Post a controversial music opinion

I...don't think this is so strange?

Dylan came through to many listeners as a whiny sarcastic sound

Same with the Beatles, Stones, Marvin Gaye. These are cool-sounding acts before I even penetrate the surface

The Doors are far more enjoyable to listen to than Pink Floyd

“Most of the time” is one of my favorite Dylan songs and the soundscape is definitely a part of it.

Dylan does seem more popular among English-speaking listeners than sarcastic singer-songwriters who work in other languages for some reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUULBlDcju4

Jorge Ben is cool too, yeah xpost

i'm trying to remember if theres any famous, foundational stories about bob dylan where his sound had a way bigger impact on audiences than his lyrics...

https://i.imgur.com/3bzKWg5.gif

This conversation is weird to me because I thought most of us reject acts because we recoil from their sound, especially their vocalists. I can't endure, say, Alicia Keys, Betty Davis, Animal Collective, etc. because as singers they have no power to compel me to listen closely to their pretty good lyrics.

It's true that the electric band arrangements make me much more willing to listen to Dylan's lyrics than the solo acoustic arrangements but they do still function as arrangements of songs. The instrumentation is there to support a singer who is singing words in strophic song forms built around stanzas of text. I don't see a serious case for the lyrics being the least important element, esp when there is so much music with no lyrics that listeners could choose instead but don't.

im not even a big dylan fan but for me he's like the foundational touchstone for the realization that lyrics themselves arent as important on their own and that tone, meter, delivery, repetition, musical setting, etc can all give deeper meaning to what would read like meaningless word salad on the page. i suspect that everyone on this thread has listened to a bob dylan rock & roll music album more recently than theyve read Tarantula

I wasn't familiar with the word "strophic" before, but if I'm understanding it correctly, it's that quality that actually makes the semantic content of the lyrics less important, or at least more elusive, for me (though I agree, I would never say they are the *least* important element). That said, I think "lyrics" is maybe not as stable a concept as one might assume (xp w/ One Eye)

I don't see a serious case for the lyrics being the least important element, esp when there is so much music with no lyrics that listeners could choose instead but don't.

"It seems preposterous now, but at the time, people seemed overly concerned about the literal meaning of our lyrics. I know we never discussed it among ourselves. Lyrics seemed a neccessity, so we had them, but the subject matter was an extension of our interests — not part of a political or aesthetic battle plan. The lyrics were subject to change at whim once the subject had been decided on anyway. Anybody who thinks we overstepped the playground perimeter of lyrical decency (or that the public has any right to demand "social responsibility" from a goddamn punk rock band) is a pure natural dolt, and should step forward and put his tongue up my ass. What we sing about is none of your business anyway." — Steve Albini, liner notes to Big Black's Pigpile

See also: the songs on Obituary's Slowly We Rot where John Tardy is just growling and making noises, the entire career of Eye Yamatsuka, the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird"...

That comment was about Dylan. Obv lyrics are not of the same importance in vocal music that doesn't have lyrics or that has backgrounded or extremely simplified lyrics.

lyrics themselves arent as important on their own and that tone, meter, delivery, repetition, musical setting, etc can all give deeper meaning

Most of these things still have to do with lyrics (unless you mean "meter" in the strictly musical sense, in which case, way to play in 4/4, Bob). "Lyrics" does not mean words in isolation from music! Tarantula does not afaik consist of lyrics.

And even in Big Black's case – notwithstanding the lovely imagery in that Albini quote – he at least correctly recognizes that lyrics were a "necessity." I bought a Big Black album once (years ago); if it had been instrumental I probably would have sold it back, as opposed to what the bass sounded like or whatever.

(I since have sold it back, but at least I listened to it a few times back in the day)

And tbc the majority of my listening is instrumental, in large part bc I do think lyrics are important in most music that has them.

Someone is going to need to provide receipts on Pink Floyd being more influential than VU beyond just that they were more popular so more people heard them.

I will take Future Games and Bare Trees over all or nearly all Floyd albums.

It's "thin, wild mercury music" not "thin, wild mercury words."

good music, good lyrics - ideal
good music, bad lyrics - works
bad music, good lyrics - doesn't work
bad music, bad lyrics - obv the worst

love Steve but I think he's full of shit wrt Big Black
he certainly cultivated a pretty distinctive lyrical identity for a band with supposedly tossed off lyrics

Lyrics can also be important for reasons other than literal meaning.

xp lol yes for real. few bands were more serious about having a "political or aesthetic battle plan" than big black

I'm just saying lyrics were important to BB

What we sing about is none of your business anyway." — Steve Albini

I don't even know what this means, you made the record and sold it dude

Of course it's bullshit. But it's bullshit in the same way Dylan was bullshitting when he called (calls) himself a "song and dance man." Kidding on the square, I believe, is the expression.

xp to Alfred, I get that about Alicia Keys. She sings flat, always, with such consistency, she's always exactly flat by the same amount. I've theorized that she wears her headphones a specific way in the booth, like, one ear half-off, which can cause the pitch in the playback to sound lower than it is, idk. She's always flat.

