do you judge a piano piece on how many notes and how skilled you have to be to play it?
No, if I did that, I'd be a huge Alkan fan. I primarily judge by creativity and expression. Those things are usually achieved by means of the fundamentals- both following the rules and bending them. But something can be simple and eloquent... Simplicity requires much more work ultimately than complexity.
But nothing is nothing *by definition*. Just because we have thousands of years of great artistic achievements behind us, that doesn't mean we should lay down and give up. We should build on the foundation we have, not tear it down and not add anything to the world because of our debilitating case of post modernist ennui.
What about a case like this one?
I'm not familiar with what they did with that basic keyboard voice... Did they just play it straight out of the keyboard without adding anything?
Again, I understand your criteria, but those are your own feelings. Would you also throw Dali and even more easily Picasso under the bus because they made lazy and weird stuff that didn't appeal to your sense of esthetic?
There is absolutely NOTHING lazy about either of those artists. They were constantly pushing themselves to go further and they achieved more than many of their contemporaries. They may have done some things here and there that weren't as great as other things they did, but no one bats .1000
Stuff that doesn't fit my taste is just stuff I don't appreciate or care for. That is entirely different than stuff that cheats and defrauds.
Another outlook(I'm going full rabbit hole) on this is the trend to cancel people's art forms based on some crap they posted on tweeter. Does something stop being art the moment we learn how many kids the creator molested(MJ FTW)?
Art is separate from the person who creates it. Caravaggio is a great example of that. Brilliant artist- but a murderer.
Is a statue not art if, instead of in a museum, it's out there on the street?
Turning that around... is 4'33" music because it's performed in a concert hall?
The venue doesn't make something art. Art is a title that is *earned*. It's a gift word that we bestow on things that communicate to us- artist to viewer/listener- something that expresses a truth using an artistic medium to communicate a point that is universally human. Truly great art is the one thing on earth that is immortal. It isn't a title that should be handed out to just anything that claims to be art.
My mother will start loving and respecting an artist no matter how "bad" he is after she learns he rescues puppies on the weekend.
I hate to break it to you, but the New York Times will never hire your mother as an art critic!
My position is that you can be a good artist or a bad artist and create good or bad art. But every kind of artist should at least *try* to create something great. Warhol didn't do that. He packaged bad art as high fashion and worked at artificially pumping up prices (along with Jose Mugrabi) . He succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams and set a terrible example for the artists that followed him. He single handedly destroyed fine art as a major part of our expression of culture and replaced it with snake oil and status symbols that sold for incredible sums at auction. People now judge fine art by everything *except* its artistic value.
When I see musicians or artists trying to cheat... to use words to justify not trying hard to create something worthwhile... it makes me mad. I work with artists. They don't tolerate artistic frauds. They work hard at creating, and when they see someone trying to cheat the system, it offends them. You don't screw with the muse.
Of course I get to decide what is great art and what isn't. I am a member of my culture. I can admire Shakespeare and the Beatles and Picasso and Mikhail Baryshnikov and Frank Lloyd Wright and Alfred Hitchcock and whoever I want. I can argue for why I think they are great artists. You can disagree... and support why you think they aren't. Like any argument, the quality of the arguments will eventually reveal who is more correct.
You can critically analyze and judge art. It's allowed... it's even encouraged. If more people did a good job of that, there wouldn't be any place for naked emperors. They'd get what they deserve.