Reply To: JoCo Songs with frequent use of dissonance
I have a quick question here… what exactly are you referring to as "dissonant"? I mean, technically in a post-Schoenburg world there is no "dissonance", as every note is, in essence, supposed to be equal, even if a row isn't completed, or if the piece is a non-row-composed piece. I mean, that's basically the school of thought I'm in, I guess I've just been exposed to enough high modern and postmodern art music that the term really doesn't have any resonance anymore on me, so I'm not sure what you're referring to…
But even before then, dissonance has been really redefined throughout history, so I guess I'm wondering what you're defining it as. Dissonance near the dawn of music was any interfal not a 4th or 5th. Later it was expanded so that 2nds and 7ths were dissonant, but when atonality began taking over the art tradition, in a classical sense, dissonance stopped existing.
I mean, some of these songs you've mentioned, the most classically defined dissonance is a sus4 chord here or there, maybe a dominant 7th, or diminished chord… And I mean this not as any slight against JoCo, i think the music is exceptional, and he does have complexity well above and beyond the standard drivel, but I don't really see quite what you're getting at, and complexity is not synonymous with good.
Though I do agree, the more complex songs tend to be the "hits"(Big Bad World One reamins my favorite song overall), but You could be her is one of my favorite songs of Jons, and yet it's not the most complex, far from it.