Lyrical Integrity

Back in the day when I was a teenie bopper, I listened to the radio driving to school a lot. It didn't bother me. As I got older, the radio made me want to eat Elton John's glasses until I died. I haven't turned the radio on in years. Literally years.

The problem was not the music itself but the lyrics. I like pop music and don't have a problem admitting it. I can listen to lots of stuff, and songs focusing on production values are on my list of yum-yums. But the words...THE WORDS!

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Originally Posted by Black Eyed Peas

Whatcha gonna do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your trunk?
Imma ge-ge-get you drunk
Get you love drunk off my hump

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This doesn't even make sense. I can't fathom any human being actually sitting down, writing that on a piece of paper, looking at it, and deciding it deserved to be a song. A four-year-old could accidentally write better lyrics than that during a seizure.

I guess I feel if you're in a position to put out tunes and be heard by so many, you should say something important. Personal, political, not auto-biographical, anything that holds some real merit. It's not that hard! Take Justin Timberlake for instance; I like the sound Timbaland has concocted for him and such, but every single song is just about some girl. And 99% of them are about getting in her pants. Same thing over and over and over. It's like Little Timberlake has no thoughts in his head at all.

I just need my songs to be about something these days or I can't stomach them. I'm not asking for Shakespeare, but Great Jubbah. Avril Lavigne's lyrics are so middle-school that I can guess what she's going to say before she even says it. She'll say "do" and it will rhyme with "you". If she says "be", you know you've got a "me" coming.

And write about something other than love. Yeah, it's universal, but so is every other emotion. Try out some fear or frustration or something. I want Regina Spektor lyrics to Madonna music. That would be so much conglomerated gay that I would turn into a rainbow made of happy and float away.

Alright, let's get to the part everybody skips to, the topic:
Say you can't both as would naturally be desired: do you care more about catchy music or interesting lyrics?

Lyrics it's all about lyrics :D If lyrics don't make sense I don't like the music (it's very rare to happen anyway)

We used to have songs like 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, where you had to pay attention and figure out that the message was that Paul Simon's friend had him sleep with her that night and break up with his girlfriend in the morning. If you're too young for that kind of message, you wouldn't catch it. It was an artistic way of saying it. Now we have songs that say, "I like your pants around your feet." Yeah. That's really artistic to say you want a girl to drop her pants.

Another example (Only one more because two examples is enough) is Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. It's a song about an acid trip (Though the acronymn LSD was purely coincidence and John Lennon didn't even notice until someone pointed it out). You really can't tell if you're not listening. It's done in an artful manner. But now we have a song that says, "I do it for the drugs."

The songs about suicide have gone this route as well as most of the songs in general. The message is no longer an artful message, but rather the lyrics are literal. It takes a lot more talent to create an artful message and it's a lot easier to get it played on the radio because it doesn't have those "questionable lyrics," but the abolition of the FCC is a whole nother argument.

I listen to evanescence so I get lyrics and Music. Seriously she is a diva when it comes to lyrics.

The only thing I really care about lyrics is that they flow well with the song. Other than that, unless they're totally horrible, I'm not bothered. Don't need lyrics at all, personally.

That-that song! I have never had a song I hated so much than that one. My Humps or whatever, shouldn't even be considered a song. I listen to songs in English, Spanish, German, and Japanese and I only know English and some Spanish. So I'll take catchy music over lyrics in most cases.

Lyrics are hugely important. A song with rubbish lyrics is only a song; a song with lyrics that connect with you is a story, a fable, an insight.

For me, the best music works on both levels, but I'd rather compromise with music than lyrics. Even if that Black Eyed Peas song was written to the best musical accompanient ever, I wouldn't be that bothered about it. There's no emotional connection there. Whereas Joanna Newsom (for example) could write absolutely awful music, but I'd still want to hear about monkeys and bears and beached whales because there's a real connection.

Lyrics > music.

One of my very favourite bands of all time, Oasis; hardly any of their lyrics made sense really (sample lyrics...) I just used to listen to them because I liked their style of music. So I don't think that lyrics have to make complete sense, as long as the music and melody is catchy and enjoyable.

