Merle Haggard lives, Garth Brooks is long gone

[John Steele]

The day I saw Garth guest on a daytime t.v. show, where he sat down on a wooden chair with nothing but his guitar and a mic, I realized he had great substance and talent. You can object to the whole arena-rock extravaganza thing, but it'd be hard to say he's untalented.
-John
p.s. I read an interview with June Carter, talking about some late 40's Carter family shows, in which she talks about swinging on to the stage from a rope. (!) Maybe it's all the Carter Family's fault.

[Billy Carr]

Garth & Merle. Two different styles here. The GB music I listened to was for the steel parts anyway. "Shameless" mainly. Merle is a legend and is one of the major singers/musician's that we Classic Country folks like. Maybe if GB would do a pure Classic Country CD, then I would probably buy it provided it had plenty of steel guitar in the mix. Other than that, I'll just stick with my Classic Country like Hank Sr., George Jones, Conway and etc. Most of the modern or new country bores me anyway except for the pretty women.

[Dave Mudgett]

At no time did I use the word "absolute," unless by saying "best," it was automatically inferred.

I properly inferred "global" or "absolute" because you were comparing two completely different types of piano players. That is precisely why I say they're not comparable - the contexts in which Horowitz and Cramer played the instrument were completely different. You're making absolute comparisons among the global set of piano players. If you were comparing trained classical pianists like Horowitz and Van Cliburn, it would be different.

Is there any question that the Lexus is a vastly superior automobile, no matter which one we personally happen to like better?

Yes, it is open to question. It depends on what you mean by "better". Do you mean faster? Do you mean more luxurious? Do you mean more expensive? Faster is better only if that is of value to you. Same with the others.

Yes, I prefer my Honda to a Lexus as well, but it's a personal preference, and that's not what we're supposed to be talking about here.

Who says we're not supposed to be talking about personal preference here? I argue that it's all personal preference - there is no "best" among objects in a set unless you decide to, and have a way to, rank-order those objects. Even then, what is "best" depends entirely on your ranking metric.

Fact, yes or no? If some things weren't better than others in this world, everything would be the same.

Sorry, but that's not true. Objects in a set can be different without any way to rank-order them. Here's an example:

I like cars, and I want to consider two - an orange Honda Element and a blue Lexus RX-350. My criteria for a "good" car are

1. My car should go 0-60 in less than 10 seconds. Anything faster than that is irrelevant, anything slower than that is unacceptable. Honda 8.1 sec, Lexus about 7.8 sec, both just fine.

2. My car should be red, orange, or blue. Both cars are fine.

3. My car should have at least 4 passenger seats. No problem.

4. My car should have enough rear space for all my music gear, and with the seats folded down, enough for my keyboard player's too. The Honda has more usable cargo room, but the Lexus does the job too.

5. My car should get at least 22 MPG in highway driving. Honda 25 MPG, Lexus 22 MPG.

6. I should be able to comfortably fit my 6'4" frame in the car with a large cowboy hat on without hitting the roof interior. The Honda interior is a bit more spacious, but both are OK.

7. The car should have a comfortable ride with good road feel. Both cars ride well and have good road feel.

Using my real criteria, each car fits fine and there is no real way to distinguish between them from a performance point of view. Any attempt to rank-order these will fail - they are equivalent.

But if I raised my MPG standard to 25 MPG, the Honda would rate higher. It would be the "better" car for about half the money.

Here's another slightly different example - Let's say some objects have 2 properties - P1 and P2, each of which take on real values from 0-10, with higher values corresponding to "better". Both properties are critical, and there's no way to summarize both of them in a single figure-of-merit. Suppose you have two objects - O1 and O2. O1 has P1 and P2 values of 2 and 8, respectively, and O2 has P1 and P2 values of 9 and 1, respectively. How do you rank order them? You can't. The only way you can rank-order objects in this system is if both P1 and P2 values for one object are greater than that of the other object.

Tell ya' what - let's have a rank ordering of music styles. This should be fun. Here's one for ya' - this is not my ranking, but is the ranking of someone I know well, who is mind-bogglingly competitive and compulsively tries to "one-up" everybody:

European Classical > Broadway Show Tunes > Popular Standards > Swing Jazz > 40s-50s Jazz > Blues > Western > Bluegrass > Folk > Polka > Country > Rock and Roll > Funk, Reggae, and so on > Rap > Atonal

He was questioning why so much of the music I liked and played was so far down the food chain. I told him to stuff it.

Why do people order music????? Why do they order anything? Why not just close the Forum down then we won't have any opinions. Some things are the real deal, and some things are short term fakes.

That was my question - I have no idea why people compulsively but pointlessly try to rank-order everything. But there would be tons of useful things to talk about if we never, ever had another "Blah blah 1 is great, blah blah 2 is cr@p." thread.

If you don't think Garth Brooks is not money consious, Ive got a bridge I want to sell you.

It does not bother me that Garth Brooks makes lots of money. I think Merle has done alright for himself too. In fact, I'll bet lots of our favorite country singers have done just fine. What does any of this have to do with music?

I think Kevin was trying, at least in his first posts, to find something disrespectful to say about Garth Brooks.

Ya' think?

[Barry Blackwood]

Dave, the posts are piling up, and this is all going nowhere. Let's just agree to disagree - east is east and all that jazz. It's a nice day here today. I'm going outside now, away from the computer. My head is still spinning with value systems, quantification, quality metrics, ordering relation and rank-ordering, P1,P2,01, and 02. You should have been a bureaucrat the way you can take something that is essentially so simple, and turn it into some kind of rocket science.
Anyway, have a nice day.

[Dave Mudgett]

You should have been a bureaucrat the way you can take something that is essentially so simple, and turn it into rocket science.

