You Say Bigger's Better, But Bigger's Bigger

What Makes Music Good, Part 1

"I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant."

~ Ralph Vaughan Williams 

(For the purposes of this post, and for the remainder of this blog, song titles will appear in italics, album titles will appear in quotations, and artists are mentioned by name, obv. Also, sorry about the length - ED.)

What makes music good?

As a "musician" and "person with terrible taste in music," this question is posed to me almost never.  It is an interesting question, however futile it is to answer.  The most frustrating part of answering this question is the inherent unfairness that comes with it; of late, an artist's talent or ability is based on their popularity.  This is not always the case, but the vast majority of an audience will, more often-than-not, keep with a mob mentality.  If 1200 people go to see Blues Traveler, but Blues Traveler waits until the very end of their set to play Run-Around, only 12 people will actually see it.  If 600 people go and see a performance of Mahler's Fifth Symphony, 600 people will be on their feet at the symphony's conclusion.  

On the surface, this is a comically ironic logical fallacy, but at its core, this logical fallacy is deeply tragic.  Johann Sebastian Bach is known today for his musical composition; there is a period of music history that ends the day he died.  But, when he moved to Leipzig in 1723, he was hired as an organist, because his playing was "quite good," equivalent to today's "killer."  It was not until the heart of the Classical era of music that people realized the true genius of his music.  But when he was playing it, he was just another dude on a piano (even though it was an organ,) not unlike Ben Folds.  It's the same reason that Megadeath is always second-tier to Metallica, neither come close to Mastadon, and bands like Slipknot and Disturbed make more money than I will ever see in my life.  If that is not tragic, I don't know what is.

So, I pose the question again, what makes music good?  I could spend all day about how certain contours of a melody, certain rhythmic attributes, certain performance qualities (I almost just spelled that qualitys - ED) and certain all kinds of other shit makes for aesthetically pleasing music, but it would be far too long, and you would tl;dr the hell out of it.

Simply put: all music is good, it just depends on who is listening.  

When I listen to music, there are certain things that I find pleasing to my ear, and that is what I will discuss.  For now, I will speak strictly about "Popular" Music.  I do not mean "Pop" music, as that is a sub-genre of Popular Music.  When I say "Popular," I am referring (of course) to any and all music that you would not consider "Classical." I am referring to bands that write and perform their own music, using any combination of guitar, bass, drum kit, vocals, and any auxiliary instruments (keyboards, etc.)  You know, rock and roll, indie, alternative, metal, funk, fusion... all that shit.

So, let's get to it.  What does the music teacher thinks qualifies as good music?

Use of the instrument.  I'm talking about the main instruments, guitar, bass, drums, vocals and auxiliary. I use those because that is all Zeppelin and The Beatles had, and they did all right.

• Guitar - There are, in general, three types of guitar playing that catch my attention: riffs/hooks, accompaniment, and solos.

• A good riff or hook is one that catches the ear, and makes me want to keep listening.  These can be further qualified into 

• "Classic" (Everything Led Zeppelin, Purple Haze, Smells Like Teen Spirit, etc.) 

• "Badass" (Muse - Newborn, QOTSA - 3's and 7's, Them Crooked Vultures - Gunman, etc.) 

• "Catchy" (311 - Lucky, The Black Keys - Tighten Up, Modest Mouse - Float On, etc.) 

• "Epic" (Metallica - Battery, Muse - Knights of Cydonia, Boston - [Foreplay]/Long Time, Coheed and Cambria - Welcome Home, etc.)

• "Sorta Sad" (CAKE - Friend is a Four Letter Word, The Wrens - Happy, Oso Closo - Reverend, etc.)

• "Creepy" (Ramstein - Du Hast, Rob Zombie - Dragula, etc)

• "Weirder'n Shit/Awesome" (Radiohead, TCV - Elephants)

• "Inexplicably Marvelous" (Joan Jett and Pat Benatar)

• Accompaniment is what the guitarist does while the rest of the band is doing more important shit.  This occurs during verses, choruses, and lead guitar solos.  Often they are just a continuation of the riff or hook, but this is not universal.  Unfortunately, most good accompaniments go mostly unheard, so they are difficult to describe.  See QOTSA - Sick, Sick Sick and TCV - Caligulove

• Good solos are just good solos.  If it sounds like it would be fun to play on Guitar Hero, or is awesome as hell to sing really loud in the car, it's pretty good.  Also, if you've never heard Photograph by Oso Closo, you have no what a good solo is.  (Stairway to Heaven, 3's and 7's, Stevie Ray Vaughan, every guitar solo ever.)