As for Stevie Wonder, whatever I guess. However you feel about Bruno Mars, that's how I feel about Stevie Wonder. I like corny music, except when I don't, same as anybody else

I kind of agree with M@tt but OTOH "A/B Machines" is one of the best Sleigh Bells songs, the lyrics to which are "Got my A machines on the table / Got my B machines on the floor / *incoherent scream*"

bad music, good lyrics - doesn't work

It's hard to come up with an example of this, tbh

I like the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd, the Doors... and Stevie Wonder, I'm quite happy.

i mean the main reason the doors lyrics falter is bc they have a reputation that doesn't match the reality, that isn't the band's fault. they are also v pretentious, which is. but i think i'm maybe overstating it if i call them "bad," as the occasional isolated line does sound really good to me, and i've been quoting the "peace frog" lyrics in the licorice pizza thread ever since i saw the movie

for the most part the "do lyrics matter" conversation is v dull to me, and has been rehashed here thousands of times. the answer is always: depends on the band

It's hard to come up with an example of this, tbh

weren't we just talking about Velvet Underground

That Albini quote always seemed so strange to me, like he was forced against his will to write lyrics for his compositions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YveC8laqCs

It's hard to come up with an example of this, tbh

― jmm, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 1:35 PM (two minutes ago)

would a bad cover of a good song w/lyrics count?

Pre-electric Dylan actually is my go-to example of good lyrics with music I have trouble enjoying. I usually prefer covers. Leonard Cohen can also be more palatable when covered for me.

@ ums I don't really think that's a dichotomy that makes any sense

Something that really stuck with me from school is that it's really hard, as a composer, to set "good poetry" to music. Text that succeeds on the page is harder to marry to music. My teacher advised us, when looking for text to set, to not approach our favourite poems, but to seek out ones that felt unfinished, like they "could use some help" or whatever. Teacher said "this is why people don't set Shakespeare sonnets to music" and "this is why songs with Auden as the text never really work so well"

Since then I've kinda thought that lyrics-to-music is relational. Cohen's music is at times pretty placeholder, if it were any more interesting or rich then it'd weaken the lyric. Destroyer and Silver Jews have the same vibe to me, the music has to be somewhat low-content so that the lyrics remain the focus. It's not "good lyrics, bad music", it's more of a relationship between music and lyrics, a balancing of content and a balancing of importance

for the most part the "do lyrics matter" conversation is v dull to me, and has been rehashed here thousands of times. the answer is always: depends on the band

Perfect example: Deftones. Their songs could be about literally anything; the way Chino meows them is all that matters.

Hell, sometimes (I'd bet more often than people realize) the non-singing bandmembers don't even care about the lyrics! When I interviewed Eugene Robinson of Oxbow for The Wire, he told me that their bass player not only doesn't care what the lyrics to Oxbow songs are about, he doesn't listen to lyrics at all. "When he listens to music for pleasure, the guy could be singing about eggs, the guy could be singing about shoes. Dan doesn't give a fuck. He's listening for feel or something else."

^ much better thought-out and articulated than what I was saying xp

Here's my controversial music opinion: People who dislike prime Stevie Wonder deserve harsh criticism.

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Fire run club gun rule mob burn some
Bomb time pop crime stock frame steady climb
Fresh name donor game fair meat all the same

Something that really stuck with me from school is that it's really hard, as a composer, to set "good poetry" to music. Text that succeeds on the page is harder to marry to music. My teacher advised us, when looking for text to set, to not approach our favourite poems, but to seek out ones that felt unfinished, like they "could use some help" or whatever. Teacher said "this is why people don't set Shakespeare sonnets to music" and "this is why songs with Auden as the text never really work so well"

"This is why Elton John is often awkward" -- yet works much of the time.

I don't know, I listen to Leonard Cohen for the music and singing, the lyrics are there and they're good but if they weren't good it wouldn't make much difference to me.

for the most part the "do lyrics matter" conversation is v dull to me, and has been rehashed here thousands of times. the answer is always: depends on the band

Yeah this is pretty otm

I argue that lyrics always matter (because a lyric that doesn't work will ruin any song always), but that lyric-quality has its own metric that is unrelated to poetry or any other text. i.e. one of the best lyrics of all time is Devo's "yeah yeah yeah yeah yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah" in "Uncontrollable Urge"

Here's my controversial music opinion: People who dislike prime Stevie Wonder deserve harsh criticism.

I remember being excoriated once for saying I dared to dislike "Lovely Day" because of its interminable outro, despite being an enormous fan of Bill Withers, otherwise. You can harshly criticize me all you want. Stevie Wonder's music is still corny and unlistenable

fgti - good post, buy I would argue that I think the examples you cite are all good music! particularly because they allow the lyrics to breathe

though as w those examples that takes a pretty high level above merely good lyrics to pull off

I suppose there's no way you can post without being an asshat.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, March 1, 2022 8:52 AM

???????

not sure if you're intentionally trying to provoke or what — i was chuckling at brad's near dismissal of the most prominent (very much problematic and imo indefensible) aspect of the band. if it works for brad, great! but as someone who can't stand jim morrison, i'm not allowed to find humor in that? literally nothing more to my comment.

The Doors are far more enjoyable to listen to than Pink Floyd

― joygoat, Tuesday, March 1, 2022 9:51 AM

doing the controp thread correctly right there.

finally: lyrics in pop/rock are stupid for the most part and i would do just fine without them or with wordless vocals in their place. that said, sometimes they're are good. not very often though.

they're are = they're very

lyric-quality has its own metric that is unrelated to poetry or any other text.

I remember Simon Frith's "Why Do Songs Have Words?" being p good. (And again, I'm usually a Fred guy all the way myself.)

I'm not mad at ya FGTI. Just bemused.