I AM music, part 2
Types of music, as categorized by Amilie:
Links are not included, because I figured I put too many links in my last entry, so I'm only providing song titles and artists here. You can probably find them all on Youtube.)
Catchiness
- It’s so ridiculously catchy that you’ve decided within the first 3 seconds of hearing the song for the first time, you already know it will be one of your favorite songs of all time. (very rare, but you know it when it comes along) (ex. Right Now - SR-71)
- It’s catchy enough to make you listen to it at least ten times in a row and be unable to stop singing it for at least 24 hours. (ex. Modern Swinger - The Pink Spiders)
- You hear it once and think, “eh, that’s SORT OF catchy.” Then you listen a few more times (can be immediately afterwards or a few months later... this doesn’t matter for categorization purposes), and suddenly, you realize that it has a sort of hidden catchiness. Once you make this realization, you will probably listen to it at least ten times in a row and/or be unable to stop singing it for at least 24 hours. (ex. I Need You - Relient K)
- Then there are the songs that are the opposite of the ones I just described. You hear it once, maybe on the radio, or on a friend’s iPod, and it seems SO catchy at the time. But then you listen to it later, and realize that it actually isn’t that catchy after all. In fact, you usually don’t even like the song. (ex. My Love - Justin Timberlake)
- Then there are the songs that are catchy, but you never really get that into them. (ex. Something to Be - Rob Thomas)
- And finally, some songs just aren’t catchy at all (which doesn’t preclude them from being really GOOD songs). (ex. I Need Some Sleep - Eels)
- You can completely relate to it in every possible way. (This type is usually really hard to stop listening to, even when no one else understands why you like the song so much.)
- You can relate to it, except that you’re the opposite gender of the lead singer.
- You can relate to it, except you’re the person the song was written FOR, not the one singing it.
- You feel like you can relate to the song, even though you’ve never actually been through anything similar to what’s described in the song.
- You were once able to relate to it, but you’ve changed since then.
- You suspect that you’d be able to relate to it if only you could figure out what it means...
- And then, there’s the myriad of other songs that you just can’t relate to at all.
- The song tells a story you can learn from, teaches a life lesson, or offers a useful piece of advice to the listeners. Truly meaningful music changes the way the listener thinks. This can be done in many ways. Sometimes the song is about someone who makes a huge mistake or goes about solving a problem the wrong way, but the message to the listener is to do the opposite. (ex. My Bloody Valentine - Good Charlotte)
- The song is clearly meaningful to the artist and maybe a few of his/her close friends or relatives, but isn’t particularly meaningful to the average person, although the listener is usually able to empathize with the artist to a limited extent. (ex. Emotionless - Good Charlotte)
- The song seems meaningful at first glance, but upon further examination of the lyrics, it actually doesn’t make sense at all. Or bits of the song make sense when viewed separately, but may contradict or be unrelated to other parts of the song. (ex. A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More “Touch Me” - Fall Out Boy)
- The song doesn’t seem to make any sense at first, but then one day you realize it’s just full of hidden meanings. (ex. Change Your Mind - All-American Rejects)
- The song doesn’t seem to make any sense at first, and it actually doesn’t make any sense. (ex. It’s a Free World Baby - R.E.M.)
It’s tough to list specific subsets for this. Some songs are catchy, but not really musical. Or they may have one particularly amazing instrumental line/riff, but overall, they aren’t by any stretch a musical masterpiece. There are, of course, some songs that are almost incontrovertibly full of musical mastery. My current favorite is And So It Goes by Billy Joel. Just listen to the genius piano part. It doesn’t even NEED other instruments. The piano swells beautifully with his voice, suggesting the heaving breaths of someone sobbing quietly. I’d argue that it’s impossible to listen to this song and not start breathing heavily along with the music, provided you are listening to it alone and without distractions. It's very simple, yet deeply moving. ...And then there are the less musical songs. And I don’t believe that all rap music is inherently lacking in musicality, but IN GENERAL, it is.
Overall Likeability
I’m not going to list every single category here, because the categories for “overall likeability” are basically composites of the subsets of each of the categories described in this post. It is very rare to find one song that fits in to the top ranking of each category, but that does not mean a song cannot be extremely likeable. In fact, many of my favorite songs scored in the lowest ranking in one or more categories, but I decided I liked it because of various redeeming factors from other categories. And of course, this is highly subjective, and often evaluated based on a gut feeling rather than anything substantive.