I am getting ready to write about something that has so many opinions based on anecdotal and minimal evidence that if I had readers, it would be sure to garner much love and hate. The post shares a few of my thoughts about art in general, but music and, very briefly, painting in particular. Here it is, several musical artists are often considered geniuses to whom I would assign the moniker of alright, entertaining, or even awful. Among these are Prince, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles.
There is some objective measure of art, which we may or may not be able to nail down. However, rather than fighting that dragon, I will say, rather, there is some objective way or ways to categorize art which should always qualify statements like, "Jackson Pollock was a genius." Clearly, Pollock was born into a different cultural milieu than was Rembrandt. More clearly still, they are not the same kind of "genius". Those who dislike Pollock’s work often point out that an ape could produce his art. All I can say is, they are not wrong. Take a look at the AI-generated masterpiece below. Apes could not have Pollock's motivation or process, but his "art" is laughable without context and just shy of laughable with context.
Consider Bob Dylan and Prince for a moment. Both are/were prolific writers, and both are/were capable of connecting with large groups of people. Dylan won a Nobel Prize in Literature, and Prince was a consummate musician. In addition, Bob is frankly a little different, and Prince was absolutely a few crows short of a murder; something that also seems to suggest the possibility of genius much of the time. Finally, they have influenced generations of other (often better) artists. However, neither of them could sing their way out of a paper sack, and frankly, if you write enough songs, you have at least a higher chance of some of them striking a chord with the populace or at least your niche within the populace.
Further, as hinted above, consider the role that providence, for those who believe in God, or luck, for those who are wrong, plays in the lives of not only artists but everyone. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were born at a specific time, knew specific things, and were in the right, and sometimes wrong, place at the right, and sometimes wrong, time. It could just have easily been two other men just as intelligent as Gates, and just as much of a narcissistic dick hole as Jobs. They were surrounded by them.
This is where The Beatles come into the story for me. They struck a chord with the right group of people, at the right time, and if they ever did anything genius it was switching from dime-a-dozen useless songs to drug-based useless songs as the times changed. To this day, when I hear Paul McCartney's voice, it sets me on edge, though admittedly that is subjective. What culture wants to consume plays a large role in who is considered a genius, and I contend it absolutely should not. Take Rod Stewart, for the love of God, please take him. Rod is single-handedly responsible for butchering more really good songs written by other people than anyone else, and while he is not considered a genius, he does hold the record for the world's largest "concert" while having a voice that is the soundtrack played inside Satan's fartbox. My point, once again, is that popularity should not be a metric for measuring genius.
I should mention that "Satan's Fartbox" is already taken as a band name. They are a Ska band that only covers heavy metal songs, or they will be once I form them. Well, now that I have settled all of that, I am going to listen to Chris Cornell whose voice and lyrics are miles ahead of Dylan and Prince, and who was heavily influenced by The Beatles. Or if I were in the mood for something closer to pop music, how about the underrated Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde "fame"? The list goes on and on and on.
As always, I reserve the right to be wrong.