How to Evaluate Contemporary Music: Quality and Culture

Introduction: The Breadth of Contemporary Music

There is an old cliché that contemporary music—especially popular music—is without lasting significance or quality. The truth is just the opposite. Contemporary music is extremely creative, employs a wide range of styles, and draws on many traditions from around the world. In fact, contemporary composers and singers encompass all the known traditions and rich styles of the past, in both western and eastern cultures, in mainstream society as well as indigenous groups.

Contemporary music is, in a sense, all music. It ranges from string quartets like the Kronos Quartet—whose classically trained ensemble offers jagged, minimalist, modern music that has won many fans—to the seminal and groundbreaking work of popular singer-composers like Paul Simon, who in his Rhythm of the Saints album employed African and tribal percussion. Contemporary music can be rock and roll, rap, classical, gospel, jazz, country western, or world music.

Core Musical Qualities That Define Great Music

So how can one evaluate contemporary music? What constitutes good or great music these days? All music shares certain fundamental qualities that provide a starting point for evaluation.

The timbre, or quality of tone distinctive to a particular voice or instrument, is important. Is it distinctive? Do voices and instruments blend with interesting harmonies that play off each other, creating obvious tones as well as more subtle resonances? What is the tempo and rhythm—is it one that makes you want to dance, to move, to hum and tap your toes? Great music seems to reverberate through the body with a rhythm that is both recognizable and yet surprising, shifting as the mood of the music changes.

The melody, or theme, is equally important—a theme one can hear, often repeating in a refrain. And much contemporary music contains words that tell a story, frequently following a loosely poetic format. Often these lyrics would not stand on their own, but when joined with melody, instrument, and voice, they convey something extraordinary. Sometimes, however, the poetry itself is worthy on its own terms.

Lyricist, composer, and singer Bob Dylan is one of the towering figures of our century. His music not only shaped a generation many decades ago but continues to attract young fans today. His idiosyncratic poetry is so hypnotic that his voice—unmusical and yet evocative—and even his melodies become secondary. Dylan revolutionized folk and popular music. All great music, including contemporary music, is easily recognizable from its opening notes. Who would not recognize the beginning of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony from the first few chords? Contemporary music, no matter what its style, must have the permanence of a piece of architecture seen against the sky: unique, instantly recognizable, and memorable.

Music as Cultural Commentary

Music is part of the culture from which it springs. It is not simply pure, abstract, or non-referential—it offers commentary on society and the times in which we live. Rap music, with its raucous, insistent, percussive, and aggressive rhythms, replicates the cacophony and aggression of the inner city from which it arose. Rap is a commentary on and a window into a particular culture, revealed in the songs' style, pulse, content, and delivery. It is new and stark, although it hearkens back in some ways to tribal rhythms and African ancestry.

In contrast, country music reflects a different corner of our culture—the slow and mournful South. Country music is about story, particularly the ballad. Good contemporary music has a strong bond with its culture; it has what one might call cultural strength, and a great deal of psychological weight within the culture to which it is tied. Contemporary music can be a way of bringing a subculture to society's awareness and of legitimizing it. Music is an essential thread in the fabric of every culture and subculture. It memorializes the culture, distills its essence, and offers it a path to the future.

Bibliography

Dylan, Bob. Lyrics 1962–2002. Simon & Schuster, 2002.

Dylan, Bob, and James Ellison. Younger Than That Now: The Collected Interviews with Bob Dylan. Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002.

Grout, Donald J., and Claude Palisca. A History of Western Music, 6th ed. W. W. Norton & Company, 2000.

Kostka, Stefan. Tonal Harmony, with an Introduction to 20th-Century Music. McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Veloso, Caetano. Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil. Knopf, 2002.