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Who are the five best Baroque composers?
Bryan Caplan raises the question, in a post that offers a very good description of my view on the arts and modernity.
My list is Bach, Handel, Purcell, Scarlatti, Rameau, in that order. What about Vivaldi? Corelli? They are next in line for me. Monteverdi comes in second if you count him as Baroque (I don't). What are your picks?
And to pursue Bryan's question, who are the five best punk rock bands? The Clash, The Sex Pistols, early XTC, Iggy Pop, and maybe The Ramones. Honorable mention goes to The Minutemen, Wire, MC5, Rancid, The Dead Kennedys, and The New York Dolls. X seems overrated to me, and Patti Smith and Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground I don't quite count as punk, though I like their work and think it is important. For that matter I wonder if Eugene Chadbourne might count.
I don't agree with Bryan that the fifth best punk rock group is better than the fifth best Baroque composer, but I will say this: Baroque style dominated European music for many decades, whereas most of the best punk was from an unrespected niche genre produced in about a five-year time window.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on February 8, 2008 at 07:59 AM in Music | Permalink
Comments
Wow. The "punk rock" fad has swept into academia.
It reminds of the "folk music" of the '60s.
It was so "important" and then largely forgotten over subsequent decades.
The clock is ticking.
Posted by: Student at Feb 8, 2008 8:21:15 AM
The top three baroque are a good choice (if Purcell counts as baroque - he doesn't usually in the UK).
But The Undertones have a claim to be the very best punk band - I think that is what the late John Peel (doyen of British DJs) would likely have said. If you never have heard them, you should.
The Clash are really not that good, and were never very popular in the UK except among leftish media intellectuals - on the other hand The Jam were *the* most popular UK punk/ New Wave band for several years.
Posted by: BGC at Feb 8, 2008 8:27:00 AM
If you're truly committed to the punk ethos, shouldn't the best punk band be somebody nobody has ever heard of?
Posted by: Ted Craig at Feb 8, 2008 8:48:02 AM
Jaco Pastorius and Punk Jazz anyone?
Posted by: Charlie at Feb 8, 2008 8:50:13 AM
You guys totally slept on Black Flag and Butthole Surfers. I've seen most of those bands you mentioned and none of them were quite as good as these two. Dead Kennedys kicked ass live.
Also: Circle Jerks, Flipper, Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Charged GBH and Corrosion of Conformity.
My top 5: 1. Butthole Surfers 2. Black Flag 3. Dead Kennedys 4. The Clash 5. Ramones
But let's face it, in 2008 punk rock is tired. Baroque has much more staying power.
Posted by: John at Feb 8, 2008 8:54:43 AM
The Sex Pistols? But they were intentionally terrible. What about Television?
Posted by: njd at Feb 8, 2008 8:55:01 AM
So baroque music dominated European music for a few decades in an era when it took two months to cross the Atlantic? I think that says more about the pace of musical innovation than it does about the superiority of the Baroque style. And I'll take a Dvorak cello concerto over Handel any day.
Posted by: Ben at Feb 8, 2008 9:19:10 AM
Nevermind that comment; missed the point.
Posted by: Ben at Feb 8, 2008 9:21:05 AM
You forgot Buxtehude and Telemann. Purcell is Baroque with a British accent. Monteverdi is early Baroque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_music)
Posted by: FightInequalty at Feb 8, 2008 9:21:44 AM
Iggy Pop was a few amazing songs and a lot of filler. Television is an obvious choice for that slot, but also for your consideration try Richard Hell and the Voidoids.
Posted by: Dave at Feb 8, 2008 9:27:29 AM
Aaaarrrgghh, people! The Buzzcocks. The only punk band that sang love songs.
The Boomtown Rats' first two albums were also very good, before Geldof started taking himself too seriously. When I was a teenage punk rocker circa 79 I liked The Stranglers a lot, but their music turned out to be not as timeless as I thought. I heard some old PIL on the radio the other day and it struck me as having gotten better with time.
BGC is correct on The Jam, although his opinions of The Clash strike me as bizarre and delusional. Popularity was irrelevant (although The Clash had more than most), and musicianship was irrelevant (although The Clash had more than most.) And they didn't really become leftist darlings until Sandinista, by which time they had lost (to self-importance) much of the vitality that made their first three albums so stunning. I can still listen to their version of "Police and Thieves" for hours on end with boredom, having done so for over a quarter century.
Posted by: bartman at Feb 8, 2008 9:30:10 AM
Whether we get more comments on Baroque music or punk will itself prove interesting. I was remiss not to mention Flipper, I might add.
Posted by: Tyler Cowen at Feb 8, 2008 9:30:36 AM
D'oh! That should read "without boredom".
