The beauty of good music, or perhaps the definition thereof, is that it can move you without your realization, whether you understand what makes it good or not. It does not take a music theory major to listen to the Fifth and be pressed forward with determination, eagerly anticipating the next crescendo, moving onward and upward to await the return of the glory of the first notes of the first movement at its end. Clearly, these things are most truly appreciated if you know what notes are which, or even what exactly is a crescendo. Yet with only a rudimentary knowledge of the latter and precisely none of the former, I can listen to the swell at the end of the third movement and cherish its regality just the same.

This something found today neither in bands like Nickelback or Everclear, with catalogs that could charitably be described as endlessly self-referential or less charitably described as the same goddamned song over and over, nor in acts like Ke$ha and Katy Perry, who have the chutzpah put out virtually identical (if admittedly irresistible) songs at the same time. There are those that argue for Coldplay or Radiohead (the Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull of our generation, respectively; though admittedly Coldplay is not nearly weird enough, and neither is Jethro Tull, for the analogy to work) match the glory of the past, and perhaps they do.

Some would say it can be found in whatever random sect of the music world they inhabit (and only there), be it metal, grindcore, or some even-more-absurdly named subset of the electronic genre that probably has the best honest claim to the mantle. But the reality is that there are differences of distinction. Beethoven is Beethoven not only because he is perfect, but because he has remained so for centuries. Perhaps we can make this claim for Vida la Vida in the year 2350, but I suspect even the most excitable Coldplay listeners will have fallen asleep by then.

Ah, but this is so subjective. Greatness is technical; perfection, achievable. And 42 the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Just when you think you have the answers, I change the questions. This isn’t really an essay about music, anyway; it’s an essay about the Hot Rod, Rowdy Roddy Piper. Why not? Professional wrestling is life, life is art, and pity the fool who cannot recognize that recognition of beauty is subject to the effective manipulation of emotions: hence, the subjectivity of art. Yes, this returns to that same question: what’s good writing? What makes a good writer? The effort to explain it ends with the same frustrations - what makes Shawn Michaels so great? Or Salvador Dali (well, I’m still working on that one)? The answer is that they are able to accomplish that which they set out to do: to manipulate us.

Where does this argument end? Is it true that those who taste wine and whiskey but then spit them out are missing the point? Well, not quite - though some of them certainly are, for there are far more interesting ways to spend your time, and even your palate, if you are not at least tangentially interested in the first-order effects of what you are purporting to appreciate. This is indeed a valid theory on the appreciation of all things, I suppose - the forest-for-the-trees metaphor, overused as it may be, is not that way for nothing.