What I really hate about some music

Repetition doesn’t bother me in the least.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat.  No one here seems to be lamenting I-IV-V chord progressions or the I-VI-IV-V chord progressions or the several chord progressions we’ve heard a trillion times over, countless songs that not only regurgitate those beyond-cliched chord progressions but base their entire songs, start-to-finish, on this primitive sequence.  I like Hank Williams just as much as I like Trout Mask Replica, just for different reasons. 

Lyrically, not everybody can be Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen.  Not every song’s value is based exclusively on either the lyrics or exclusively the music.  If I song’s music is satisfying, I don’t care if they say the same thing over and over again.  
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

The Yes, some really good examples of annoying music. One that realky an wl women seem to like, is Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart”. I only heart it sometimes on radio and it irks me every time. Talk about lazy song-writing!

Then there is Michael Jackson’s “Bad” that he repeats and repeats. Andy Rooney on “Sixty Minutes” did a piece about how bad “Bad” is. 😊

People mentioned “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, which I agree is annoying. A similar song is Pharrell Williams’ “I’m Happy”. OK, a catchy tune the first few times you hear it but after that I started making up my own lyrics (“ Because life’s crappy,”)

Not sure how many people here have actually written or attempted to write a song, but one may be surprised how difficult it is to write a “simple” song.

Simplicity often overlaps with vulnerability. It can be (certainly not always) a daunting proposition to present a simple, emotionally vulnerable song to an audience, be it a record-listener or a live audience.

It’s quite a comfortable place to be to issue dense, obtuse lyrics or music to an audience. As someone who’s written songs that others have called, “obtuse” or “intelligent,” or “sophisticated,” and as someone who’s performed live some 1000 times in his life, I can say the very simple songs (be it musically or lyrically) are the most daunting, because it’s so much easier and more comfortable to lean bank on “complexity.” The ones that get my teeth chattering are the super-simple, vulnerable ones.

Tons of songwriters, from Elton John to Billy Joe Shaver, have spoken of the challenges of writing simple songs.

Excellent points @tylermunns. Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive" still hold up as timeless truths 75 years after having been written and recorded. I learned of singer/songwriter Iris Dement from Merle Haggard, who recorded her devastatingly-great "No Time To Cry", raving about her songwriting talent.

Let it be...