Interesting thread, Zac...I've been half-assedly working on a theory of my musical taste for a little while now, and your thread is as good as any in which to introduce it. Mine doesn't deal as much with individual bands or genres as it does the actual music, the individual songs. Sometimes I will sit and listen to The Entertainer or Gallows Pole and wonder what it is about these songs that makes me perk up, listen, and really enjoy them much more than any other random conglomeration of notes and vocals. I know there is a whole slew of mathematical music theory that could be dredged up here to explain why certain chords and scales are used when and where. I have had a basic amount of training in that area and I found it boring and stale. So, like any good student who decides he is smarter than the teacher, I developed my own theory based on nothing more than feeling, with not tangible empirical evidence to back up anything I say. So this all means none of you can tell me I am wrong. My theory centers around the idea that what makes songs stand out can actually be broken down to 5-10 second segments that have unusually pleasant or stirring melody. Here I will introduce my first acronym (every bad theory has to have acronyms). DIEM - Distinct Instance of Extraordinary Melody Have you ever been listening to a song and a particular section began that you liked so much the hair on your arms would stand on end, or you might even get little chill bumps? And no matter how many times you listen, it almost always illicits the same response? That's a DIEM. They make songs epic. You enjoy the hell out of them, and find yourself anticipating their arrival, therefore keying you more into the rest of the music leading up to it and sometimes after...making you more involved. And sometimes, very rarely, you will hear a P-DIEM. Or Perfect DIEM. These are the moments when you can't help but close your eyes, rock your head back and just wonder, sometimes out loud, how anyone of this earth could conjure up some a completely amazingly perfect 5-10 seconds of music. The kind that stirs the soul. I'm trying to think of good examples of this now, but I am at work and hence away from my music, plus I have been up for 36 hours so I am not thinking straight. Maybe I shouldn't have said that...some of you might not take my theory seriously now. The rest of the theory is about setting up these DIEMs. A song should crescendo (musically, not necessarily volume-wise) towards them and decrescendo out. Everytime a band finds and sustains a DIEM, it needs to be emphasized as much as possible. In addition to cramming DIEMs into songs and emphasizing them appropriately, bands must avoid throwing in too much fluff that is really just poorly written bridges to get to a different section. I call these UFTs. UFT - Unfortunate Filler Trash Sometimes bands just go on and on with no real goal or destination in mind. Parts of The Doors songs enter my thoughts when I think of this. At times they would seemingly just jam around for several minutes...with the apparent notion to just groove and build things up to the more enjoyable melody to follow...instead I feel it takes away from the song. APD - Appropriately Prepped DIEM There is a fine line between UFT and APD at times. One person can be taken out of the music while another might be drawn in. This is not about telling others what they like, but defining a standard by which I can map how a song makes me react. It is often a shame when a band obviously succeeds in coming up with a song that has wonderful DIEMs, but poor setup. "Yellow Ledbetter" comes to mind right now (if it is the song I am thinking of). The acoustic intro is so splendidly enjoyable...and to me most of the rest of the song is just....meh. I think Pearl Jam could have done so much more with that. This theory is not as finalized as I would like it to be. I want to expand more on the APDs and UFTs and things about them that might distinguish them from other sections of music...but my brain is not functioning properly right now. I promised Zac I would throw this out in his thread, so here it is. Please use it for good rather than evil.
"Hold me now. I'm six feet from the edge, and I'm thinkin', 'maybe six feet ain't so far down.' " "Can you make me whiter?" - I mean "take me higher?" raw energy... no really. Creed rocks. No matter what desensitized listeners say. But then that's my opinion. And "The Darkness"... who's that? Good music is any music that you personally enjoy. It ain't about anybody else while that songs on.
Not much discussion of lyrics in this thread. Do the lyrics/ meanings of songs not really matter in your assessment of "good" music? Of course, different people put their emphasis on different things. In my opinion, Creed's music is nothing special, unless you just love that genre. Those of us who listen to them often are drawn to the strength of the lyrics. (It also helps if your philosophy of life is somewhat in line with the one that the band presents.) As for the other debate - what is "good"? What is the purpose of music? For people to enjoy listening to. One piece of music may have taken more talent or effort to create, but another may produce more pure enjoyment. The more enjoyable music is going to be the piece of music that fulfills its purpose in a better way. Of course, our tastes are not all going to be the same. That's why I don't like critics telling me what I should and shouldn't like. You can introduce me to something new, or warn me that something else is formulaic, but the "formula" might be just what I need right then. I confess to enjoying some of the bubblegum and boy-band music. No, it's not deep or original, but it's ear candy. There are still good songs produced in that format. Of course, I don't buy these CDs just because I wouldn't want anyone to know, including my husband and the checkout clerk at the store. It's kind of sad when we have to have social stereotypes like that which prevent us from enjoying the music we really want to enjoy. (the critics say we should definitely enjoy Radiohead, for example... well, I don't. It's usually slow, and that falsetto gets old really fast. )
On the lyrical aspect, I think the true appeal of music lies in how it relates to the individual on a personal level. Lots of bands make their mark by addressing different things mostly aimed at confused teenagers, those looking for a source of guidance in life from someone who isn't wearing a tie. (I want to kill myself, I want to kill you, Life Sucks, I Hate Women, I love women, I love drugs, war sucks, kill everything.)
Just wanting to chime in country music, since the inquiry was posed in the beginning of the thread as to what it is that makes a country music song "good". First off, let me say that 95% of what is played on country music stations nowadays is a sad, sad derivative of bad bubblegum pop. It's really awful, and most of it that's worth listening to should really just be (and often is) played on a mainstream pop station. Having said that, most of the appeal in country music is in the lyrics and the message of the song. By nature, the music itself is meant to be simple. The type of music that "country folk" would be sitting around listening to or playing. As such, the lyrics are always clear and discernable. Think about a typical Radiohead song for example. How many words do you actually understand the first time you hear it? Can you follow the "plot" or meaning? A lot of times you have to look up the words and figure out what they're getting at. It's just not like that in a country song. You hear the song, and it's usually some kind of story or message, first person or otherwise. The "good" songs have particularly clever lyrics, with either a fun and/or touching story, or a nice twist at the end... something like that. Some of the "great" country songs, however, will have some great music thrown in. Take "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" for example. Legendary solos and a fun story. There's not really any singing in it, just spoken words, but it's one of the great country songs of all time. Country has it's own brand of solos, which mostly entail a lot of showboating, handclapping, and hooping and hollering. George Strait's song, "You've Got To Have An Ace in the Hole" is a great example of different band members showboating their talents, all in good fun. Another thing about country music is that it has distinctive instruments. Violins, for one, are almost exclusively used in country music, (only counting popular "radio" music, obviously movie soundtracks and classical music are excluded) and of course banjos are basically exclusive to country and bluegrass. But the distinctive sound in country music is the steel guitar. It's really the last thread that separates most of the country pop that gets played on the radio today from Britney Spears. At least most of the modern country singers haven't abandoned the steel guitar. It's funny, I once heard a song by Sting in which he used a steel, and immediately I thought, "this sounds like a country song". It took me a couple minutes to figure out why. Anyway, the best country songs have a perfect mix of well played music, using distinctively country instruments, while still maintaining a simple feel, and allowing the lyrics to come through and mean something to the audience. Did I mention bonus points if the song is depressing?
