You're "a reactionary old fart just wishing for things to be like they were when I was young?" AND you have a point. Several of them, in fact.
I find a whole load of 'modern' music to be like 'modern' art of the same period, a triumph of form over function. The forms praised originality and getting away from anything which had been done before, but most of the time the purpose of the art, to communicate, was lost. If the audience can't understand the new 'language' then there is no communication, they might as well listen to the sounds made by an AM radio set next to a computer or some other fairly random noise. Beethoven's genius, like Bach's, Dali's, and many others, was that he was able to talk both 'languages' and communicate in both, so that we both understand what he is saying and also see how he expresses it in new ways.
Humour is a funny thing. The puppeteers' description of is as an "imterrupted defense mechanism" explains some kinds of humour, especially the type you describe which is a form of embarassment, but not all. A particular exception is original wordplay, at which the Goons excelled (the "running gag" however is back to the expectation of interruption).
I have no idea when 'cosy' and 'safe' became bad terms, but I think it was a long time ago that they became associated with 'boring' and 'predictable', and they are usually the opposite of humour or at least can become so. With most of the arts I think it's dependent on fashion, some things being 'in' and others being considered 'old', I think humour often does that. Although using sex and smut for humour is probably the oldest humour there is...
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I find a whole load of 'modern' music to be like 'modern' art of the same period, a triumph of form over function. The forms praised originality and getting away from anything which had been done before, but most of the time the purpose of the art, to communicate, was lost. If the audience can't understand the new 'language' then there is no communication, they might as well listen to the sounds made by an AM radio set next to a computer or some other fairly random noise. Beethoven's genius, like Bach's, Dali's, and many others, was that he was able to talk both 'languages' and communicate in both, so that we both understand what he is saying and also see how he expresses it in new ways.
Humour is a funny thing. The puppeteers' description of is as an "imterrupted defense mechanism" explains some kinds of humour, especially the type you describe which is a form of embarassment, but not all. A particular exception is original wordplay, at which the Goons excelled (the "running gag" however is back to the expectation of interruption).
I have no idea when 'cosy' and 'safe' became bad terms, but I think it was a long time ago that they became associated with 'boring' and 'predictable', and they are usually the opposite of humour or at least can become so. With most of the arts I think it's dependent on fashion, some things being 'in' and others being considered 'old', I think humour often does that. Although using sex and smut for humour is probably the oldest humour there is...