This was originally going to be a rant about why I loathe pop so much, but then I decided to focus on what makes a song great, an artist inspirational; overall, what makes music good.
Music makes the world go ‘round. If that statement’s true, then songs are the axis on which the world spins, but with so many songs out there, how can you tell which ones are actually good, and which ones aren’t worth giving your time to? Basically, a good song must have some form of depth. This means no shallow garbage that is written in what I like to call “Mojo Jojo” style, meaning everything is practically the same line over and over just said in a slightly different way. Now I’m not saying all songs have to be angsty. Take They Might Be Giants, their songs don’t strike you emotionally, they make you laugh, and to me that’s a form of depth, humor. Whereas there are lots of songs out there that pretend to have depth, and fool many people, but if you really look at it, there’s nothing but a catchy chorus. Also, depth is not degrading crap with no meaningful message. For example, where my ho’s at?, isn’t an example of depth.
What makes a good musical artist? In my opinion, to be called in artist in the music world, you must fit into three criteria. One: you must write your own songs. Two: you must play your own music, maybe not the whole instrumental part, but at least the central instrument. Three: you must sound good live, and that means no lip-synching! Using those as guidelines, it really rules out a lot of the people out there now. Tons of people can sing, millions of people can play an instrument, many people can write great songs, but it’s combining all these things that makes worthy of the famous musical world. (Notice how dancing isn’t up there. Dancing has absolutely nothing to do with musical talent.) If you can do just one or two of these things, then you’re still talented, just not exceptionally talented and deserving of the title “famous musical artist”. As for singing live and still sounding great, even I could sound wonderful with all the machines they have out there now, and it’d be so simple to just lip-synch to those songs that had been fixed up, but that would be cheating, would it not?
Well, there’s my tasty little rantage. Hope you enjoyed it. If you agree/disagree, I’d love to hear from you. Now I’ll leave you with a little quote from the lead singer of one of the greatest bands ever, U2’s Bono. “It’s not being able to download songs for free that killing the industry, it’s crap music that’s killing the industry.”