Africambiance

Usually when it comes to music, there's a lot of subjective metrics used to how we interpret or examine music, but does this do any justice? Who ever created with this binary construct of "good music" vs "bad music, does the concept of "good" vs "bad really exists or is this just a mental construct like a majority of societal expectations force fed to individuals? Just wanted to exercise your critical thinking skills, when it comes to critics, their criticism in disguised is based on subjective expectations, demands, and level of satisfaction instead of using objective metrics such as time signature, singing styles, song structure, beat per measure (BPM), cultural aspect, mathematics of fractal rhythms or rhythms used in the particular track, musical notes, pitch and the list exceeds. It's all relative, once you neutralize your interpretation and preconceived notions, you hear music in its holistically (whole) form instead of partiality (parts). Observe the music like you was seated in the actual recording studio, it may be difficult since playing an audio file is a secondary experience, but you get to jump in the artist's POV. Music is like a baked cake, there's many layers that constitutes its art form. Art in general shapes the world whether or not you consciously recognize from photography to the different hues/contrast you notice in the sky. Just a cogitation I had.

This IS an interesting subject.  It seems there are two areas of judgment that are separate but often put together as one.  First there is your subjective feeling towards a piece of music.  You can love it or hate it or be somewhere in between but it is your personal reaction that no one can contradict.  If you love it, it IS good (to you). 
The second area of judgment is in the social sphere.  How do people in groups big or small feel about it?  Do they agree with you that some style or a particular piece of music is good?  The more that people agree, the "better" the music is (from the group's viewpoint.  The Emmys work this way.)  That's a numbers game, a popularity score.

In either case, it's still all subjective.  I don't see any way to objectively rate music the music itself -- only people's reactions to the music.

Now there is software that has analyzed successful pop music and can find out what things in a song people respond to.  It can almost write a hit song by formula.  Nevertheless, when you hear that song, it's what YOU think of it that is important, not some objective checklist.

I agree with Douglas that this is an interesting topic!

I would like to point out an aspect that hasn't been brought up yet: how do people relate to music that doesn't meet their expectations? Every one of us is raised in a musical environment. There is music all around us, and the more we hear it, the more it is familiar to us. Most people today get to hear American music - rock, hip hop, r'n'b; it can be said that for the western ear this music is our point of reference, more so than classical music. So how do we react to music that deviates from that point of reference, that sounds UNfamiliar?

Listen, for instance, to a Chinese opera. When I first heard one I didn't know what to make of it. The sounds, the way of singing and playing the instruments, every aspect of it sounded totally alien to me. I couldn't discern anything I could relate to, like meter or harmony, things that I expect to hear in music. The only reason I could listen to it was that I KNEW - objectively - that it was "good" music. At least, the liner notes on the album said so! But up to this day I am unable to tell the difference between a well performed or badly performed Chinese opera - the music is still a mystery to me.

Similar things happened when European ears first encountered traditional African music. I have been reading more than one account of early western explorers - Portuguese, British, French, Dutch - and when, or if, they mention music they almost unanimously use words like incongruous, shrill, heathen, or just plain 'noise'. (It is interesting to note that these same words were used when white critics reviewed jazz in the 1920s or rock'n'roll in the 1950's - complete with references to 'wild primitive jungle dances' and sexual allusions.)

It wasn't until the early 20th century that musicologists started to take interest in African music and discovered that it wasn't primitive at all. What to the untrained ear had seemed to be just meaningless noise turned out to be, to the trained ears of science, very sophisticated. And by the time the famous African Ballets of the 1950s began to tour the world, it was the cultural elite that flocked the theaters.

So it seems that the perception of music can change over time. Music that at first baffles us, because it doesn't appear to stick to the rules - it comes with different rhythms, different harmonies, or none at all - can become objectively "good". It becomes part of the cultural canon, just as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which was booed and ridiculed in 1913 is now regarded a highly acclaimed masterpiece, and jazz, like Chinese opera, is recognized by Unesco as part of the world's Cultural Heritage.