Editing Simon Frith (section)

== "Bad music" ==
Frith (2004, p.&nbsp;17-9) argued that "'bad music' is a necessary concept for musical pleasure, for [[musical aesthetics]]." He distinguishes two common kinds of bad music; the first is the ''Worst Records Ever Made'' type, which includes:
* "Tracks which are clearly incompetent musically; made by singers who can't sing, players who can't play, producers who can't produce,"
* "Tracks involving genre confusion. The most common examples are actors or TV stars recording in the latest style."
The second type is the "rock critical list", which includes:
* "Tracks that feature sound gimmicks that have outlived their charm or novelty,"
* "Tracks that depend on false sentiment (...), that feature an excess of feeling molded into a radio-friendly pop song."

He later gives three common qualities attributed to bad music: inauthentic, [in] bad taste (see also: [[kitsch]]), and stupid. He argues that "The marking off of some tracks and genres and artists as 'bad' is a necessary part of popular music pleasure; it is a way we establish our place in various music worlds. And 'bad' is a key word here because it suggests that aesthetic and ethical judgements are tied together here: not to like a record is not just a matter of taste; it is also a matter of argument, and argument that matters." (p.&nbsp;28)