Musings: High and Low Culture?

So, here we go. This week, I was challenged in my English class to essentially give a 'shout out' to another blogger in the class. I decided to 'shout' at 'Ezra' from the blog Ezra Won't Shut Up. She commented here on Bloggcerto! (Hopefully I can get that CSPAC thing up and running), and I thought it would be nice to engage the conversation. So I checked it out. The post entitled, Thank You for Your Magic Sex struck me. She analyzes some lyrics by artists like Adele and Selena Gomez and comments on the nature of relationships and this essential misconception that once we enter one, our significant other is going to help us resolve all our problems and we will live happily ever after.
In the anecdote leading up to this final 'thesis', Ezra describes her listening of pop music as such: "...just enjoy the beats, dance, let the lyrics sink subtly into your brain like a good little ideological consumer, or whatever. It's not Opera; it doesn't have to challenge your intellect." She continues on to say that she does contemplate the lyrics 'intellectually', but sort of implies that there is a sort of divide between 'intellectual' music like opera and 'pop'. And that pop music could not or perhaps should not, inspire this type of intellectual thought.

I didn't know how to respond to this. I listen to Opera on occasion. I also listen to pop music and probably everything in between. I have excerpts of The Magic Flute on my ipod and listen to it quite often. I could not tell you a single lyric or what any of the Italian means but I know when I listen to it, I cannot begin to express the magnitude of emotion I feel. But I suppose 'intellectually', the piece does not stimulate me at all. How could it? I fundamentally don't understand a single portion of it. But I like it.

Likewise, there are songs like Ke$ha's 'We R Who We R' which has at the very least given us a challenge to our grammar laws if not feeding us an intellectual conundrum of individuality vs group stereo types. I feel as if she simultaneously promotes individuality and defines the iconography of the main stream culture by her participation in it (she's taking back the mainstream and making it cool again. I know that may not seem to make sense but I feel it is still what is happening.) I have just now attempted to perform a similar 'intellectual' discourse about this seemingly 'un-intellectual' song.

So, I guess what all of this has been leading up to is the proposition that music's inherent intellectual value cannot be judged by genre, or style, or whether it is top 40 or was made hundreds of years ago. It must instead be judged by its own merits, and how it makes us feel. If we question lyrics in a pop song it may mean that song is reaching us in a way that maybe Opera cannot. And yes, I believe that for modern listeners, Opera is more difficult to enjoy, I feel it is simply so because of its age. There certainly is a disconnect between now and whenever The Magic Flute was written (I only pick that because like I said its on my Ipod)

So Ezra I suppose what I mean to say is, do not be afraid to perform critical thought on something that seems to be 'un-intellectual' or like 'low-culture'. I feel the more I learn about things, the more I realize that there is no such thing as 'high' or 'low' culture. The original Opera was considered a 'low' by the standards of the day. Jazz is considered one of America's truest art forms and it was considered base and primitive by critics.

PS. I've been listening to The Who's 'Tommy' the entire time I was writing this. First 'Rock Opera'? I don't know. But I suppose these things come down to taste.