• Bass - Good use of the bass makes me happy.  Muse uses Christopher Wolstenholme like he's playing a guitar, and that's awesome.  Metallica turns Rob Trujillo's amp all the way down (despite the fact that he can outplay all of the other members with one hand) and I guess it works for them.  Led Zeppelin had and Them Crooked Vultures has John Paul Jones.  It basically stops there.  But a good player can also add lots of rhythmic and melodic variation (Pink Floyd, Oso Closo, Foo Fighters), interest to an otherwise boring progression (311, Nirvana),  and/or depth to a unique/perpetual guitar sound (Rage Against the Machine, Queens of the Stone Age).  All other reasons that may apply to guitar also apply to bass.

•  Drums - Drums are great, or GTFO.  In my experience, most average listeners of music look for technique and musicality in a band's drums.  I look for what I like to call What The Drums Bring To The Table.  The reason for this is simple.  Take a bad band and add a halfway decent drummer, you still have a bad band.  But if you take a mediocre band, and add a smart drummer, you have a sweet band.  The following are the aspects of what sweet drummers Bring To The Table:

•  Sound.  Drums that sound like ass make bad music seem worse than it is.  See "St. Anger" for any questions about a bad drum sound.  To the contrary, a good drum sound can make OK music seem really good ("Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,") and a fanfuckingtastic drum sound makes for a fanfuckingtastic album, regardless of anything else.  See "Transistor" for any questions about a fanfuckingtastic drum sound.

• Subtlety.  Subtlety occurs when a drummer does something that is on one hand expected, but is on the other hand unexpectedly awesome.  EXAMPLES: 

• Dave Grohl's turn-arounds in No One Knows are on one hand pretty standard, but are on the other hand awesome.  Just listen, you'll see.  See also Stairway to Heaven.

• Chad Sexton's use of a single motive that changes every time it's played in the aforementioned "Transistor"'s best track, Beautiful Disaster, are the very definition of subtlety; you will not hear it unless you are listening for it. 

• Ryan Jacobi's use of... whatever the hell he wants to call it in The Ruiner (Oso Closo, "Rest") is awesome (yes), expected (not really), and subtle (to the max.)

• Even though it's a b-side, Era Vulgaris (of the album of the same name) has one of the shortest pre-choruses ever known to man (one bar) and, as hard as I try to pound it on my steering wheel every time it comes on my radio, it is impossible.  It's hardly even a pre-chorus, it's more of a hiccup than anything else.  I realize that this is not dependent on the drums, but without the drums it would just be a mistake.  The lead-in to said chorus by the way, is nothing short of awesome.

• There is nothing subtle about anything Tenacious D has ever done.  But listen to how Dave Grohl drums on both of those albums.  

• Sweet drum entrances.  This can make or break a song, especially if it's good.  Band comes in one way, everyone looks, drums come in another way, and everything is awesome.  It's like a Kansas City Shuffle.

• Grohl's entrance on Smells Like Teen Spirit = super fun to air drum.  See also Stairway to Heaven

• Daisy Cutter = straight out of something from a drum corps.

• Float On = the shit.

• Technique.  You cannot not listen to "Songs for the Deaf" and not think that most of the drumming on that would be fun as shit to play.  See also Stairway to Heaven.  The End.

• Vocals - will be getting their own post in the near future.  Unless you are reading this in said future, in which case, proceed to the post about vocals.  It's probably called "Vocals," or something equally clever.

• Auxiliary Instruments - Keyboards, wind instruments, random percussion instruments.  Where would we be without them?

• Keyboards.  Piano, organ, synthesizer, etc.

• John Paul Jones had to have something to do during the making "Presence."  I mean, he sure as hell wasn't playing bass.  He got pretty good use out of his organ (rofl - ED) on Trampled Underfoot, and he's playing the piss out of it nowadays with TCV.

• Foreplay/Long Time is a sweet song on it's own, but the organ solo pretty much makes it worthwhile, amirite?

• Bohemian Rhapsody.  Imagine it without any piano.  Next.

• There's like a xylophone or some shit playing a pretty neat thingy-ma-bobber underneath the chorus of Caligulove.  It's cool.

• Journey sucks, but even I can hear Separate Ways and want to rock the hell out.

• Wind instruments, i.e., the horn section.  CAKE, Mighty Mighty Bostones, and Cherry Poppin' Daddies.  That's all you need to know.

• String section.  Listen to Genesis by Oso Closo ("Rest") and tell me there is no better use of a string section.  Smashing Pumpkins do OK with them, too.

• Random percussion instruments.  Where would Will Ferrel be without the cowbell?

That's, uh, pretty much it, for now.  Stay tuned for part 2, a discussion on Vocals.  Part 3 will be on Originality of Compositions and Ability to Not Write The Same Shit Over and Over.  I don't know if there will be a part 4 yet.