A Slightly Intoxicating (or intoxicated) Rant: What is “Good” Music?

So, as I was listening to some music that was not to my taste *cough*Jon & Roy*cough* on an unnamed local radio station, I felt that it was my duty as a music enthusiast to phone said station to give them my “professional” opinion on the music they play.  Well, I informed them that they play good music.

A lot of good music.

I then asked how often the song Any Day Now by Jon & Roy was requested by listeners (this song had just finished playing on their station).  The DJ that answered the phone said something along the lines of, “Never”.  This gave me instant motivation to tell this DJ that this song, basically, bores the freaking snot out of me.  He told me “Thanks for letting us know! If you don’t tell us, we don’t know!”.

This response cued a few thoughts for me, which I’m now indulging.

One of which is, do they really not know a good song from a shitty one?  I mean, they are the radio station right?  I figured they would know a good song.  That’s what they’re in the business for.  At the same time as I was thinking this, I also felt a little important.

Well yea, it’s lame, I know.

But I couldn’t help but feel a little important.  The DJ actually made me feel as though my input mattered.  I knew there was a reason I listened to this station.  It’s not that I lack the feeling of importance and desperately desire this feeling, but I guess I figured that this was the radio station I choose to listen to and they didn’t give two hoots what I thought of the music they played.  I mean, it’s not like I work there, and it’s not like I spend money on advertising or pay their phone bill, so what do they care?  Obviously, if the listeners are mad, it ain’t good.  Good job, radio station in Vancouver that rhymes with “The Cheek”.

Ok, I said there were a few thoughts I was going to indulge.  That was one.  The other is: what is good music?  What defines it?  What is it about a melody or beat or both that makes one person fall to their knees in admiration and passion when another could listen to the same melody and despise it?  Perhaps it speaks more to the human condition than the music itself.

Do we adore all the music we do, all the time? Or is there something about music that evokes a feeling of nostalgia, desire, or euphoria?  Listening to Nothing Else Matters by Metallica meant something different to me 7 years ago than it does now.  So does Motorcycle Drive By by Third Eye Blind.  It represented something different in my life that I didn’t have, which I do now.

We obviously have emotional ties to music, but back to the original question: what is good music?

I think this is profound in such a way that it is a different answer to each and every person who listens to this miracle we call “music”.  To one person, good music may be a great melody.  To another it’s a good beat; and another, great lyrics.  For some, you must have all three.

To many, its much more simple: it’s what makes us revel; it’s what makes us happy; it’s what makes us feel unique.  It can define us and at the same time, confuse us.  It can evoke life-changing actions, or thoughts on suicide, just as quickly as thoughts of joy and love.  Music can eject our inner spirit by taking hold of our body and putting us in a trance of “dance” because we are so compelled to do so that not doing it would seem impossible.  Have you ever tried not to dance?

So what is “good” music?  It is whatever type of music does all, or any of these things for you.  It isn’t wrong, it isn’t bad, it is yours and nobody else’s.  It is not a genre but an emotion.  It isn’t a beat but a feeling.  It isn’t a melody but a fingerprint.  It can’t be taken from you or forced upon you.

It is you.

This is what “good” music is.  It isn’t the same for everyone, so there cannot be a definition.  There cannot be a musical jury that selects the best of the best based on opinion, taste, feeling, love, journey, because we all have walked different paths.  We have all tasted with different taste buds and listened with different ears.  Who’s to judge a person’s taste in “good” music when they haven’t been in that person shoes?

I’m at fault for this, as many are.  What is good and what is bad?  It cannot be decided, it is what we personally choose it to be.

The next time someone says that a song or music genre is “bad” (as I did regarding that previously mentioned song), don’t take it to heart, it is merely someone else’s journey and they haven’t danced in the same shoes as you.

I still don’t like that song, though.

Thanks for reading my rant about nothing in particular (after a beer or two).

~ by DR on August 13, 2010.