what is the difference between good and bad music

Mrtennis, if all you heard since childhood is "BEETHOVEN IS GREAT" a thousnad X's. You really don't know if this is true or not, until FIRST you are old enough/experienced from hearing many other composers.
What age that is, depends on the individual. I knew from eraly days of classical transition, from R7R, that I had not much interest in Beethoven. Yet he sure was talked about quite alot. Still is in 2006.
Many of those Beethoven fans have not heard a note of some of my favorite late 20th century composers.
I'm tolerant of Beethoven, just not all the hype haloed around his shrine, by those with very limited experience in classical music.
This is what I find disturbing. Like everything now a days, sharp lines of division are being drawn. Now that i got a few issues off my chest, I can try to be more tolerant towards fans of certain composers. But then again free speech of ones opinions should also not be sensored.
Don't follow the crowd, say what you really feel.

I don't consider myself particularly well informed about classical music, sometimes mistaking one composer for another (or unable to identify) when I hear a piece. What I do have is a passion for all kinds of music, old and new.

My listening tastes run from old pop such as the Everly Brothers, Ray Charles, Booker T & MG's, Elvis, Bobby Darin, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Nat King Cole and countless others. I like to rock with the Doors, Beatles, Peter Green, Jimi Hendrix, Early Fleetwood Mac, Led Zep, Stones, Dylan, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Elvis Costello, Roger Waters, Robert Fripp, and countless others.

Vocals by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, June Christy, Rosemary Clooney, Helen Humes, Nancy Wilson, Anita O'day, Carmen McRae, Mahalia Jackson, Della Reese, Peggy Lee, Jeri Adams, Polly Bergen and Dakota Station.

Male vocals like Peter Himmelman, Tom Waits and Daniel Lanois. Country by Emmylou Harris, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams. 80's pop by XTC, Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins. I absolutely love Bjork and Radiohead. Have lots of Nirvana, Neil Young, CSN&Y, Eric Clapton, James Brown, Jimmy Reed, Elmer Snowden, Etta James, Stevie Wonder and Al Green.

I have a whole section of jazz and blues including hundreds of the Fantasy titles (Contemporary, Pablo, Galaxy, Prestige). Dozens of Mosaic box sets, including Miles Davis, Don Cherry, Ike Quebec, Bill Evans, Lightning Hopkins and too many others to list.

I have a nice Jazz collection from Concord (California), and shelves of ECM, Impulse, Blue Note, Roulette, A&M Horizon and a mass of Capital, Columbia, RCA and other popular labels. For those who are familiar with Jazz artists on these labels, you know how varied the sound is. All but the last mentioned (Capital, Columbia and RCA) tend to have a "house" sound and artists that are associated with that sound, especially Blue Note and ECM.

I have dozens of classical titles on London, Decca and the RCA shaded dogs. I have a few DG and Mercury as well.

I have a section dedicated to classical female vocals, including Frederica von Stade, Cecilia Bartoli, Dawn Upshaw, Kathy Battle and Mady Mesple.

I also listen to Eminem, The Streets, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Yello, The Shins, The Eels and The Postal Service.

I have a section of movie sound tracks, Broadway plays, spoken word and such. I have some old country from folks like Faron Youg and Roy Acuff and modern bluegrass such as Alison Krauss and Martina McBride and all of the incredible releases by Johnny Cash on American Recordings.

I have several pieces of electronic music by Karlheinz Stockhausen, Laurie Anderson, Phillip Glass, Jan Jelinek and the Nascent french jazz movement by artists such as Michel Portal, Barre Phillips and others.

I am constantly in search of music. As far as I'm concerned, for every piece of new music I find, buy and learn to love, the value of my life and my music system increases.

Does anybody besides me wish that I could be Albertporter when I grow up?

Good/bad music has both a subjective and an objective benchmark.

From a subjective point of view, if the music connects with you, it is good. What somebody else thinks is totally irrelevant. As my favourite audiophile company says; "If it sounds good, it is".

From an objective point of view, there is definitely good and bad music. This is the type of thing you study in a formal music school. Composition is but one example. There would certainly be standards against which Mahler's compositions could be judged. However, even here there is room for interpretation, disagreement and debate. Standards change with time. That's why music history consists of distinct eras. Poor composition according to the standard of one era could in fact be the emergence of a new standard, or it could be the poor implementation of an existing standard. There are certainly standards against which you friend's opinion of Mahler can be benchmarked. It is also possible that your friend is simply giving his subjective opinion, and then trying to give it greater legitimacy by cloaking it with reference to an objective standard, i.e. musical composition and its associated theory.

I am sure that Beethoven is probably "good" and the Sex Pistols are probably "bad" having reference to objective standards. From a subjective point of view, it's your own preference as to which is "good" and which is "bad" and nobody call tell you otherwise.

All music is good, until purchased....if you know more than 3 people who own the same cd, it can't be any good. for vinyl, I believe the number is 2.....with the declining sales in the music industry, it is projected that these respective 'is music good? #'s' will be down to 2 and 1.........hope this clears everything up