I think the other part that makes you good is actually liking the process. When you don't care what the outcome is, the journey becomes the reward. And that can lead to some pretty awesome creative work :)
Think about all the struggling artistic types out there though. Ask any unknown rock group who they like and they'll probably name the same legendary bands like Zeppelin, Floyd, etc., but most of them will never make it anywhere.
Tons of people have 'good taste', but I think there are certain careers where it's not a valid indicator of future success... not even close. Telling a musician "you have good taste, so you'll do well if you just keep trying" would be horrible advice 99% of the time. Hell, I wouldn't even say good taste is a prerequisite for music, because people always think the innovators are completely insane until they become the next big thing.
Methinks "good taste" refers not to the set of things you decide are good or bad, but to the perception and analysis you use to make such decisions.
It's best if you're able to explain yourself. The consummate person-with-good-taste-in-music should be able to listen to Led Zeppelin and say, "Ah, this is good, they do XYZ really well, those are the things that make this song good"; and it should be right, which means that if you took Led Zeppelin and had them do X not as well, and played the result to members of the general public, they would react much less enthusiastically than they would to the original song.
Being able to say "this is good" or "this is bad" is a start, but the really useful thing is to be able to go deeper and say "this is good overall; XYZ are good aspects of it; ABC could have been done better". 'Cause then you can tweak ABC and make it even better, or go to a comparable project and fix its XYZ.
It's sometimes possible to use your taste to be successful even if you're not able to explain yourself with words. If you're carefully listening to your project (or using whatever sense is appropriate; imagine a man closing his eyes and calmly giving his entire attention to the sensation), and you just feel that a certain thing isn't the way you like it and needs to be changed in a certain way, and you make the change, and repeat the process until you're satisfied... If you have very good taste, then these things that you felt needed fixing were precisely the things that the consummate person-with-good-taste would perceive and describe, and your product should now be really good (at least, much better than before).
If you have that kind of taste, and if you have control over your project (or if the people working with you simply trust your decisions), then you can get success without ever developing the ability to articulate just why a particular thing is good or bad. On the other hand, it is probably possible to have excellent taste in most regards but to just be flat-out wrong about a couple of important things. To guard against this possibility, it is useful to be able to explain yourself and to compare your words with others's.
You can probably start to learn to articulate your tastes by experiencing several things that are similar, but you definitely like some of them more than the others, and thinking about what makes them different and what might explain your preference. You'll have to be careful--not to attribute like or dislike to the wrong things--but you will probably make progress sooner or later.
> Being able to say "this is good" or "this is bad" is a start, but the really useful thing is to be able to go deeper and say "this is good overall; XYZ are good aspects of it; ABC could have been done better". 'Cause then you can tweak ABC and make it even better, or go to a comparable project and fix its XYZ.
This is a very good point, and I've seen it as my own musical tastes have developed. I have several friends who are in bands, and while they appreciate praise and fan adoration, they seem to be doubly appreciate when I say something like, "Your solos are a little too clean; turn up the distortion a bit," or "The lead is being drowned out by the harmonies."
By offering very direct constructive criticism, you are signaling to the artist that you appreciate their work enough to listen that closely in order to help them make it even better. On several occasions I've taken to conspicuously listening to a single band member, and without fail that person played better simply as a result of being scrutinized.
Being that critic and scrutinizing yourself in that same way is probably the surest way to improve your own art. That is why taste must come before good art. And that is why the best artists never seem satisfied. If they ever had been satisfied along the way, they never would have made it as far as they did.
I don't think liking Zeppelin, Floyd, etc... is a sure indicator of good taste, at least in the way Glass refers to it.
Appreciating something regardless of fashion / mob taste would be a better indicator in this case. Having liked Pink Floyd before they hit it big would have been a good indicator. But not everyone who hits it big is due to good creative work (although I'd defend Pink Floyd's is).
Look for ilyAIMY, the Floorwalkers, and the Andy Shaw Band in a few years. All three have a unique and tasty music style.
If you want a good example of a rock band that I quite liked which never made it big, check out Snake Like Charm. Their song "Responsible For" was a Napster hit, but their first two albums are both quite good and thoroughly unrecognized.
