the importance of lyrics
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Forum Name: Prog Bands, Artists and Genres Appreciation
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URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10217
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Topic: the importance of lyrics
Posted By: juanchoverd
Subject: the importance of lyrics
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 21:07
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how much importance do you give to lyrics in music? are bad lyrics
enough for you to dislike a band or a song? or maybe you dont care what
the band says as long as it sounds good? i have trouble getting into Rush because of some of the lyrics. when i tried to give Dream Theater a chance i heard octavarium and thought that the lyrics were so cheesy that i havent played that cd again. (to be honest i didnt like most of the music either, but with better lyrics i might have given them another chance). however, i AM willing to sacrifice some good lyrics for great music. for example, the song "killer" by VDGG. some parts of the lyrics are terrible, but the music is good enough for me to ignore them. i have no trouble listening to italian prog even if i dont understand the lyrics. some songs i learn to appreciate in spite of the bad lyrics, but the lyrics make it impossible for me to sing along the song. its hard to sing words with meaning that you dislike. most bands have average quality lyrics, they are good enough as to not diminish the quality of the songs but not good enough to stimulate interest. but others are really good and help improve the experience, like what Tom Waits writes. the lyrics really helped me to understand and appreciate his music. he is a genius. so, what do YOU think about this? ------------- 
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Replies:
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 21:14
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music is my main concentration. good lyrics only make the song better. i don't mind bad lyrics as long as they're sung well. bad vocals can completely ruin a song. ------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: ulver982
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 21:34
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I can tolerate bad lyrics with great music. For example...when I
was into black metal, their lyrics didn't really do much for me, yet I
really enjoyed the music. Yet, a great song with great lyrics
makes that song so much better. I will always listen to the music
first and not pay attention to the lyrics, and if I start to really
like that song, I will then pay attention to the lyrics.
------------- Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement, are roads of genius. Silence is the music of the future. |
Posted By: Man Overboard
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 21:54
Good lyrics make good albums GREAT... like Misplaced Childhood
would be an above-average album if the lyrics were average, but the
lyrics propel it to greatness. 
------------- https://soundcloud.com/erin-susan-jennings" rel="nofollow - Bedroom guitarist". Composer, Arranger, Producer. Perfection may not exist, but I may still choose to serve Perfection. Commissions considered. |
Posted By: bertburt
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 22:04
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I quite like Spock's Beard in spite of some pretty cheesy lyrics. On the flip side, I really appreciate Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" album. Absolutely nothing special about the music, but the lyrics alone make it one of my favourite albums, ever. |
Posted By: Man With Hat
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 22:12
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Lyrics make a song better, but its always bout the music. As long as they dont seriously f*ck up the song, doesnt really matter. Sleep Dirt (CD version) is a good example. With the added vocals it really f*cks it up, making the songs somewhat unlisenable, IMHO. ------------- Dig me...But don't...Bury me I'm running still, I shall until, one day, I hope that I'll arrive Warning: Listening to jazz excessively can cause a laxative effect. |
Posted By: King of Loss
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 22:55
| That's why PoS rules, not because Gildenlow is a musical god, but he can write awesome, emotionally-moving lyrics. Lyrics sometime don't affect the music at all, like some of Yes' work. |
Posted By: gabbel ratchett
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 23:02
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For me the music comes first, then the vocal performance, then the lyrics. I rather enjoy listening to the Italian versions of PFM's albums and not understanding the lyrics. Sometimes I wonder if I would like them as much as I do, if I did understand them. ------------- dead things don't talk too well, they've got a shaky sense of diction. |
Posted By: little_neutrino
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 23:43
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The way that gets me isn't the cheesiness of the words (because I don't listen to the words as a whole anyway, while listening to a song, I just listen to the way they sound, and if they sound neat, then it doesn't matter much to me if they're even in English!! - no, it's later that I look up the lyrics and sometimes become embarrassed at the cheese factor Perfect example: Yes' Tales, in part one, when they all sing the word "moment"... I love this guy and never thought I'd say this, but right then Jon Anderson actually makes me sick. It doesn't even matter how important the word 'moment' was to the rest of the sentence ... I just wish they'd left that out! |
) ... what gets me is the way some things just sound ridiculous and cheesy when you sing them.Posted By: anotherbrick
Date Posted: August 16 2005 at 23:47
| Lyrics don't mean much to me. The melody and vocal tone is what makes the song. If they are noticably dumb lyrics, maybe, but other than that no. |
Posted By: Reverie
Date Posted: August 17 2005 at 01:08
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I really don't care if lyrics are horrible. Being heavily into Death Metal before i discovered prog properly i have listened to plenty of bands with digusting and pitiful lyrics, but that's not what it was about. It's all about the music maaaan, peace! Having said that good lyrics can add an extra something to a song, as others have said. |
Posted By: cobb
Date Posted: August 17 2005 at 01:29
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Lyrics don't worry, just the melody of the vocal - hell, my favourite band is Yes, try and work out some of those lyrics. [edit] to me the singer is just the lead instrument in a vocalist band |
Posted By: Borealis
Date Posted: August 18 2005 at 15:00
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Most of the time, I'd need to focus to understand the lyrics, since I am french speaking, and I do not listen to much music with french lyrics. So as long as the singer sing good, I can listen to a song for a long time without ever knowing the lyrics and it's okay... But when the song is in french, it's something else... It seem to me like every song in french sound cheesy. Still, there are some good ones, but they are rare... The best is to listen to music with non-sense lyrics like Sigur Ros, or Magma (if you dont know Kobaian...). Or one you can't understand what the hell he's singing, like Can... ------------- Vive le Québec libre!... |
Posted By: little_neutrino
Date Posted: August 18 2005 at 19:18
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It's true!!! They all sound so cheesy, in that "our song is in French 'cause it's more artsy than English". I visualise black-and-white and at the end of such song I usually put "fin" in schmaltzy font. It - it just works, man. Then it's super cheesy when you have the rest of the song in one language and this one line in another. I'm trying not to mention any names, y'know, but "nous sommes du soleil" ... I cringe there too! (people, stop giving Jon Anderson dictionaries for his birthdays! Maybe I just find the hype about French so overrated because I can speak it, I don't know. No offence meant, certainly ... but it's just French! |
Borealis wrote:Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: August 19 2005 at 06:39
| As others have said, music is what matters most to me, as well as good vocals. I have a weakness for singers who can actually sing, so that rules out most black/death metal for me. However, I won't deny that I enjoy well-written lyrics, as they can really enhance the music. A prime example are Pink Floyd with Roger Waters, but also Rush (I know he's not to everyone's taste, but I love Peart's lyrics) and Peter Gabriel's solo production. I don't find Lake that bad a lyricist either, and I quite enjoy Sinfield's lyrics too. On the other hand, I love Yes even though their lyrics are absolute gobbledygook. |
Posted By: Musak
Date Posted: August 19 2005 at 11:25
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Of course a song is great when its music is great... in spite of this, I wouldn't have never (seriously) started listening to Porcupine Tree, King Crimson or Smashing Pumpkins (ok, they're not prog but i love them! ------------- * My eyes are full but my face is empty * |
) if it wasn't for their lyrics. I love when lyrics turn into poetry and they're music themselves.. just think about something like "moonchild", "the letters" or "I find that I'm not there"...