What makes a song good?
musicismylife78
Posts: 6,116
I mean that in a general way I guess but more to the point:
Does anyone know of any scientific study, or other high fallutin explanation for why we like music? Why we as humans like it?
Yes music tastes vary greatly, some people love hip hop and others loathe it, some listen to only rock, others only country.
But why do our ears smile so to speak, when we hear something pleasureable?
What about our body chemistry and ear faculties allows us to dicearn that yes we love that melody, or we detest it?
Why are some sounds that one wouldnt think to be pleasureable and melodious, indeed melodious and pleasureable to some? Like death metal, or Sonic Youth? Sonic Youth has guitars that are tuned oddly, tuned in ways our ears arent used to hearing, yet many on this board would claim that Sonic Youth make amazing music. Why?
Does anyone know of any scientific study, or other high fallutin explanation for why we like music? Why we as humans like it?
Yes music tastes vary greatly, some people love hip hop and others loathe it, some listen to only rock, others only country.
But why do our ears smile so to speak, when we hear something pleasureable?
What about our body chemistry and ear faculties allows us to dicearn that yes we love that melody, or we detest it?
Why are some sounds that one wouldnt think to be pleasureable and melodious, indeed melodious and pleasureable to some? Like death metal, or Sonic Youth? Sonic Youth has guitars that are tuned oddly, tuned in ways our ears arent used to hearing, yet many on this board would claim that Sonic Youth make amazing music. Why?
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I will check out that, thanks. I just find it facinating how some people can find music just pure trash and rubbish, and others can find the same exact music to be the greatest thing on gods green earth and can make them cry. Very interesting dichotomy. And also in terms of just the riffs and chords and melodies and what I mentioned above. There are bands of there like radiohead who make completely bizaare and odd music. Many of the songs on Kid A and Amnesiac are what i am refering to. Yet many would consider Radiohead one of the most important bands in the world right now.
i have a small theory that goes something like this: if you like a song immediately or it sounds good at a first listen this often means that it will get old quickly. i think its because its so familiar, it uses the same progressions or whatever of a ton of other songs so at first we recognize it and seems good because we already know it, but then we get bored.
so as for why some people don't like nirvana or sonic youth i think some people don't try to enough to break in a new sound or some people just don't have the ear to take in anything but bland shit.
thats why i often go by the opposite of magazine reviews especially rolling stone. if rs hates an album by a band i like, a good band, i.e pj or weezer then the more chance i'll like it.
Okay.
This is very true for me. There are very few of my favorite bands / songs that I loved at first. The growers are always the ones that stick with me.
LOL
The Ramones were a band who sought to get away from the bloatedness that was bogging down a lot of '70s rock, and they concentrated on the verse-chorus-verse approach to writing short, sharp tunes with melody, hooks and lyrical wit that had been lost since the '60s singles era. Also, although they were punk, or proto-punk even, they avoided that later, Crass-like unlistenability. What you might get in the classic, short song championed by The Ramones is something like this. Verse one: exposition of theme; verse two: a bit of character or plot development, if it's a narrative song (or just a continuation and complication of the theme if it isn't a narrative song); the bridge which pulls you in, waiting for the hook: then the chorus; then a short solo and maybe the chorus or bridge repeated; then maybe a third verse, bridge and final chorus, repeated to fade. The songs were punchy, and they complemented immediate themes that spoke directly to people in a period tired of Nixonian double-talk and hippie whimsy.
People love that use of form and repetition: it goes right back to the Iliad and the Odyssey which were essentially (extremely) long songs played by rhapsodes on an instrument called a lyre: there are lots of "formulae" or repeated passages about dawn with her rosy fingers and the wine-dark sea and descriptions of sacrificial dinners, which audiences would enjoy through their familiarity.
I think a good song is a great balance of form (the domain of the musicologist, maybe) and theme (the content that the socio-political or cultural critic might be tuning into), and the form of the music should never be in excess of the state of mind or representation of the world conveyed in the song. A great psychedelic song fuses the trippiness of a theme with some sudden, jolting explorations into sound without getting too self-indulgent; a great punk anthem communicates directly while never letting the hardcore speed element take over the words and theme too much. (Not that hardcore or thrash isn't important. It's just not so much about "the song".) Lukin is a great, semi-fast punk song that gets the balance between elements just right.
Delivery of a song is also important. Pete Townshend wrote, "It's the singer, not the song". Michael Bolton or (in my view, and I know this might be controversial) Eva Cassidy are examples of vocalists who absolutely murder great songs by caterwauling or over-emoting at every given opportunity. Too much feeling is worse than too little, every time, and a detached, understated vocal delivery can often bring out nuances in the lyrics and melody/chord of harmonic structure that a big wailing performance denies.