[dhwilkin]

I want to know what is (in general) your favorite part of a song. Is it the music, the singing, the engineering/mastering process (I'm expecting at least one vote here, Mike Walker

), the vocals, or something else entirely? What gets your heart pumping, makes you lose track of time, really awakens your soul? And PLEASE do not use the "other" choice to mean every part of a song, I don't want it to be that easy. If you pick "other", specify what your pick would've been.

 

[Apheared]

Myself as well. You can be the best musician or vocalist on the planet, but if it's mic'd, taped, mixed or mastered poorly... who cares? Whereas an average sounding band with a minimal amount of talent can be made to sound incredible with a skilled engineer.

Emotional power of a piece is truly the most important part of music to me; but I would consider these two different aspects... you could be the world's best Formua I driver, but you ain't nothin' without a killer car. Since you put it in, I voted for it.

 

[zoboomofo]

What really gets my mojo going is good rhythmic sense. Usually, it takes a smart and gifted musician - ie. its the drummer for me. If the rest of the band can feed off of that one guy's groove, then I'm in heaven (eg. Led Zeppelin).

Ranked second on my list is how well the music evokes emotions. If its an ethereal kind of music (like Spiritualized, or ...Roses or Verve ), then I'm on cloud 9. I agree with Apheared.

Melody and lyrics can get me infatuated with a song for a while (eg. Cardigans, and Pulp respectively) but they don't carry the music by themselves for me. I'd lump innovativeness in with these two characteristics as well (eg Radiohead). It makes a novel disc, but it needs one or more of the above ingredients to work.

Sound quality is also important but least significant on my song judging criteria. I can't really enjoy a song that hurts my ears, even if its well written (eg. Oasis - Somebody should hang Owen Morris!). I can live with less dynamics, and a little distortion as long as the miking is good, and the compression is kept under control. Mr. Pearhead nailed that one too.

In the other category, I'd put in babelicious band leaders like Shirley Manson. She really knows how to use her voice. Grrrrrrrowwl!! And she oozes charisma too.

That's my 2 cents.

Note, the bands mentioned above aren't necessarily exclusive to the one category that describes them.

 

[zoboomofo]

Here's a quote from Owen Morris

(www.oa515.com/feature006b.htm)

, (co)producer of the Oasis albums - the ones I have anyway. :


"In my dreams I think my mixing is influenced by Phil Spector and Tony Visconti. My reasoning behind this ludicrous claim is that I love heavily compressed, roomy drum sounds (Spector) and my stuff sounds like no-one else (Visconti). Whatever, the band seem to like it. The greatest thing about Oasis records (apart from the songs and the singing, obviously) is that they sound like everybody's having a proper good time. I hate records that are so polished that all the life is taken out. Of course some of the greatest records ever made are produced to [frick]. But these days so many producers seem to think that having the fanciest-sounding reverb, the most ear[wax]ing effects, anything really to cover up the fact they've got nothing to say and nothing to feel, means they're making top records. These people are missing the point. Well, bollocks. They can all [flip] off."

Yikes! I think Mr. Morris missed the point of producing, and that is to bring out the best from the band, and not to knock off a couple of takes before the pub closes. Excuse my strong opinion, but its such a shame that I listen to Oasis' cds despite the horrible sound. Now I don't expect super polished sound, but how about tasteful sound imaging, and for Gods sakes, mike the drums right! The sounds on HIS records sound like the life is taken out.

compression shmompression. sheeesh.

Thanks for reading my rant. I've been meaning to get that off my chest for a while.

 

[CaptBubba]

To me, it all depends on what mood I am in when I listen to something. If I'm mellow, its all about instruments for me, but when I'm just relaxed (yes, there is a difference) I want deep lyrics.

What really gets me happy is when the artist combines deep lyrics with gobs of emotion. I'd have to say that's my criteria for picking music that I will listen to again and again. I also believe that what Apheared said about good engineering aplies to everything else, although maybe to a lesser degree. A lack in any of those catagories can hold back otherwise great music.

 

[neil]

I say the music -- original sounding, original feeling, and just genuine (as in not being contrived or a cheap attempt to be something else). It doesn't have to be entirely unique -- I mean, shoot, that's very hard to do due to influence; however, if a song has those listed attributes above, it has substance to me.

These bands that package a sound because it's popular (I can probably point my finger at my radio at 100 songs that fit this category, but couldn't name a single band) drive me INSANE.

