Hell yeah I know about Sturgeon’s Law! And its corollaries!

I believe that taste is subjective, but quality is objective. That’s because I believe that quality is about how effective a work of art is at doing what it set out to do, to its intended audience. And if an aspect of a work of art distracts from that goal or brings the work down, it is of objectively lower quality. However, I want to be clear that I mean that about the audience statistically— individuals of course may be more or less affected or unaffected by individual choices in art.

Let me give an example for that last part. Most people don’t see anything wrong with many of the choices in Ace Attorney; but I find that series to be ugly, tasteless, and insulting (not to mention extremely autism-unfriendly). The extremely ugly faces for many characters, the bug-eye reactions, the intuition-unfriendly dumbness, the pedophilia, the low-brow, the sexism, the constant harsh flashing and shaking… I believe that if Ace Attorney didn’t make those choices, nobody who currently likes the series would like it less (okay, well, maybe some people in Japan would like it less if you took away their staples of sexism and glorious stupidity; but we can compromise)— instead you’d have a larger appreciative audience if those weren’t issues. So basically, you can make aspects of a work of art better without said aspects (or others) being worse or substantially less-liked.

Aside: As an autistic person, I really can’t shut off my observation, comparison, or thorough thinking— it’s always going. And one of the effects of that is that high standards come naturally to me. So because I’m always passionate and scrutinizing, I get more angry or more disappointed when things are bad— but also way more excited than most people when things are good. I feel like a lot of people don’t understand me, thinking that I just hate everything; but those people are focusing on when I’m negative and ignoring how giddy I get at other times.

But I digress. There’s a lot of crap out there; but that makes us who notice all the bad… just that much more appreciative of the things that are genuinely good.

wasnt aware of that, thanks for the link!

You’re thinking primarily country pop, and I agree with your assessment - most of it’s crap. That being said, if the only country you know is what you’ve been exposed to on the radio, you’re missing out on some amazing musicianship. Since I dig sharing music that breaks (or makes) a mold, here’s some country pieces that you might dig:

“Lee Highway Blues” - Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper

Jolene - Dolly Parton

The Highwayman - Wayland Jennings, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristoffersen

Yee, the most common versions of things aren’t the only versions of those things.

There’s something called the “animation age ghetto”. It’s a phenomenon where most people assume that animated movies and shows are for kids only; and it has held back the medium a whole lot. Animation is just a method of getting the art out there, and it can have a lot of variation and be very sophisticated. Most of all, it can be about whatever— or for whomever— you want.

Nah there’s definitely more variety to country music than that, but you have to dig for it (try Woody Guthrie for instance). Much like pop music, you have to go past whats popular to find the good stuff

1. Here, have a trophy for winning at internet arguments
2. With that kind of charisma, you must have a ton of friends
3. I was born in the suburbs of Chicago and I don’t listen to country (except Neil Diamond, which I argue is partially country even though others disagree)— not that it should even matter. But I say it just to help drive my point home about your stupidity
4. Check my profile and see how stupid I am, I dare you
5. If your goal was to look cool to random strangers on the internet, you failed