Face Off 01.28.09: Wherein Mike and Randy do the Evolution

Posted by Michael Adler on 01.28.2009

It's the Scopes Monkey Trial of 411mania.com!

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Mike evolves an argument:At the end of last week's face-off Randy claimed that music doesn't evolve. In a rare bit of continuity we'll pick up with that this week. First a definition of evolution would be useful. Acording to Wikipedia:

Evolution was a professional wrestling heel stable on World Wrestling Entertainment's Raw brand between 2003 and 2005. At the height of its existence, the group consisted of Ric Flair, Randy Orton, Triple H, and Batista

While that's very interesting, it's not particularly useful to the current discussion. Let's try dictionary.com:

1. any process of formation or growth; development

That's more like it. And for metaphorical reasons let's give the biological definition also:

3. Biology. change in the gene pool of a population from generation to generation by such processes as mutation, natural selection, and genetic drift.

So to claim that music doesn't grow or develop, nor have its "gene pool" develop via mutation and natural selection is ridiculous. This is clearly inherent in almost every aspect of music from its components right up to the music itself. Look at guitars. The guitar dates back to Roman times where it started as a Cithara. (wikipedia, always a reliable source.) Two thousand years later, with many revisions we arrive at the acoustic guitar. Then Les Paul took action and hooked it up to an amplifier, and voila, it evolved into the electric guitar, a clear improvement, allowing for new and better music to be made.

Likewise, the bass guitar started out as a humble upright double bass, which when the electric guitar came along was losing out, kind of like a short necked giraffe in a world of tall trees. Lower frequencies are harder to produce electrically so it took a while longer to come up with the electric bass, but it eventually popped up thanks to people like Leo Fender. Without this adaptation, the bass would've eventually died out as a weaker species, and music as we know it today would not have bass lines. Thankfully we have evolution.

On a broader scale, if we look at modern rock today, it's the very definition of evolution. It begins with the old slave spirituals, which were ok for the time, but eventually developed into jazz, which was better-it had a moree diverse gene pool. More instruments, arrangements etc. Jazz gave way to blues, which gave way to r and b and rock, rock being the superior animal. Each genre was a little better than the last. A clear evolution. Now within the "rock gene pool" one can see many mutations which we could label sub genres-some beneficial mutations-like metal, hard rock, industrial. Some of them are non beneficial-progressive and nu metal come to mind. Progressive metal is kind of like an extra chromosome. You'd think having something extra would be awesome, but it really just messes things up.

So there you have it. Clear evolution. QED.

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Randy further evolves an argument:Alright. Lots to tackle here. Suffice to say, music doesn't evolve, in a literal or metaphorical sense. In fact, I can't think of any media where it would be more true that there is no evolution. Intuitively, are the Beatles better than Mozart? Is Britney Spears better than the Beatles? If you answered "no", to either of those questions, then music can't evolve, because it doesn't improve over time. (Just to nip the "mutation" metaphor in the bud right away, harmful mutations, e.g. Dream Theater, would need to go extinct in order to preserve evolution, and Dream Theater, unfortunately, will be impacting music for at least another decade, I'm sure).

Unfortunately, the "music evolves" metaphor is quite pervasive, and has lead to people thinking things like Jon Petrucci is a better guitarist than Toni Iommi, Richard Christy is a better drummer than Ian Paice, and Mikael Akerfeldt is a better songwriter than Glenn Tipton.

The idea that music evolves can be tied to at least two logical fallacies that I can think of. First is mistaking technological evolution for evolution in the music itself. Sure, technological innovations like the electric guitar change the landscape of music, but the people using the technology haven't changed at all, and therefore haven't changed in their ability to create nor process melodies. Of course, records today -are- better produced, so some of the older songs literally -sound- worse, but we can't realistically hold that against them.

The second, and harder to swallow fallacy, is basically nerdiness. It goes something like this. You play a Deep Purple song, then play a song by Death. The riffs and solos in the Death song are faster (mostly), and the drummer has double bass, which is THAT INTENSE. You conclude Death is better. You play Rush, and you play Fleetwood Mac. You hear Neil Peart playing a lot of notes, and Mick Fleetwood plays, well, less notes, and conclude Neil Peart is a better drummer. You play Opeth, and you play Guns n' Roses. The Opeth song has a lot of twists and turns and deviations; it is complex and less digestible; the GnR song is more straightforward and digestible. You conclude Opeth is better.

Here's the problem: music is subjective. Take a second to agree. Now, follow me, slowly. If music is subjective, then, therefore, any attempt to qualify music based on objective grounds must be flawed. You can't calculate quality. Intuitively, this should erase any inkling that Neil Peart is better than Mick Fleetwood. Perhaps a bit harder to swallow, though, is that indigestible, complex music must be considered to be on the same level as digestible music; in fact, I'd probably say it's worse. Anyone can make something that's indigestible. You want something that's indigestible, eat tree bark. Making a structured, compelling melody is the hard part. All the technological innovations in the world, all the Vai-shredding, all the Portnoy-drumming won't help you. So, music doesn't evolve.

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Mike revolves:Ok, using your logic if we were to ask someone what do they like better: A crocodile or an elephant, and they replied a crocodile, should we thus conclude that the theory of Evolution proposed by Charles Darwin is moot because a Crocodile is the older, more primitive animal?

We make subjective judgments about everything, every day. Seeing as how they're subjective, they hold the possibility of being wrong-this doesn't mean that things aren't changing and evolving. Technological evolution is evolution. You admit there's technological evolution; how can something evolve technologically, yet not evolve? It's a contradiction.

Again, we compare the Beatles to Motzart. Subjective. Let's compare buffalo to condors and conclude their different, neither is inherently better, and thus evolution doesn't exist. Wrong. The Beatles followed my evolutionary path as previously stated. Motzart in itself has evolved to fully reach its potential due to technological enhancements e.g. a better understanding of the science of acoustics. Furthermore, you can even say it's co-evolved with other forms of technology and communication in that it's able to spread its information/genes around the world due to improved recording processes, the internet, etc.

Bottom line: Subjectivity does not preclude evolution, and Richard Christy's a pretty damn good drummer.

As per the course I have no idea who the other guys you mentioned are.

The floor is yours.

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Randy apparently does not evolve:All this and more, next week on "Michael Adler's Terrible Analogies and Twisting My Words Around."

God knows what point you're trying to make with the crocodile and elephant analogy, but suffice to say, as they evolved from different ancestors it doesn't make sense to compare them. The Mozart/Beatles paragraph was similarly hard to follow. Irregardless, if you can't figure out which musicians to compare, there can't be evolution in music. Also, just because technology evolves doesn't mean those using it have. That's the point.

So, even if music evolves (which it doesn't), Michael Adler's knowledge of music surely never does.

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Well, that wraps up a very contentious week of Faceoff where nothing will ever be the same. Looks like we'll have to agree to disagree on whether or not music evolves, and whether or not my analogies are valid. Join us next week when we discuss C#: Ruining modern music as we know it?