However, I can like songs, but feel the lyrics are inane. The lyrics to this song (which I like apart from the inane and overly suggestive) greatly disturbs me (the radio version is 'Baby I'm so hot for you...' but even still, 'slip into me' is not a very sensible lyric :mad:)

The aforementioned Black Eyed Peas is just a source of major luls for me and my friends. It's catchy but the lyrics, I agree, are dumb as :skull: :skull: :skull: :skull:

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Originally Posted by Burtsplurt

Lyrics are hugely important. A song with rubbish lyrics is only a song; a song with lyrics that connect with you is a story, a fable, an insight.

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Not necessarily. I've connected just as deeply with songs with a.) pretty incomprehensible lyrics and b.) songs with no lyrics at all. I can understand your view point, but Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, DJ Shadow, and to a lesser extent stuff like Game Music (although I suppose that has a story behind it that you can relate it to anyway) are just as impactful, just as insightful and can create a vision and story in the mind just as potent and powerful as anything with lyrics can, imho.

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Originally Posted by DK

are just as impactful, just as insightful and can create a vision and story in the mind just as potent and powerful as anything with lyrics can, imho.

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I agree. Most of the time, instrumental music is about atmosphere, and once it surrounds you with a certain feeling, your imagination is free to create its own story.

If the lyrics are bad and the music is bad (i.e. most popular music), I won't like it. If the lyrics are bad and the music is good (i.e. a lot of Radiohead's later material) I'll probably still really like it. But I don't think that even the most masterfully crafted lyrical tales can salvage bad music.

It had to have good lyrics to connect.

You know who has great, diverse lyrics? Daniel Powter writes beautiful songs and lyrics.

I never listen to pop music, but black metal has the same problem to more extreme extent. Some bands don't have this problem, but others like Emperor just drive me nuts. Example, their most popular song, "I am the Black Wizards":

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Mightiest am I, but I am not alone in this cosmos of mine
For the black hills consists of black souls, souls that already died one
thousand deaths
Behind the stone walls of centuries they breed their
black art
Boiling their spells in cauldrons of black gold

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I can find more if you don't believe me. And I can take almost any black metal band and find at least one love song to Satan. Of course the vocals are harsh enough to ignore it most of the time. When they do decide to put in clean vocals (DANI FILTH), the stupidity of the lyrics can really shine.

I think music has hit an all time low with what's being churned out now. Most people making it aren't talented intelligent people capable of writing decent music or lyrics. Todays mainstream music, is aimed at teenyboppers with no taste. Not just are the lyrics, an music itself poor, but the videos too. Women acting cheap, is pretty much the theme in every single one.

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Originally Posted by Hsu

If the lyrics are bad and the music is good (i.e. a lot of Radiohead's later material)

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Damn, you took the example I was going to use. If you look at Radiohead's magnum opus "OK Computer" and the lyrics from one of the best tracks "Paranoid Android" you get gems like:

"Please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken voices in my head
What's that...? (I may be paranoid, but not an android) "

"Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking and squealing gucci little piggy
You don't remember
You don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?
Off with his head, man
Off with his head, man
Why don't you remember my name?
I guess he does...."

Those are some terrible lyrics, but when you listen to them in the context of the song, you wouldn't have them any other way.

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Originally Posted by Anaisa

I think music has hit an all time low with what's being churned out now. Most people making it aren't talented intelligent people capable of writing decent music or lyrics. Todays mainstream music, is aimed at teenyboppers with no taste. Not just are the lyrics, an music itself poor, but the videos too. Women acting cheap, is pretty much the theme in every single one.

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Precisely why I don't listen to mainstream music. Except Wolfmother, they're awesome.

Music is most important for me if there are good lyrics even better! Lyrics sometimes are good to remember the title of the song I like! And I could listen a song without lyrics too, if I like the music...like FF songs!

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Originally Posted by DK

Not necessarily. I've connected just as deeply with songs with a.) pretty incomprehensible lyrics and b.) songs with no lyrics at all.

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Yeah, that's a good point. I guess with instrumental music you make your own interpretations. I like GY!BE because the sound recordings offer you a way in (except for yanqui - but that was pretty rubbish). Explosions in the Sky don't, and that might be part of the reason I find it harder to connect with their music.

We all have our own diverse opinions...:(

I've always found it an interesting, surreal thing when artists are able to create a dreamy, sensual atmosphere by having disjointed, odd lyrics coupled with various instruments and/or moments of silence or white noise. Of course, not many can pull this off well, but some can.

It's truly genius, if not magical.