The Anatomy Of Your Preference(s)

[tybrad]

What is it that grabs you in music?

1. You're a lyrics person.
2. You're a musical person.
3. You are some amalgamation of both, equally weighted
4. Something else that I'm not thinking of, and will elaborate upon.


I am a music first, lyrics second personality; if I am not taken by musical merit, lyrics will not convince me otherwise. If I hear a new song, and the musical part grooves me, the lyrics will follow. But once the music passes the test, lyrics will not kill the deal - usually.

My wife is the opposite.

 

[guiller]

I'm definitely of the music lover type. I'm a classical music listener and about 80 % of the time I listen to music without human voices (and therefore no lyrics). Moreover what I appreciate the most in music is harmony and counterpoint (not melody) and therefore enjoy the superposition of sounds (in particular in complex chords) and the endless range of colors this superposition create. On the other hand, lyrics are always linearly developing in time, no superposition is possible because our brain needs to disentangle the words. For the same reason I enjoy music better than literature. I find lyrics a bit boring, somehow distracting as music has to be simplified so as one line becomes dominating over the other possible ones (there are exceptions, of course, as those famous vocal quartets and quintets in opera).

 

[rileykill]

Jeeeeeeez this is a tough question. I am a book / lit / art nerd as well, so I definitely enjoy the lyric sheets. Especially hip hop. I get a lot of pleasure from dissecting verses.

But yeah. At the end of the day , I listen to a ton of instrumental music and music with buried in the mix / difficult to understand vocals. I guess my assumption is that music is music and if the artist has amazing lyrics he will be savvy enough to make sure they are heard during mixing.

 

[bhundu]

For me it's the emotion conveyed by both music and lyrics. Tonight's example for instance are the final tracks on The Moody Blues "On the Threshold of a Dream". The tracks "Have You Heard" pts 1 and 2, with "The Voyage" placed in between.

 

[Condorsat]

The emotion conveyed by the Music ... or should I say ... the personnel emotional reaction that I take away from the song. It might not be what the artist intended to convey. Some song may remind of the late 70's or a particular event in my life for example ... for no particular reason ... other than a Neuro Association.

Lyrics ... if I like them ... most are just wallpaper to me. Bernie Taupin & Warren Zevon are notable exceptions for me ... always pay attention to those lyrics ... there are others but not many.

 

[Dennis Gardner]

I love lyrics......Heeeyy Juuuude, duh duh duh duh..........

Oh yeah, almost forgot about that "someone left the cake out in the rain" song. Boy they don't write songs like they used to.......

 

[rwartner]

I have a buddy who seems to know the lyrics for every song. I keep asking him if he used to listen to radio all day or what is going on? Many songs I can't understand or get the words wrong. Maybe a good topic would be songs with misunderstood words.

I hardly know the lyrics to anything. Even the ones I do know I screw up. Could be because I have a range of about 2 notes. When I was a child listening to my father sing in church I was amazed how bad he was and now I am him.

 

[BOUXY]

What is it that grabs you in music?

1. You're a lyrics person.
2. You're a musical person.
3. You are some amalgamation of both, equally weighted
4. Something else that I'm not thinking of, and will elaborate upon.


I am a music first, lyrics second personality; if I am not taken by musical merit, lyrics will not convince me otherwise. If I hear a new song, and the musical part grooves me, the lyrics will follow. But once the music passes the test, lyrics will not kill the deal - usually.

My wife is the opposite.

I'm with you as far as the Music comes first but where I differ with you is that I prefer Instrumentals even more,ones without Lyrics seem to attract me and always have right from the beginning. Starting with late 50's through the 60's and on.Today Smooth Jazz or Blues Instrumentals hit the mark dead on:thmbsp:

 

[ConradH]

Most of my favorites are due to lyrics, Michele Shocked (everything), the Deep Purple Perfect Stranger album or stuff like Neil Young's Powderfinger. OTOH, there are some straight instrumental pieces that do it for me too- Hellecasters, Bach and such, but if I had to choose, there better be good lyrics.

 

[c.coyle]

What is it that grabs you in music?

1. You're a lyrics person.
2. You're a musical person.
3. You are some amalgamation of both, equally weighted
4. Something else that I'm not thinking of, and will elaborate upon.



My wife is the opposite.

Putting jazz aside, I'm roughly 60% music, 40% lyrics. A good tune with stupid lyrics often moves me, although the opposite rarely does. When music and lyrics both grab me, the result can be sublime and weirdly physical.

I happened to be listening to Robert Cray's Smoking Gun a week or so ago and had just such an experience. It was like I was right there with him, dialing the phone. To me, the perfect blues number.

 

[Pio1980]

For me it's usually the architecture of the music first, and how it carries the lyrics. Good intelligent Lyrics have their own attraction and when combined with good musical architecture are for me very rewarding.
I particularly like someone like Joni Mitchell as an ideal amalgam of both for example, conversely I remember being befuddled by Bjorks debut Human Behavior as the music being impossible to engage tho the lyric was supposed to be profound. It still sound like Nordic Yoko Ono to me today.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[Yamaki]

It's the music, with all the detail and vocal harmony, that attracts me first.