 

[Modified]

]These are all things that can be pointed to and described--if there's something effable there. Maybe the song's greatness is ineffable?

It's certainly catchy. Otherwise, it seems fairly bland to me, and I find it slightly annoying for some reason.

 

[EGarrett]

No. There are songs where the text is wholly key to the song being good (See: Just about any song by Cohen.) The songs would be just about equally good with any other decent arrangement.


What you're doing is redefining these songs into "Poetry with a musical arrangement", to exclude them from conventional definitions of music, and make your personal definition of music, which is in fact a subset of music, into the only member of that set.

Music can HAVE lyrics, but lyrics are not essential to it. If for some reason it was wholly impossible to add words to a song, music would still exist because certain arrangements of abstract sounds are pleasing to hear. Hell, even animals and babies who are incapable of understanding language can still enjoy and be stimulated by certain songs. That's what music does...that's why it exists...that's the purpose of it. In order to discuss the quality of an achievement, you need to first define what the goal of it was. This is especially true of artistic achievement, even though most people who try to discuss it don't seem to realize that.

I find it facinating that you continually try to back up the greatness of Wonderwall by reference to the fact that it was voted "greatest song of all time".

You're off on the wrong foot already. As an offhand example that echoes my own appreciation of the song, I mentioned that it was voted the greatest British song and the second greatest British song by TWO separate polls, a decade AFTER the song was released. These are important distinctions because two polls limits the amount of bias and the time period that had passed limits the chance that the polls were simply naming the newest hot song as the best ever.

I take care when I state things and I don't do so sloppily, so please don't make sloppy strawman versions of my statements and respond to them as though that is what I said. It wastes time when we have to correct each other.

This was a poll conducted by Virgin Radio, which had a total of fewer than 8,500 voters. Given that this is a top 100, and was a freeform poll, i.e. people simply sent in their 3 favourite songs, it's possible that Wonderwall received fewer than 500 votes! The following year they repeated the poll and Wonderwall was down to number 4, having been overtaken by Snow Patrol, Goo Goo Dolls and U2. In 2001 it was 22nd and in 2004 it was 19th. In other words what we have is a snapshot of a brief moment in time when the song became relatively more popular than other songs from the recent past, and its popularity then dropped off. And that's all it is, popularity. And not a very big test of popularity either.

I offhandedly mentioned this because I noticed it on the wikipedia page for the song. If I wanted to build an actual case for the song's mass appreciation, I could do that. Like for example, the polls were separate, by Virgin Radio AND Q Magazine...the album on which the song debuted was the second-biggest selling album in British history behind only 'Sgt. Peppers' by the Beatles...it's one of the most covered songs in history (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery)...and so on and so forth. That's from 30 seconds of googling.

So what you're attempting is an argument from popularity, which isn't much kop to start with, and a fairly poor measure of its popularity at that. But if that's the way you want to go then let's carry that on.

If the question is whether people like something, then argument from popularity is actually the preferred and proper form of proof. Please review your logical fallacies and make sure you know when they do or don't apply.

Almost 400 years after his death Shakespeare's plays are still amongst the most performed plays in theatre, and remain widely loved by performers and audiences alike. Google "the greatest plays of all time" and the lists you get back all have several Shakespeare plays in the top 20, and usually give a Shakespeare play as number one. Some of them have his plays at numbers 1, 2 and 3.

That's nice. No one is questioning Shakespeare's talent. It's paragraphs like this that make me realize that people are paying no attention to most of what I say or most of what is relevant. The issue with Shakespeare's plays are that the language is outdated, rendering them less enjoyable to most normal people...which is what Gallagher meant with the term "gibberish." People are getting butthurt about it because they lazily interpret that to mean he was insulting Shakespeare's talent...whereas if you actually look a few lines further into the quote, you'll see that's not the case. Sigh.

Even today Hollywood continues to make modern adaptations of his plays, many of which are critically acclaimed and highly popular.

So in terms of popularity Shakespeare was one of the most acclaimed artists of his time and that acclaim has lasted for 4 centuries. On the other hand we have Oasis, who were relatively successful for a short time, and whose popularity is already waning. When my son reaches his teens I'm certain that Oasis will mean no more to him than The Bay City Rollers did to me at that age.

But the real question is, why are you trying so hard to prop up the popularity of Wonderwall? Well, it's because you need that to prop up the validity of Noel Gallagher's opinion of Shakespeare. But the popularity of one song that he wrote is irrelevant to that. His opinion either has merit or it doesn't, and given that he isn't noted for either his use of language or his broad experience of the dramatic arts all we are left with is the opinion of someone who isn't really qualified to comment beyond his personal taste.

So Noel Gallagher doesn't like Shakespeare? Fine, I don't care, it makes no difference, Shakespeare will remain as popular as ever despite Noel's opinion, and Oasis will slide into obscurity as have so many other bands that were popular in their time.

If you spent a few more seconds reading what Gallagher said more completely (it was only a few lines more) and what I argued and clarified, you wouldn't have wasted minutes attacking strawmen.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

Music can HAVE lyrics, but lyrics are not essential to it. If for some reason it was wholly impossible to add words to a song, music would still exist because certain arrangements of abstract sounds are pleasing to hear. Hell, even animals and babies who are incapable of understanding language can still enjoy and be stimulated by certain songs. That's what music does...that's why it exists...that's the purpose of it. In order to discuss the quality of an achievement, you need to first define what the goal of it was. This is especially true of artistic achievement, even though most people who try to discuss it don't seem to realize that.

Lyrics are not essential to make music, and no one has claimed that. However, the greatness of a great number of songs is largely, even mostly, thanks to the lyrics of them.

 

[Piggy]

Lyrics are not essential to make music, and no one has claimed that. However, the greatness of a great number of songs is largely, even mostly, thanks to the lyrics of them.

Look at the astonishing variety of melodic incarnations of "Amazing Grace" for instance.

In fact, most folks today would be hard pressed to recognize the tune from early arrangements.

It's true, the song wouldn't have caught on if not for the original music, but it couldn't have morphed so broadly if the lyric weren't the anchor.

 

[fuelair]

Can't do poll - should be something on the high end between 2nd and third choice.