As of now (11:44 EST) The Volokh Conspiracy has its first post up with comments enabled (Eugene Volokh's anti-comments comments notwithstanding). This sort of guff from guest-bloggers is very unfortunate. I never even got the comments template set up over here on Crescat, so even when I tried to give in to pressure it didn't work.

I guess I've been out of the loop when all the drama on "good music" was taking place -- however, a few caveats on the discussion:

1) Although a valiant attempt, I agree with James (the first comment here on the Dead Parrots post). The two songs are definitely not being played at the same volume -- so, I suspect (but am not sure) that the only thing that really "fits" about the two songs is that they are in the same key and are approximately the same tempo. If this is a crime, most music sounds the same.

2) About Beethoven's variations on "Rule Brittania" and "God Save our Gracious King" (sorry, Will) -- the main themes don't sound the same, and indeed, if this is the criterion by which we judge good music, it's no fault of Beethoven's that these variations are "good". Even more, if we were to base "goodness" on the original theme, Beethoven's Diabelli would fall flat on it's face. What's (arguably) most fun about the Diabelli variations is what Beethoven does with such a God-forsaken caricature of a theme: how it changes from a base, childish motif to really a towering fugue at the very end.

But what about the variation in a theme and variation set? Indeed, comparing each variation to itself, they sound very much alike...that's the point...in fact, you can go through each variation, and say precisely how they sound alike. There's a game of cat and mouse between audience and artist in figuring out exactly how the composer's hidden the theme in each variation. (Perhaps most fun is Bach's Goldberg Variations, in which the theme for the entire set is, surprisingly, not the melody of the original aria -- I'll not give away the "surprise," but try tracking that one -- I recommend this recording, although some other people like this one, or this one.)

Anyhow, if not the Beethoven (and indeed, in my opinion, most probably not), then definitely the Bach counts as "good." -- I won't touch on Count Basie, particularly because I don't consider it music.

3) About "good" music, or even "art" for that matter -- yeah, no one's really defined this -- probably most disappointing is the home of Mr. Nintendork (if Nickelback isn't "good," what is, and why?

4) Lastly, and most pointedly to Chris Lawrence , what's so wrong with having an opinion about music? Indeed (and I do not think I'm alone on this), it's this dialogue which was, and still is part of the treasure of art. I need not discuss, of course, that Beethoven was not allowed to be performed by women for a good many years, and that Bizet's Carmen incited riots in the streets of Paris -- arguments like that between Schoenberg and Stravinsky, or Haydn and Beethoven before them, or Hildegaard von Bingen and the Catholic Church, which drove music from the Baroque to Classical to Romantic to whatever we're calling it nowadays.

...although I, personally, might not consider this current dispute all that compelling, dismissing dialogue one does not wish to participate in as "faux bourgeois superiority" is no more than an implicit reflexive expression of unwarranted lethargy.

Following up on Greg's post below, a pair of other amusing acknowledgments.

First from The Most Insignificant Justice, by David Currie. (50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 466)

I should like to thank none of my colleagues for help in composing this seminal article. None of them appeared to take it seriously.

Professor of Law, University of Chicago, a title I shall not be able to keep if I write many more articles in this vein. I am indebted to R. H. Helmholz for pointing out a spelling error in an earlier draft. Several of my other colleagues offered similarly helpful advice about this project -- most often to publish it under someone else's name -- but as usual I disregard their sage counsel. The Law and Economics Program of the University of Chicago Law School provided no support for the research and writing of this article and is not responsible for any of the conclusions expressed here. Neither am I.

I am an enthusiastic reader of the comments provided by authors at the start of law review articles. Here's a most amusing entry:

The practice of acknowledging help in the writing of insignificant law review articles has gotten out of hand; otherwise the author would note his exceptional indebtedness to Professor Robert C. Post.

Michael E. Smith, State Discriminations Against Interstate Commerce, 74 Calif. L. Rev. 1203 (1986).

