I don't think it does. There is a difference between someone not knowing (or not accepting) a factual answer, and in there not BEING a factual answer. Take evolution for example. Or God. There IS an answer for that. It's not subjective; there either IS a God, or there ISN'T. We don't know (perhaps we're not capable of knowing) so we each have our opinions, but there IS an answer. I believe that there are far more topics like this than there aren't, and yet we debate EVERYTHING (I don't mean here, though that too. 
). There IS an answer to whether "weed is harmful or not". There IS an answer as to whether minimum wage helps or hurts a specific economy. Etc. That's what I am referring to when I say 'there are more objective standards than people think'.
All of this is true by my definition of objectivity, but by yours that you stated before, it is not.
You said: "There's objectively 'good' or 'bad', which doesn't exist UNLESS AND UNTIL we all - all 7.3 billion of us - arrive at and agree on a standard that we all say is how 'good' or 'bad' is measured."
Okay. Let's take this at face value.
Some people think that good is being productive and having a focused mind. By that standard, weed is harmful. Some people think that good is having fun and enjoying yourself. By that standard, weed is not harmful. Certainly all 7.3 billion do not agree. By your definition of an objective standard, then, whether weed is harmful is subjective. And I can do this for any other sort of standard you might mention. By your statements about what makes something objective or not, nothing is objective. You'll have to either amend your definition of objectivity or state that few standards, if any at all, are objective in your view.
No, to the last thing (see above). But as to your first statement, I respectfully think you have it backwards: it's more that "a standard isn't objective unless and until every person on the planet can agree with it". We don't have to LITERALLY have every person agree; that's a tautology given that some people will disagree out of principle. But there are proxies for that; that's where the meaning comes in. Government is one; laws and regulations are another; even rules of etiquette and the like are attempts at standardization. We may not every one of us agree that "killing is bad" but we have proxies; under most circumstances, if you kill there will be consequences whether you ACTUALLY believe you did wrong or not.
Okay, this modification opens all sorts of very questionable doors. You're saying that government, laws or rules of etiquette are proxies for universal agreement. This seems to suggest that these, then, are the keepers of objective standards. Your previous standard was that everyone agreeing is what tells us that a standard is objective, so the standards of governments and laws—proxies for everyone agreeing—are objective standards? That's very questionable. On the surface, of course, there is the problem that governments disagree. On cases that are not just marginal, and with governments that aren't just marginal. Most governments and laws in the European Union hold that free speech should be limited by laws against hate speech. The United States government and laws hold that there must not be any such limitations on free speech. If government creates objectivity, does that mean that there is not an objective answer to whether such limitations exist? Otherwise, how can you account for the contradiction?
I see that you're trying to fix the problems with cause and effect by saying that objective standards aren't created by agreement, but that agreement demonstrates to us that a standard is objective. But this is just an appeal ad populum, which is a very poor way to determine if something is objectively true. There was a time when almost everyone would have told you that the Sun orbits the Earth. Using popular agreement to decide if something is true is a very poor method. The better way is to use reason to investigate the standard and determine whether it is in accordance with the facts of reality.
You MAYBE had me with the first sentence (though not really). But you really lost me when you veered off wildly into "425 Opinion-land" with everything that followed. What about this version of the definition? "The purpose of music production is to effectively and efficiently translate the artistic idea or concept into a form or format whereby it can be reproduced consistently for the listener, in such a manner that the artistic intent of the creator is translated."
That definition is circular. "The purpose of music production is to be produced in the way that the person in charge of it wants it to be produced." That definition serves your "everything goes" attitude, but it's utterly pointless because it means that every production is equally good, so long as the artist wants it. Even a recording engineered by someone sleeping on the soundboard and accidentally hitting buttons and changing settings is just as good as the best Steven Wilson production if it was "the artist's intent" to portray the effects of sleeping on the soundboard. I think that's absurd. Just as absurd as saying that the bad refrigerator is just fine because it was "the engineer's intent."
"The intent of this recording is to show what happens when you play a bunch of white noise over the top of a Metallica record" is still garbage production. The artist's intent does not determine good and bad. Sometimes artists are just bad at what they do.
Plus, as others have pointed out to you, Metallica has already put out a remastered
Death Magnetic. Guess maybe it wasn't quite their intent to have an awfully produced record.
What about "Metal Machine Music"? What about "4:33"? Or better yet, "4:33 No. 2" or "One3"?
4'33" is not music, and therefore, not art. Just as a blank canvas is not a painting and a slab of limestone is not a sculpture.
I don't know
Metal Machine Music, and don't think I want to. Wikipedia says, "The album features no songs or even recognizably structured compositions, eschewing melody and rhythm for an hour of modulated feedback and guitar effects, mixed at varying speeds by Reed." If that's accurate, not art either. But we've veered from the main point.
What about the remaster of The Stooges "Raw Power", arguably the "loudest" album ever, that was done purely on purpose, by Iggy? It even says so in the liner notes. Even the two early mixes/masters, one by Pop and one by Bowie, are of questionable quality by your production standards (YOURS, mind you), and yet this album is regularly cited as a favorite by people like Kurt Cobain, Henry Rollins, Johnny Marr and Steve Jones. Hell, even Cee-lo Green has praised the song "Search and Destroy" from this album.
People like songs on an album with bad production. I don't see the problem here.
St. Anger has probably the worst production job ever on a commercial release, but I like Frantic. Production quality =/= performance quality =/= compositional quality.
Yes, I agree. You ARE wrong about what the standard is. I don't think there is a standard here, but even if I was to concede that point - which I could, easily, and remain intellectually honest - the standard would be "ARTIST INTENT". Not what you like to hear in production, which is apparently "clarity".
If you concede that there is a standard, we're then having a different conversation. But whether you do or not is not "easy" or immaterial. When you say there is no standard, that immediately takes us to an absurd place. When you say that there is a standard but we disagree on what it is, then we can at least have a discussion about the standard. Unfortunately the standard you've offered is basically a non-standard-standard ("what determines whether a refrigerator is good or bad?" "MANUFACTURER INTENT" "what determines whether an economic policy is good or bad?" "GOVERNMENT INTENT" etc.), but at least we can have a discussion about the feasibility of that standard, if everyone actually agrees that there is a standard.
Topic: The Metallica Thread v. Reloaded (Read 386967 times)