I'd rather listen to Tiffany cover songs from 1940 - 1990 than listen to these plethora of identical boy bands and pseudo-rock bands with whiney weak voices and no backbone.

Long live Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Rush, and Tool.

And hell, even the Gladiator soundtrack.

Heheheh... I'm killing myself here. I'm so tired, I actually got mad just thinking about bad music.

 

[mcbiff]

I voted for Clever/Deep Lyrics. Although recording quality is also important to me, good lyrics are the first thing I remember about a recording. I can't really become attached to a song in which the lyrics don't pull me in and make me interested.

 

[Braver]

easy: emotion

I like good vocals, but half the time I'm listening, singing along with the lyrics, the words don't really say anything to me. The emotion the vocalist puts behind his words is far more iportant. Sometimes lyrics really matter, like with Marillion when Fish was still in (tho there's bucketloads of emotion in htere too). And there can be a lot of emotion in instruments too, specially synths (or hammonds), electric guitars, saxophone etc etc.

Ofcourse there are moments I'm just listening to the instruments or just instrumental music, just nodding my head to the bass-guitar and tapping my toes. But those are not the moments when I really listen.

My equipment isn't really at a point where badly produced albums become annoying, so thats not important to me, and you wont catch me listening to something because of good production.

 

[dhwilkin]

Amen, Braver, I couldn't have said it any better. For the curious, I also voted for the emotion. I can LIKE a song w/ little or no emotion, but I cannot LOVE it.

I will take Braver's statement about words not saying anything a bit further for me, in that if the singer lyrics literally consisted of nothing but "blah, blah, blah...", I wouldn't care as long as those "blah"s were heartfelt. This goes a long way in explaining why I like certain j-pop music. Do I speak Japanese? No, maybe a word here or there, but that's about it. But the sheer emotion coming from the music and singing really move me.

Next most important is the actual music. Now, good lyrics and vocals and beats further enhance the song, but they're not necessary for me. Given a choice, I'll take good music over good lyrics every time.

Soundstage and mastering are the least important to me, because these are merely icing on the cake. Admittedly, poor mastering can ruin my ability to listen to a song on a good system, but I'll always keep some sort of back-up system that will cover those faults, and let as much emotion as possible shine through.

 

[davidcotton]

I voted for emotional intensity as well

It doesnt have to be with vocals as well! If a certain guitarist or keyboard player really puts their heart into it you can sit there grinning like an idiot as the chords or whatever wash over you. There was a live track on an Iona cd that I was playing that had a long instrumental on and theres a bit where the guitarists fluffs the solo slightly, but instead of ruining the song it made it seem better cause you could tell it was being played live with an intensity that the studio album couldn't match!

 

[zoboomofo]

david, I know exactly what you mean about the flubbed guitar bits. For me, I like those bits because it usually results from the guitarist getting so worked up about the piece, that he overcooks the riff. You can feel the enthusiasm on the live recordings. I find that the same piece from the studio usually ends up sounding sterile after hearing the live one.

 

[JMT]

For me, it's definitely the music, and the composition/arrangement. It never ceases to amaze me the talent some people have for; 1) writing great sounding music, 2) taking a standard composition and arranging it so the listener gets a different musical perspective, and 3) having the talent to play an instrument, blend it with others, and make them sing.

Being an ex-musician and a frustrated song writer, I truly appreciate that kind of talent.

 

[Beagle]

Good sound is great, but if there is no song or performance, it matters not a bit. A great song is a great song, even over an old transistor radio or car radio. A crap song will not be helped by good sonics.

 

[Neruda]

be careful about that emotional intensity thing, nine times out of ten it's nothing but bombast! However, I do agree that emotion is important. Think about blues, and those powerful guitar solos in Pink Floyd's Greatest album ever, Dark Side of the Moon...

 

[Deuce_Bigalow]

My favorite part of the music is the instruments (especially really intense drums). Usually I don't even pay much attention to the lyrics or even hear what they say. But it depends on the lyrics. I listen to different types of music in different ways.

I find it amusing listening to music like Slayer where every line is about murder, blood and decapitation and stuff like that. I don't know where it's coming from or anything, just that its crazy. I don't know if I'm making any sense even to myself. I'm too tired to think about it right now. I'll try to explain it again later when it's not 1:20 in the morning.