Calvin wrote on Tue, 26 September 2006 02:49 |
Ridiculous. You're making my point for me when you talk about the fact that songs can be instrumental, the lyrics can be abstract, or speaking in tongues. I can hear what the song means even without hearing every word.
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we agree up to here.
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If it's Bob Dylan or Aimee Mann or someone like that, OK, you probably ought to pay attention to the lyrics,
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now i don't agree! you called my attitude "condescending", but that is how i felt to read your comments. i am not a great songwriter, but i would still want the mix engineer to respect my song as much as dylan's. i get the impression that my song would be judged based on an external criteria that is not relevant to the song itself or to me. i think it is an unfair judgement to say that aimee mann's lyrics are more generally more important to her songs than the lyrics in "weekends and holidays".
Tom C wrote on Tue, 26 September 2006 04:11 |
There's a reason why music without lyrics is still called music, but lyrics without music has lots of different names (speech, poem, prose, talk, lecture, ...., you name it).
Not that I don't like a good Roger Waters lyric.
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we are dealing with pop music, indy rock... not ambient. so that implies that the music has a story or is about something. even telstar, an instrumental [number one hit] that was made with a lot of processing, is about something, tells a very clear story to me, and i think the record buying public. i think the title is important! i think it lifts the song much farther into the imagination....way beyond what it merely sounds like. i think it was a hit because it was about something people could relate to... i think if it were called something like : "feedback loop experiment in F major with delays" then it would still have been great music, but it wouldn't have been a hit.
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You also seem to gloss over the parts in our posts where we emphasize the importance of intelligible lyrics and that the songwriter and much of the public very much pay attention to the lyrics and consider them important.
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i do not gloss it over. i don't think the lyrics need to be intelligable, i think it's not important. some peal jam songs for example, i can't understand much, but i can feel emotions in it. not just "let's rock".
like for the famous gary glitter track "rock and roll part 2"... visceral! animal. but that one has specific story and a special mood too... compare it to the chuck berry style of "rock music as party music".. they tell different stories, rock is cultural, it evolves. it speaks to generations. i think one has to be sensitive to that as well as the "visceral" thing...
and we are not here. we do not talk so far about the cultural meaning of this song, no matter what the lyrics say.. what does it mean? again this is not background wallpaper music, it is rock. rock has an attitude.. a mojo. who is feeling it in this song?
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Perhaps if most tunes had lyrics of Maxim's caliber I'd pay more attention. But we all know that's not the case. I'll always work to make sure the lyrics are intelligible, though, even if the lyric of a particular tune doesn't do it for me.
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that is very judgemental. so you didn't like the song. for me as a professional, that never matters, i still do the same professional job... now i will be "condescending" again because i can't believe a professional wouldn't treat this music with the same consideration that they would bob dylan's or max's!
j. hall: if you disagree, smack me down please. nobody should take this personally, i think we all need to find out whether i am out of bounds to make these comments: in which case i apologize; and i will learn what is the correct approach; and change my attitude.
scottoliphant wrote on Tue, 26 September 2006 09:59 |
sigur ros? still have no idea what he is singing about and they write very moving music
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that is the point of view i think i agree with. whoever mixed it probably has an idea what the songs are about, otherwise how could it move anyone? or be effective art?
i think it's the same with "my bloody valentine - loveless"; i think the engineer who mixed it was aware of the lyrics and their meaning. i am almost sure that it didn't come from the mix engineer deciding to disregard the lyrics.
jeff dinces