Rand would have loved the entire career of Eminem, whether or not she would have particularly enjoyed listening to the music. Had she lived long enough, she might have had to face the tough conclusion that rap can be musically amazing. Even if she didn't agree with John and Yoko politically, it's hard for me to believe that Rand never spent a moment of her life privately admiring some of the things they did. "God" by Lennon is one of the most Objectivist songs I've ever heard in my life. In it, he goes on and on about how he no longer believes in anything but himself and the woman he loves while mentioning a litany of concepts/cultural institutions Rand openly disapproved of, and finally, he says "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." It's hard for me to imagine, no pun intended that Lennon, who read voraciously, never would have picked up a single Rand novel in his life. I think he would have quite liked The Fountainhead if he ever read it. Even if she couldn't have stood listening to an actual song by NWA, she would have admired their hard-line support of freedom of speech. She would have loved Ice-Cube's commitment to his work and Dre's ability to package the musical Howard Roarks of the world so that they could have such a lasting effect on culture. I'm going to cheat a little here and include much of what is played on the piano in the show, House MD because not only would she have loved Greg House, but Hugh Laurie is also an extremely talented musician.

my pleasure j

Creep is what I have to teach this AM in my materials class, so I'm glad you forced my clarification, Khalling. It helped with class prep.

Even in this last answer, the definition of creep might be understood. To a materials scientist like me, creep refers to a very slow deformation when a material is exposed to a low load at a temperature above 1/3 of its melting point for a very long time. Examples would include human muscles sagging as one ages or, more obviously to most people, what happens to a plastic, or even wooden, bookshelf over time when one puts too many books on it. The shelf will gradually bow in the middle. That is creep.

Indeed it was value. I should have used the word "objective" or "unbiased" or "impartial" instead of "fair". I meant that wording in the strictest legal sense as in a "fair and impartial jury" as opposed to the more common moocher/looter bastardization of the word "fair". Now that I am in Atlantis I will have to refrain from such "definition creep" to avoid confusion. I suspect that we will have similar problems with a great number of such words whose definitions have been so twisted by the looters and moohcers that our vocabulary will have to be noticeably smaller.

this ain't fair. this was value-

Just to show you that I am fair, I gave JerseyBoy a thumbs-up. Gershwin fits AR's personality, and the lyrics on this one are fitting.

Rand might have liked this one. It's one of the few popular numbers that uses the names of great historical achievers in its lyrics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpcEhFlwY...
Ella Fitzgerald
"They All Laughed"
(George & Ira Gershwin)

The odds were a hundred to one against me
The world thought the heights were too high to climb

But people from Missouri never incensed me
Oh, I wasn't a bit concerned
For from hist'ry I had learned
How many, many times the worm had turned. . .

They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round
They all laughed when Edison recorded sound
They all laughed at Wilbur and his brother when they said that man could fly
They told Marconi wireless was a phony, it's the same old cry

They laughed at me wanting you,
said I was reaching for the moon
But oh, you came through,
now they'll have to change their tune
They all said we never could be happy,
they laughed at us and how!
But ho, ho, ho! Who's got the last laugh now?

They all laughed at Rockefeller Center,
now they're fighting to get in
They all laughed at Whitney and his cotton gin
They all laughed Fulton and his steamboat, Hershey and his chocolate bar
Ford and his Lizzie, kept the laughers busy, that's how people are

They laughed at me wanting you,
said it would be, "Hello, Goodbye."
But oh, you came through, now they're eating humble pie

They all said we'd never get together,
darling, let's take a bow
For ho, ho, ho! Who's got the last laugh?
Hee, hee, hee! Let's at the past laugh,
Ha, ha, ha! Who's got the last laugh now?

He was clearly quite talented. He wrote songs about despair, dehumanization and nihilism. He achieved fame in part selling and glorifying death and force. What do you think she would have loved about that?

Fuck all of you who think all rap is the same. She would have loved Tupac!

I started this thread knowing that I was going to get blasted on my joking speculation regarding Tax Man. It was just meant to stir up the pot a little, and it did.

Note: 'Had to delete and re-post to fix a URL - again. TinyURL for all this time...]

You have to perform a kind of "suspension of disbelief" or qualify it as "If she could be pursuaded to listen to pop-rock in the first place," but... The first two songs that spring to mind that **I think** Rand might've absolutely loved - for their spectacular sense-of-life, are both by Japanese artists:

- "Sampomichi" ("Walking-Track") by the '90s band Judy And Mary. It's just a song about taking a walk with one's favorite person on one's favorite walking path in each of the four seasons, but singer Yuki Isoya's melodic exuberance is irrepressible to the point of explosive in this song. YMMV, but it's one of the most powerful expressions of sheer joie de vivre I've ever heard. Somebody on YouTube took a bunch of video footage from his walks through different areas of Tokyo in 1999, edited it together and sped it up a bit, and used "Sampomichi" as the audio, for a stunning effect:
http://tinyurl.com/3kxvk4n

I think Miss Rand would've stood up and cheered at the lyrics too. A translation:
http://tinyurl.com/3f6lwbd

The other one is something I stumbled onto more recently, "Merrily High Go Round" by the band Doll$Boxx, which was a one-off CD collaboration that was basically the band Gacharic Spin with singer Fuki from the "power metal" band Light Bringer on vocals. Again, one of the most explosively exuberant songs I've ever heard, at least in the choruses and bridge. [I don't have a handy lyric translation for this one and my Nihongo is still in the "Where is the beer? Where is the toilet? I love you" stage, so I'm no help and the lyrical content is gravy anyway.]

It's a pop band but with stunning instrumental chops - shades of Rush, Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment - from an all-girl band in Lolita getups who do indeed play all of their instruments, and play them well. To my ears, what really makes this band is Koga's phenomenal bass playing - she's heavy on the "slap" style, but... a great bassist is a great bassist, says Aristotle (indirectly, at least,) and there is a bass groove going on here to make Geddy weep. 8^]

Anyhow, "Tiddlywinks Music" has just blasted into space...
http://tinyurl.com/lyl3vwf

[Honorable mention: "Loud Twin Stars"...whoa! http://tinyurl.com/mletw24 ]

I could come up with a lot more, but this is already a book so I'll stop. (I try and try for brevity but it's mostly useless. When discussing music, doubly so. 8^)

For songs without music, when I read We the Living, I had visions of Scheherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov, a song most of you heard recently at the Olympics. If AR were alive today, I would have expected to have seen her in Sochi watching the excellent ice dancing teams this year. I had never particularly liked ice dancing, but this year's group was the kind that you would have expected to see performing in Galt's Gulch.

we've always enjoyed John Williams and have a little of Gershwin -- will check 'em out & Thanks!!!

I´m pretty sure she would have liked Tchaicovsky and, today; King Crimson in rock, lots of Debussy and probably Piazzolla and the Bossa Nova movement.

Start off with movie music -- anything by John Williams and Elmer Bernstein. Aaron Copeland's Rodeo. Ferde Grofe's On The Trail, Gershwin's Piano Concerto #1, An American In Paris, Paul Creston's Symphony #2. The music of Leonard Bernstein. That should get you started.

please do -- this world needs more inspiration these days! Thanks!

My Way sung by Sinatra

If you like uplifting, exciting music, I agree on Gershwin, if you're interested, I could recommend several dozen more, most of them by American composers.

O

Uh, just reread your comment here. The book is NOT by my better half, but by a Subject Matter Expert who I'm bringing to STL to speak about the TRUTH on kommon kore ~ information nobody will get from the MSM.

"Hope Eyrie" by Leslie Fish.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cVOOXQo...

Jan