Ice-cream trucks sell drugs? Geez. I haven't been this disillusioned since I discovered that the phrase "confirmed old bachelor" means something much different than I always thought when I was little [So, in My Fair Lady, when Rex Harrison said he was a "confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so . . ."]

Somebody should tell us kids these things.

Chris Lawrence has gone on the warpath against "the widespread condescension displayed by the self-annointed music cognoscenti toward popular music." Lawrence is right to suggest that there's plenty of room to live and let live in the world of music. Of course, he wants people not only to let him enjoy his dubious pop music (some of which I like quite a bit as well), but also, presumably, to stop peddling their "pretentious twaddle." This is a more complicated point, since (near as I can tell) the pretentious twaddle isn't being directed at him so much as blogged near him and (for some folks) that "pretentious twaddle" adds to their enjoyment of the music.

But even more fascinatingly, Lawrence links to this guy who links to a fellow who has posted an mp3 of two Nickelback songs mixed together (so that they play simultaneously). The mix sounds (to my ear, and apparently others) quite good, and better than either song individually. This is supposed to prove that Nickelback sucks, and that their music is "all the same".

Of course what it actually proves is that two particular Nickelback songs have some interesting harmonies, and don't sound dissonant or unpleasant when they overlap. One can only assume, then, that the criterion for the goodness of an artist is that for every pairing of that artist's songs, the songs are sufficiently different that they will sound dissonant if simultaneously played. I have no idea why that's a sensible criterion, but presumably the internet-mixer at work here has blended Beethoven's Rule Britannia and God Save The Queen and Count Basie's Jive at Five and One O'Clock Jump to demonstrate this principle.

Anyway, the Nickelback blend is quite good, and somebody should release it. It would do well. Of course, given copyright law, that somebody would probably have to be Nickelback. Is this evidence for Tyler Cowen's theory that mixing is the wave of the future?

In my rather futile and half-hearted attempt to keep people up to date with relatively unknown holidays, today is St. John's Eve, tomorrow being the Feast of St. John, aka Midsummer (a la A Midsummer Night's Dream) in some cultures.

...not that I, of course, condone either eloping under penalty of death or setting huge piles of wood on fire...

...although it does seem to keep witches, creatures of questionable existence, and parents with nothing better to do rather occupied.

I speculated yesterday that William Saletan's bizarre series of "Kerryisms" in Slate might really be just a big joke-- perhaps poking fun at Jacob Weisberg's less bizarre but often unfair Bushisms. Now Our Girl in Chicago points me to a New Yorker piece by Louis Menand about all of the grammatical infelicities in Lynne Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and he too comments that the whole thing might just be a joke.

Perhaps there is a moral to this story about being very wary of a certain sort of grammatical zealotry. I have a lot of sympathy for grammatical sticklers, but really.

UPDATE: William Saletan has responded to his critics. Sadly, he focuses mostly on the over-the-top criticisms at Spinsanity rather than the sounder and more focused debunkings of Eugene Volokh.

Coolness. Eugene Volokh welcomes Cass Sunstein of The University of Chicago Law School as a guest-blogger to the Volokh conspiracy. To my knowledge that makes him the first blogging Chicago Law prof (barring the possibility of somebody like Richard Posner maintaining an anonymous blogspot domain amidst his other prodigious output).

That's very cool.

I remember hearing a story-- which now seems vaguely relevant-- about somebody who was at Chicago for a time and used to eat lunch with Richard Posner and Cass Sunstein. This fellow and Sunstein used to get in long arguments with Posner, and leave the argument upset. The difference, the fellow explained, between him and Sunstein was that he went up to his office and fumed for an hour while Sunstein went up and popped out an article in response.

The point of this story was about the way blogs let us get in touch with much smarter people on a much more regular basis than we could before, even if what we read are mostly off-hand musings rather than scholarly output. That is, in some sense we can all have blog-lunch with Eugene Volokh nearly every day. Now, it seems, Sunstein is coming to lunch too.

UPDATE: Jack Balkin also claims to be hosting Cass Sunstein (though as yet he has materialized no Sunstein post). Will the professor be double-posting?