There's nothing simple about objective rank-ordering. If you want to argue, as I suggested earlier, that it's all just personal preferences, anybody can rank-order anything they want, any way they want.

But if you want to argue that this is some kind of objective process with universal application - "Isn't it obvious that, no matter what your value system, A is better than B?" - then it ain't so simple.

It is emphatically anti-bureaucratic to argue that it isn't possible to trivially cubbyhole everything in a meaningful way. Bureaucracies love to do this - I am emphatically against it. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.

I think the other thing you're missing here is that I'll bet many of us here - including me - are very close on our personal preferences. But I genuinely think the denigration of significantly different views on music - or other things, for that matter - reflects poorly on us.

I think we should be able to talk about this kind of thing in a respectful way. We don't have to agree, but the put-down tone does not help.

[Jeff Evans]

. . . June Carter, talking about some late 40's Carter family shows, in which she talks about swinging on to the stage from a rope. (!) Maybe it's all the Carter Family's fault.

That band was always about the sizzle, the visual flash — form over substance.

Did Satan book that act, too, or did he have an exclusive with Elvis?

[John Steele]

Now I can't sleep... every time I close my eyes I get a vision of Mother Maybelle smashing an autoharp on the stage...

-John

[Theresa Galbraith]

Both artist are different, I happen to like both.
I've been know to like everyone, well almost!

[Ken Thompson]

I agree Theresa. There will never be another Hag. I love his writing and singing but there is no denying Garth's showmanship. Garth has always impressed me with his humbleness and respect for the legends as well. There is plenty of room for both of them in my world.

[Jeff Evans]

. . . I get a vision of Mother Maybelle . . .

Sex sells.

[Dale Bessant]

Its the eyes! There's something wrong with the man....Seriously, I'd bet if you asked G.B. he will tell you first hand "he ain't no Merle" anyways I have a lot of the "Hags" CD's and albums but no Garth, sorry Garth, but you just dont do it for me...I never really understood the whole "Garth" mania thing, but then my parents felt the same way about "The Beatles"...

[Alvin Blaine]

Now I can't sleep... every time I close my eyes I get a vision of Mother Maybelle smashing an autoharp on the stage...

-John

I think it's smashing the stage with an autoharp. Have you ever tried to destroy an autoharp? The stage will give in before the autoharp will.

[LJ Eiffert]

The great thing about all this rank - ordering baby talk is,it keeps all them Artist life chapters eating. Scholastic History. Sincerely in Country Music & all styles, Leo J.Eiffert,Jr.

[John Macy]

Quote:

"I agree Theresa. There will never be another Hag. I love his writing and singing but there is no denying Garth's showmanship. Garth has always impressed me with his humbleness and respect for the legends as well. There is plenty of room for both of them in my world."

Well said...

[Tony Prior]

why do we even have to compare them ?

And , although I don't need it, I do have a car that will do 0 to 60 in 4 seconds. And if you decide to STAY IN the throttle, hold on . I don't need this car , but I do WANT it.

all this comparison stuff, who's better, who's not,etc..I guess this has never been part of what I personally think about. I either LIKE an Artist or NOT. I really like Merle, but I don't dislike Garth, in fact I have to learn a GB tune for a gig this friday. !

Ya see..we play Merle tunes AND Garth tunes...

happy wednesday

tp

[Steve Morley]

Tony nailed it early on, "People love those songs."

[Mark Durante]

I hesitate to stir up the hornets nest again but I've been reading Country Music Babylon by Jeff Rovin and when I got to the Garth chapter I was amazed to find this quote from Garth himself:
"There's better songwriters than me,better singers,lots of better looking guys, and I can't pick a guitar hardly at all"

[Cleat Wooley]

Merle is still a great influence in Country 'Real', Music. Sorry the new guys on the block do NOTHING for me in Music.

[Cleat Wooley]

Merle is still a great influence in Country 'Real', Music. Sorry the new guys on the block do NOTHING for me in Music.

[Ron Page]

Frankly, I'm glad that both artists have left indelible marks on country music. I think they each have a tremendous sphere of influence and each has accomplished it differently. I just wish the industry had not over-reacted to Garth and Shania and written off new acts and music in Haggard’s style. They’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater, but I don’t blame Garth Brooks for that.

[Dave Mudgett]

"There's better songwriters than me,better singers,lots of better looking guys, and I can't pick a guitar hardly at all"

I just wish the industry had not over-reacted to Garth and Shania and written off new acts and music in Haggard’s style. They’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater, but I don’t blame Garth Brooks for that.

Bingo. Garth is not the problem, nor is he a "bad guy" - my sense is quite the opposite.

Rapid technological change and the resulting cultural evolution tends to leave a lot of disenfranchised people in its wake, at a lot of levels. Nothing new here.

I think one has a choice to either move with the mainstream culture, establish a working subculture separate from it, or set up a counterculture to fight it. I often hear the anger of a counterculture on this forum, but see no organized movement that way, nor a sense that any is needed or any idea how to do it.

I think the best approach is to make a thriving subculture. But the time it takes to do that pretty much precludes wasting a lot of time venting rage against the mainstream.

My opinions, of course.

[James Cann]

Remember that little blonde babe who sang with ABBA?

Yesss, indeed, and when I think of her and the brunette, well, get back, Loretta, Elvis has left the building!

[Cleat Wooley]

LIke I alway said, MERLE is still the BEST . THE new talent is , they ant the HAG.

[Cleat Wooley]

LIke I alway said, MERLE is still the BEST . THE new talent is , they ant the HAG.

[LJ Eiffert]

I think GOD will fix the Music Industry and all them bad boys and girls will be bad at me for something he did. Leo J.Eiffert,Jr.