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What Is Art? And What Is a Classic?
When a new work of art comes along, it does not have any inherent “progressive” advantage over older works of art. The concept of progress has no meaning in art. A new song, for its newness, has no advantage over an old song.
Any artist working in any medium at any time in human history or in the present day has the potential to create a classic. Once created, a true classic never goes away. It connects emotionally, and human emotions do not go away and do not change from generation to generation. Humans who lived thousands of years ago had the same inborn music-emotion brain wiring that humans have today. And humans thousands of years in the future will still have the same music-emotion brain wiring (assuming humans haven’t gone extinct or re-engineered the species genetically).
That’s why, as Frye points out, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, written almost 2,500 years ago, remains a successful work of art today, as do Shakespeare’s plays. The same goes for Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and Michelangelo’s “David,” both more than 500 years old.
All of this applies to great songs. Classic songs serve no purpose, scientifically or technologically. The concept of progress has no meaning in songwriting. New songs can never improve upon classic songs, but might themselves become classics.
If a new song moves people emotionally every time it’s played or performed for an audience, it will probably never be forgotten. It will probably become a classic, like the majority of the songs on the GSSL. Once a classic, always a classic.