Conclusion
Young focuses on interpretation of aesthetic value but gives very little credit to the factors within and around music that give context to popular works and genres as a whole. The social and political are ultimately tied up with the limitations enforced on genres promoting and supporting mix of race and gender, through specifically crafted narratives in order to maintain the traditional (white men writing classical canons). In this context, noise is as a political term of abuse, used in order to refine this narrative, that diminishes sonic value of anything that presents a threat to the hegemonic style of musical culture, this is the politics of keeping white, male supremacy in tact within the music world. Emerging genres may
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This reinforcement of hierarchies of musical elements is problematic, it supports the narrative of ranking genres in order from best to worst, the music that exhibits the most of a particular element is the ‘best’ and vice versa, as long as that element is harmony because that is what is comfortable (even on those non-functional chords). This familiarity and comfortability should be challenged during analysis, bringing to the foreground elements of music that appear to be undervalued. The lack of consideration for varying elements, differing priorities and social and political developments that may be relational, present within the article How Classical Music Is Better Than Popular Music, shows an ignorance to the sociology of music. It attempts to regain classical music’s lost ‘cultural authority’ (Robert Fink, 1998: 140) through unfinished, comparative analysis. Fink states, in relation to a particular musician, “Unfortunately for Schiff and all the rest of us making our living off that classical canon, its hegemony over musical culture is gone.”. Unfortunately for Young, classical music bears no superiority to popular music, choosing to look at these genres through very specific lenses can facilitate any set of desired results and he has done exactly this in order to prove a false