I’m sure this has been brought up in the comments at some point over the past three “Beethoven” writings, but it’s an interesting idea of art and “mining” considering some of the examples of great O.G. artists (Shakespeare, Lucas/Star Wars) mined and borrowed heavily from existing previous or contemporary work (Herbert’s Dune; Chaucer, Kit Marlowe, Greek/Roman mythology, history, and drama). I’m more unfamiliar with classical music, but I can only assume the same for Beethoven.
mother box
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i wondered whilst reading through this if framing / comparing your take on a “complex” album (like A Love Supreme) is useful if we don’t actually dive into why you think that is more complex and layered than an album like Pet Sounds. would it be useful to contextualise A Love Supreme within Coltrane’s works as well and across the jazz landscape of the time? would a jazz purist consider Coltrane’s album, which is arguably in the popular music arena (as much as a jazz album can be), to be less complex than other contemporaries that someone with a more intense affinity for jazz might pick out (making assumptions here about your love/knowledge of jazz, but also thinking of the people i know that can only reference A Love Supreme or Kind of Blue when talking about great jazz). and do we all suffer from comparing pop rock music to pop jazz music and giving overwhelming weight to jazz just because of its supposed higher end status (which leads me back to the Beethoven writings and the way people perceive older classical music vs new music, etc.). these were all the questions that popped in my head when reading and would love to find some deep dives into these things.