Posted by: bartman at Feb 8, 2008 9:36:57 AM
On punk, what about The Descendents?
It think XTC should be evaluated as a traditional rock band, and that the early punkish pieces ought be seen as just part of the whole corpus. Those pieces--Beatown, Are You Receiving Me?, etc--are mostly really just fast rock songs, not punk, I think.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Feb 8, 2008 9:42:06 AM
In my opinion, the Plasmatics should have got (at least!!!) an honorable mention. And I'm not so enthusiastic about the Sex Pistols -- unless, of course, the ranking reflects a convex combination of personal tastes and commercial success, visibility etc., in which case the Sex Pistols, if only because the second factor, must definitely be among the top 5. Then The Clash had some great songs but it is hard for me to reconcile their involvement with politics with my (probably teenager) idea of what punk was about.
As for the Baroque ranking I more or less agree with it but for me Bach is obviously number 1 and he is very very far from number 2.
Posted by: Olivia at Feb 8, 2008 9:46:02 AM
More on XTC: At bottom, Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding just don't have much violence in them.
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Feb 8, 2008 9:46:55 AM
Given conventional categorizations, The Clash is head-and-shoulders above the rest. However, I question whether you can really call the "punk". They were really a pastiche of many styles. Anyone else on that list, at least so far as I've heard, are one trick ponies.
I think this transcendence of genre is a key factor The Clash's greatness. It's an attribute shared by many of the greats. Beethoven defies categorization; chronologically he was on the cusp between Classical and Romantic, but is really a genre unto himself. Another example from the modern era is Led Zeppelin, known as hard rock for their more popular stuff, but there's no escaping the blues, Indian, and even rockabilly influences in some of their stuff.
Posted by: ChrisW at Feb 8, 2008 9:49:56 AM
The Couperins are both sorely underrated composers, especially François. I've heard some wonderful works by Louis, though, too. Give me Couperin le grand over Rameau any day.
Also let me give a mention to Froberger, one of the best mid-to-late 17th century Germans. There are a great many beautiful suites of harpsichord pieces by Froberger. We surely wouldn't have the Bach suites without the example set by Froberger.
Posted by: Brodysattva at Feb 8, 2008 10:16:47 AM
Also, Purcell is WAY too high on your list. There are some beautiful pieces, sure, but I just can't imagine putting him above, say, Corelli -- nothing profound enough, nowhere near the body of works it would require.
Posted by: Brodysattva at Feb 8, 2008 10:18:42 AM
Why weren't the Talking Heads included?
Posted by: Rich Berger at Feb 8, 2008 10:21:25 AM
Your list of punk rock bands does not contain a single scandinavian or southern European band? Kaaos, Raw Power, Mob 47 should all be considered. Not to mention the lack of any of the more exciting anarcho bands Crass, Conflict, Flux of The Pink Indians, etc.. Consider, as well how punk was reshaped in Japan with bands like Disclose, G.I.S.M., and others.
It seems like the commentors on this thread are willing to fall prey to the same flaws on their lists as the one's your initial list contains. The debate is being focused on which band was more important the musical landscape as a whole, rather than considering what bands were most important in redefining punk at what Cappo would call "crucial times."
My Top 5: 1.) The Ramones 2.)Black Flag 3.) Crass 4.) Man Is The Bastard 5.) Kaaos
Posted by: Bill O. at Feb 8, 2008 10:27:47 AM
"Why weren't the Talking Heads included?"
All I needed to know about Rich Berger's cultural aesthetic. And I just watched "Stop Making Sense" and enjoyed it immensely.
Eugene Chadbourne: The Rake! In your Georgia artists post Eugene should have made the list. I saw him live several times in the early 80s.
Q: Porque no Black Flag?
Posted by: Russell L. Carter at Feb 8, 2008 10:28:05 AM
Hey, if time is no object, why not the Kinks, who outpunked most of the punks? And what about Neil Young, who was like, er, a folk-punk?
Posted by: Rich Berger at Feb 8, 2008 10:30:51 AM
Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Monteverdi. Its all subjective.
Steve
Posted by: steve at Feb 8, 2008 10:40:13 AM
"maybe The Ramones"?? The Ramones is the essence, the bread and butter of punk rock. I encourage you to watch "End of the Century" a documentary about The Ramones in which Joe Strummer and Glen Matlock say more or less that without The Ramones there wouldn't be punk rock let alone The Clash. I don't know what your standards are but if a band creates a completely new sound and attracts a world-wide wave of followers, it deserves to be in any quality-based top 5 list.
Posted by: Tomas at Feb 8, 2008 10:45:40 AM
