What I really hate about some music


When I listen to music, there are four things that I really bothers me and was wondering if there are others who feel the same way about songs just as strongly as I do. I don't like feeling this way but when I hear these things, I just want to turn the music off and I'm not sure why the song writer doesn't realize he probably has a dud and not a hit. Here they are:

1. When a song writer finds a catchy phrase and the singer repeats the line three times in a row and then a stanza later, here it comes again repeated all three times and this just keeps going on and on.

2. Very similar to the above, a writer writes a real good line of music and then makes the whole song a repeat or variation of this line of music and has no imagination to add a little something in-between.

3. Singers who can't really sing well and think they can but get such really great score of music behind them that if a really good singer sang the song it would be wonderful to listen to. Please understand that carrying a tune to me doesn't make a good singer and I'm not talking about karoke singers here either.

4. Rhyming in a melody.... Please you can predict what the next line of the song is going to be before it is sang because it rhymes with the last line just sang...

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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.

I tend to listen to the sound quality more than lyrics.  Some recordings just stand out and make my system sound better.