From: caw@gtech.com (Christopher A. White)
Subject: Re: TANGENT (Re: What do you do when your child ...)
Organization: GTECH Corporation, West Greenwich, RI
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 18:03:59 GMT

In article <97987@netnews.upenn.edu> crawford@ben.dev.upenn.edu (Lauren L. Crawford) writes:
>In article <1992Nov16.234434.27507@gtech.com> caw@gtech.com (Christopher A. White) writes:
>>Therefore, since Shakespear
>>doesn't translate well and requires a bit of effort to understand, it
>>needs to be *that much better* to be considered on par with something 
>>that does. 
>
>Like, say, "Beverly Hills 90120"?

I think the comparrisons fall down a little when you understand that
universality is only one factor of many. There are many issues involved,
including quality, cohesiveness, originality, etc. When all something has
to offer is universality, it isn't art. What Tolstoy was saying is that
it takes more artistic ability to create something that is brilliant in
more than one context than it does to create something that is brilliant
in only one context. Another way of looking at it is that something
which looses much of it's brilliance in translation to another context
(language, culture, medium) is not as artistic as something that retains
it's brilliance when moved to another context. Something such as 90210,
which doesn't have a whole lot of brilliance to begin with, doesn't have
much to lose when it is moved; it is still out-shined, however, by 
something that may have lost a good deal of it's brilliance in the move
between contexts, but which was so brilliant that it had brialliance to
spare. It, in turn, is out-shined which has lost little of it's 
original brilliance in a move in context; something to which it may
have been on par with in one context it is well behind in the scope
of all contexts.

To relate this to christian music (now why would we want to do that?),
I will bring up several contexts and you can judge how well your
preferred music moves.

	Language - is the music so rhyme intensive and meter tricky
                   that it looses most of itself in a different
                   language?

	Culture -  does it make frequent and heavy references to 
		   current events, current pop culture, or require
 		   historical perspective to gather the significance?
		   Does it retain it's power when presented to a non-
		   christian audience ('Messiah' does)? Does it rely
		   on 'christianese' for it's metaphors?

	Medium -   Does this rely on one particular kind of instrumentation,
                   arrangement, or environment (live/recorded)? Would
		   it retain its power in a different style (country,
 		   rock, accoustic, hymn)? Are the artists constrained to
		   one style or subject matter? Can the lyrics stand on
		   their own as poetry (most can't, they lack a lot of
		   the poetic devices)?

My point is not that universality is the only factor, but it is a
very important factor which is often overlooked. When added into the
equation, it can severly change the ratings. In some cases (90210),
however, it can't shift it much lower.


Topher
-- 
 Christopher A. White                    | 
 caw@gtech.com                           | Free will is largely overrated. 
 GTech Corporation, West Greenwich, RI   | 
 The opinions expressed are mine alone   |           - Topher
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian