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How important are lyrics to you? |
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Sean Trane 
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Prog Folk Joined: April 29 2004 Location: Heart of Europe Status: Offline Points: 20233 |
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 Posted: June 27 2021 at 03:43 |
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I generally prefer instrumental music, though I'd say that 50% of my fave albums are are sung and come with intelligent lyrics When I go for non-instrumental music, it's clear that the texts (lyrics ) must appeal to me - and are even a central part of the attraction, almost as much as the singer's voice. Floyd, Caravan, VdGG and Jethro Tull, part of the attraction is the lyrics. Though I may sometimes enjoy listening to AC/DC, even, in their best songs (Whole Lotta Rosie), I couldn't cite more than two lines in a row. It's already the case enough in English, but essential in French - and to a lesser extent Spanish. Now, of course I have no idea what my fave Finnish band is singing about, but I don't supose that it's about BF losing GF.
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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
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Cristi
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Crossover / Prog Metal Teams Joined: July 27 2006 Location: wonderland Status: Offline Points: 43301 |
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Posted: June 27 2021 at 02:45 |
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I started writing a post here several times and gave up
 so I'll keep it simple.Both lyrics and vocals are important, bad lyrics and bad vocals (and vocals I dislike) can ruin the music.
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nick_h_nz
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Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Posted: June 27 2021 at 02:26 |
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I always say when it comes to polls, that I’m not particularly interested in the results, so much as the discussion. This is still very much true, and I’m really enjoying the discussion. Several people have stated they are not sure how to vote, and I admit that I was deliberately a little obtuse in the way I structured the poll, so that it it might be easier to answer in words than by choosing one (or more) of the poll options.
But, one thing I did do, was order the poll options in a fashion that I thought would gain the greatest responses at the top and bottom, curving into the least responses in the middle. Although the curve isn’t as symmetrical as I expected, it is still there - which greatly impresses and delights me, because it means people answered as I expected them to. I really want to thank everyone who has posted here, though, and not just voted - as it has been really interesting reading the different opinions people have, and the different reasons for having those opinions. |
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Dellinger
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VIP Member Joined: June 18 2009 Location: Mexico Status: Offline Points: 12724 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 21:04 |
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I don't really know how to vote here. I do like good lyrics, and vocals, and depending on how good they are they can make me apreciate more a song (or album)... or if they are really bad, they can make me have something to dislike from the song... but for me the most important is the music... which is not to say that I prefer instrumental music, or wordless vocal music... just that I like the music presented the best, whether it's got vocals, with or without lyrics, or none at all, or in whichever language it might be (of course, if it's in english, or spanish, so I can understand it, in a way it's better, but mostly it's best if it's in the mother tongue of the artist, that way it feels more genuine, and it's more interesting to me, even if I can't understand it).
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Grumpyprogfan
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Joined: July 09 2019 Location: Kansas City Status: Offline Points: 11499 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 17:46 |
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The music comes first.
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Mormegil
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Joined: January 03 2010 Location: NE PA Status: Offline Points: 7041 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 17:37 |
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Depends on the vocalist. A good set of pipes is yet another instrument.
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Welcome to the middle of the film.
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Snicolette
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Joined: November 02 2018 Location: OR Status: Offline Points: 6039 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 16:41 |
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Since this is a prog poll, I would say that I want the vocalist to be of the same caliber as the musicians. If in English, I want the lyrics to also be sophisticated in some way or another. Sung in other languages, not as much and if I enjoy the musical quality enough it doesn't matter, outside of strictly prog, thinking of Alan Stivell here and I have many artists in the "world/fusion," sort of place that I don't have to understand a single word. Another musician whose lyrics are always superb, pretty much, is Richard Thompson, who is herein as part of Fairport Convention and no one can argue that he's not a superlative guitarist, although his voice can be an acquired taste for some. I can say that certainly, if something is going to turn me off to a prog band, it will be the vocalist (not naming names here), even if they lyrics are quite good. Even with simpler forms of music, I do want the musicianship to be quality, however and particularly love many of the long instrumental pieces in the progressive genre at large. So I voted for "depends on the vocalist," although that's just a part of the factor.
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"Into every rain, a little life must fall." ~Tom Rapp
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Sacro_Porgo
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Joined: July 15 2019 Location: Cygnus Status: Offline Points: 2052 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 16:05 |
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My preference is whatever suits the music. I listen to mostly music with vocals, but I also enjoy a great deal of instrumental music and have played a lot of it in my life.
Lyrics, it depends. If they're really bad, the music better be really good. And then if they're really good, the music better not suck.
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Porg for short. My love of music doesn't end with prog! Feel free to discuss all sorts of music with me. Odds are I'll give it a chance if I haven't already! :)
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nick_h_nz
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Prog Metal / Heavy Prog Team Joined: March 01 2013 Location: Suffolk, UK Status: Offline Points: 6737 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 11:52 |
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That’s another reason I prefer foreign language vocals. How good or bad the lyrics are becomes irrelevant. They could be the corniest, cheesiest lyrics in the world, but I will never know it. And yes, definitely if the music is good enough, I can enjoy it in spite of the vocalist. I couldn’t listen to Yes otherwise! 🤢🤮 And while most of the time I have neither the time nor inclination to find out what is being sung, occasionally the music and vocals makes such an impact, I do make the effort to find out what is being sung about - even if Google Translate comes up with something that is inevitably not as poetic, or potentially wrong. Now that is a sign of how powerful vocals can be, and it has happened only a couple of times - but it has happened. |
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MortSahlFan
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Joined: March 01 2018 Location: US Status: Offline Points: 2929 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 11:27 |
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Vocals are very important to me, but I mostly look at it like another
musical instrument.. I also focus on how its sung more - use of vibrato,
the rhythm of the delivery, etc., but sometimes my radar goes off, and I
think, "That was a great line" and then I might check out the entire
lyrics of a song.
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https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition
https://www.scribd.com/document/382737647/MortSahlFan-Song-List |
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Progosopher
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 11:20 |
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I voted for 'Depends on the Vocalist,' but it really is "Depends on the Lyrics." Some lyrics are garbage and I do not care for them no matter how good the vocalist is. Some lyrics are obscure, which require some digging into, but most of us don't have the time to do that, or if we do, we don't care to. I can tolerate an average vocalist if I like the music. The best combination is good lyrics with a good vocalist.
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The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17444 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 11:17 |
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Hi, Thanks a bunch.
It was the variety of languages that got me interested in it all. However, I had already been seasoned at home by dad's very large classical music collection (over 2K LP's and at least 35 operas, probably more!), and the different languages. I had heard Boris Christoff in Russian, I had heard Renata Tebaldi do Italian, and I had heard Maria Callas do Spanish, so in the end, I was not surprised when I heard things from different countries in the late 60's and early 70's. As an example, when Manticore released the BANCO album in English, the first thing I did was go with my friend to Moby Disk (famed import store for many years in Van Nuys) and make sure that I got the Italian version, because I felt that it would be better. Same thing for PFM, with the combined couple of albums, and the Italian felt much better and more on tune for my ears. And in Brazil, pop radio in the middle 60's was very vital and strong with a lot of political overtones, and I often mention the song "Carcara" which to me was more valuable at the time, than what Coppola did later visually ... her song was political. Coppola's was a show off of how cinema could blow away your ideas and expectations but did not have the imagery and strength that Maria Betania's song did. Again, the language was not the problem. Lyrics: This is a very tough area for me, because I come from a house of over 35K books of Portuguese, Brazilian and Spanish Literature. I remember reading Castaneda around 1975 or 1976, and the only thing I disagreed with was ... not all paper was designed for the bathroom! And I knew that some lyrics were valuable and important, despite the usual popular idea that some songs are "better" than others because the word love is used! Or because they have a story. With all this in mind, the movies (my first and greatest love!) helped show that some lyrics were not important, and I remember watching my first Godard film, and all in all, his idea for lyrics is for them to be "anti-lyrics", which is something that most rock bands can not do, although some folks like FAUST did a bit of it, but then got serious when folks thought it was just fun and play in the sandbox! And then, here comes a bunch of French folks, and they had a distinct flavor for trashing the language and how to use it. Reading Genet was different. Then all of a sudden, I read "Naked Lunch", and realized that words were AN IMAGE that we end up believing, however, the EXACT SAME PHRASE in different languages brings out different meanings (Peter Brook's book "Tip of The Tongue") which I was already aware of because he had done a totally far out version of "Midsummer's Night Dream" and a year later did a play that was all words, but the visuals accented them so strongly that you left the building stunned. MARAT/SADE is about the words, and Ian Richardson, Patrick Magee and Glenda Jackson take this whole thing to a stratospheric idea of what it all means ... and the words in the play are powerful ... "I AM the Revolution" "No, you are just another idiot who thinks he can change the world!" ... and all of a sudden you see The Beatles start to write better songs about their lyrics. Poetry is weird, but within the rock context, it is even better, and rarely will you not "get it", whereas the lyrics in many a song, including "progressive" are merely bagatelles compared to the really powerful stuff out there in the literary world. Somehow rockers and pop'rs think that all literature is the craps, and really, you gotta really (eventually) realize that the pop'rs are just trying to get some attention, and even many of their words are not that important. Hearing Roy Harper is far out ... it's not about the music, it's about his words! Hearing Jim Morrison, is a lot more about his words and wording than anything, however the lyrical content is very challenging at times, when you are faced with whipping the horse's eye, and you will go around the world several times and still not have an idea! And that's not really to say that it has a meaning, but you and I know that Jim was not exactly an empty goon rock'n'roller. For a lot of these reasons, a lot of the better known "progressive" moments don't grab me, but this is the part that folks think I'm being a turkey for. I don't blame DE for saying what he does, but Ian's words are very hollow, and sometimes just mean! His best ended with PP and MIAG, in my book, although there always were some neat songs here and there, but it's all they were. Nice songs. ELP had great lyrics and many written by Pete Sinfield who gets laughed at many times, and yet his touch is all over the early KC and other bands. My thoughts are/were that we did not want another Donovan, and his new age styled mysticism under the cover of hipness. Thus, language for me is simply a way to say something, and it is not always the main point of the whole thing. In fact, one of my favorite bits in film is in a Godard film that you can only see in a film class. It starts with a couple sitting on 2 stools in a bar, and the camera is watching them from behind. All of a sudden the camera starts moving to the left and continues and we see everything else in the bar, and a bit of their conversation, and it goes on for a while, as he comes back and then continues his adventure of looking around! The point was, for me, that we don't really care anyway! AND, our minds do the same thing over and over and over again, not having the ability (I call it the Zen) to concentrate on something for a longer period of time than the prescribed Hollywood 2 or 3 minutes! Acting has helped some rockers and DB and MJ are two very good examples. You remember how and what they said, and this moment about DB is in Edgar Froese's book! DB wanted him on the album, however he could not find his "voice" within what he had, and the producer stopped the rehearsal, and took every one out, and left DB on the piano alone. He had not found "his voice" in his words! These are not the only ones. Robert Plant will not discuss acting, but in his early days, and most of the LZ material he is acting out the words literally, specially if you had the bootlegs of all the early LZ stuff! And then you get to Christian Decamps (ANGE) and he is a true and tried actor and lovely to listen to. He knows what he is saying and why! It makes a huge difference, as opposed to so much stuff that supposedly has meaning and is not scratching the surface of nothing except some ideal. And ideals and ideas DO NOT (always) TRANSLATE TO AN AUDIENCE, if you EVER have been in a stage production and found the Saturday Night audience, different from the Friday Night audience! But rock music keeps giving you this idea that supposedly it is important and valuable, and compared to a lot of other artistic things, it is not. This is a topic that can not be discussed in one or two words. There is too much to it, and I doubt seriously that we can come up with some sort of consensus about the whole thing. In different cultures these are relate to differently. And the next thing we are going to say is that Japanese and Chinese theater is crap because we don't get it! Lovely thoughts you mentioned and I have been writing for 2 years a book on improvisations, and the one thing that is toughest to discuss? Lyrics, since they are not exactly the "truth" as actors like to speak of on stage and film. The best know the difference. The rest is just pop music to my ears!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com |
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Icarium
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 08:06 |
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Lyrics is a vital part of any journy which wants you to take part in, as a narration through the thoughts of the songwriter. Also in a prog format this is a strong presamce leaning on many literary traditions and sources. As the instrumentalists brings their skill and precision aøsp the lyriacist wants to be a part of this soup and delivers lyrics with story, concept and layers.
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Shadowyzard
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Joined: February 24 2020 Location: Davutlar Status: Offline Points: 4506 |
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 07:46 |
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^ Oops, imagine there's pleasant background sounds.
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SteveG
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 07:43 |
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This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State.
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Shadowyzard
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 07:01 |
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Rarely important. But if so, very important. (An answer to the title.)
The contents of the lyrics... Well, if written by a real poet, any language can do the job, I think. Language is just a vessel... The one(s) inside it are more important for me. The more important thing for me about languages in singing is... sonority. Here's my take regarding that: I like English, Serbian and Italian in singing. But I can even like French, German or Arabic, depending on the songs, although I pretty much hate those as spoken languages. Japanese is also very cool in some songs. Spanish can be fun in adventurous and energetic songs, or ballads. My language Turkish is, oh... Long story... It can be from horrendous to awesome. Instrumentals are always welcome, though... Even in friendships, sometimes you share more things in silence.  All in all, it really depends... |
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Manuel
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 06:45 |
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I consider the voice to be another intrument, so you need a good vocalist, and somebody who can write great lyrics.
Edited by Manuel - June 26 2021 at 09:01 |
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Hiram
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 05:51 |
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I voted depends and native language lyrics.
Which I understood as band/singer singing in their native language. I wish everyone did that instead of taking the easy way of English as the international language of rock music. This of course means non-native speakers of English only. If necessary, translations or summaries can be included with albums or on websites. I can't stand growled or screamed extreme metal vocals nowadays (I listened to that stuff earlier), but anything else is fine with me, depending on the style of music. As for the lyrical content, I'm fine with anything that's well written. Except most blatant preaching (whatever the subject) and most syrupy love songs. |
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Progishness
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 04:58 |
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It doesn't necessarily matter what the lyrics are either - a prime example being Jon Anderson (e.g. the whole of the CTTE album) - most of the time I've got no idea what he's on about, but the passion he conveys is undeniable.
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Tasartir
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Posted: June 26 2021 at 04:54 |
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I voted for "It depends on the vocalist", though I do think this has nothing to do with how important the lyrics are to me as there are too many variations to consider if I do like the vocalist:
A great vocalist singing terrible lyrics. A great vocalist singing great lyrics written by someone else. A great vocalist singing great lyrics written by them. Not sure I made myself clear here, but in a nutshell I'd say "it depends on the vocalist" has nothing to do with how much I enjoy or don't enjoy lyrics. I couldn't care less for Bob Dylan's singing, but the man CAN WRITE A LYRIC.
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...Histoires Sans Paroles...
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Progosopher wrote: