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Just because you like a song doesn’t make it good

Alexandra Carlton

by Alexandra Carlton

19 Apr 05:50am

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Filed under: Art, Entertainment, Media, Music, Society

57 comments

The Mona Lisa is valued at over $500 million. I don’t pretend to understand why. To me, she’s an arch, witchy old man-lady with lanky hair. I find her smarmy. Uptight. I bought an Etsy print of an Edwardian couple to hang in my kitchen that I think is personality-plus compared to her. And they have artichokes instead of heads.

That said, I defer without hesitation to art experts who tell me Leonardo da Vinci knows more about form and composition and painting little smug secret-smiles than some hipster poster artist from Williamsburg. My artichoke people aren’t even smiling (in their defense, they’re artichokes).

And that’s why they set me back about thirty bucks where the Mona Lisa costs roughly the same as it does to plan then abandon a Sydney public transport initiative.

I, on the other hand, am qualified and able to identify exactly what is a genuinely great song and what is garbage for one very important reason: I have impeccable taste.

I can tell you, with complete conviction, the reasons that Animal Collective are better than Grizzly Bear. Blur were better than Oasis. Beyonce’s better than Lady Gaga. I know exactly why the Beatles and The Rolling Stones are as famous as they are (The Doors are more perplexing).

And in the same way I would never walk into a thoughtfully-curated art gallery and squawk “Well, it’s very nice but it’s nothing compared to Anne Geddes’ early work with babies-in-flowerpots.”

I’d really prefer anyone who thinks Jeff Buckley is a genius or that The XX are spearheading a glorious minimalist movement to keep their opinions to themselves. You can like this stuff if you want. But it ain’t good.

A common rejoinder when I make this point to friends and acquaintances is that not all music has to be “good” to be enjoyable. There’s nothing wrong, it’s argued, about listening to a bit of 2DayFM to get you through the working week. True. I understand this. I have a soft spot for dopey novelty songs.

Ugly Kid Joe’s ‘I Hate Everything About You’ is awesome, and Young MC’s ‘Bust a Move’ is the high point of any wedding reception. I’ll always dance to a bit of Gwen Stefani or Justin Timberlake if it’s playing in a club, and Shania Twain’s ‘Man I Feel Like a Woman’ is the musical equivalent of squirting whipped cream into your mouth from a can.

So it’s okay if you like playing Guy Sebastian when you’re getting ready to go out with the girls, or you hum along to the unremarkable strains of Coldplay in the car or think Ben Harper is really moving.

That’s fine – in the same way my artichokes are fine. But don’t start an argument with me where you tell me they’re as good as music’s Mona Lisas: which, indisputably, are The Dirty Projectors’ ‘Temecula Sunrise’, say, or ‘Toxic’ by Britney Spears.

Because it won’t end pretty. This year, New Years Eve is likely cancelled for me – as I ruined December 31 2009 for a table of my friends with my frustrated dismissal of the Verve’s thuddingly dull ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ that they were inexplicably championing.

I once nearly came to blows with a highschool boyfriend over his dislike of Weezer one night when we were watching Rage (Boyfriend: “As if you can make a good song using only three chords.”  Me: “Are you brain damaged?”).

Some people get it. I recently told a very musical friend (let’s call him James, because that’s his name and he’ll be proud to put it to this point) about a talkback radio caller I’d heard enthusing about a song that he believed was better than anything he’d heard in the past twenty years.

“Wait for it, you’ll die when I tell you what it was,” I said, excited by the prospect of such bitchy certainty. James, who is perhaps a gentler soul than I, interrupted. “Hey, come on. Be nice. Everyone’s got different tastes,” he said.

I paused for dramatic effect.

“It was ‘Kryptonite’ by 3 Doors Down.”

James let out a roar of disbelief so gutteral it sounded prehistoric. “God you cannot be serious,” he croaked, once he’d managed to prise his fevered thoughts from the mental chamber of hell I’d just torn open for him.

I nodded gleefully and James shut his eyes, pained. “There are some songs,” he finished weakly, “that are just fucking abominable.”

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57 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • bec says:

      06:54am | 19/04/10

      I’m feeling a bit that way about MGMT. Flash Delirium is the most intolerably bad song I’ve heard in years. Same can be said for Passion Pit. Erk. Enough of this creepy bearded, corduroy-wearing electro-folk.

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      11:15am | 19/04/10

      MGMT don’t care about your opinions, which is why they’re good. I hope they produce an album that consists of 60 minutes of irritating whistling. I bet they’ll trick you into buying it on iTunes as well.

    • bec says:

      02:05pm | 19/04/10

      Given that I have spent precisely $0 on MGMT and their ilk in the past, I highly doubt it.

    • Adam Diver says:

      07:19am | 19/04/10

      I Like Kryptonite, and bittersweet symphony and whilst I don’t mind weezer they would be way down the list of good bands.

      A point you missed is that many bands and songs can speak to individuals in a different way. Some of my favorite songs are my favorite, not because of the genuine quality of the song but because of the memories they evoke.

      Reply

    • Liz says:

      08:17am | 19/04/10

      Just goes to show it’s all meaningless,judgemental rubbish.

      Reply

    • Steve Symon says:

      08:42am | 19/04/10

      Just because you dislike a song, doesn’t make it bad….......songs on my i-pod range from Mary Hopkins to ACDC, Celine Dion to Britney Spears, Rolf Harris to The Pussycat Dolls…......doubtless, you’d hate the vast majority of songs on my i-pod but then again I’d probably hate yours too;o)

      Reply

    • Gobsmacked says:

      09:34am | 19/04/10

      Errr, yes of course. Because YOU like a song it’s good…. Must be handy being so absolutely right all the time. I mean wow, what a talent! The mere fact of your dislike rendering a song terrible! I’m truly in awe of your genius.

      Opinion pieces are great honey, but let’s not forget for one second that this is all they are….opinions.

      Reply

    • SkepDad says:

      10:22am | 19/04/10

      ^ irony detection fail

    • Gobsmacked says:

      12:15pm | 19/04/10

      wink

    • H of SA says:

      09:58am | 19/04/10

      I heard about a magazine poll to decide the worst song of all time a while back. The fact that the poll *did not* conclude that Baha men’s “Who let the dogs out” was the worst song of all time means I have lost respect for the taste of most people.

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      11:32am | 19/04/10

      The worst song of all time is anything by Moby.

    • papachango says:

      11:33am | 19/04/10

      Agadoo by Black Lace. I challenge you to find me something more irritating.

      It even makes ‘who let the dogs out’ seem good.

    • BennO says:

      03:53pm | 19/04/10

      @papachango.

      Yes, that is an awful, awful song.

    • Shelly says:

      12:57pm | 20/04/10

      I see your Agadoo and raise you a Ketchup Song.

    • SkepDad says:

      10:05am | 19/04/10

      JJJ has been dining out for years on the theory that alternative music must be good because it’s alternative.

      Reply

    • Wayne Kerr says:

      10:41am | 19/04/10

      What most people who listen to commercial radio stations seem to miss is that JJJ are the first station to play what is initially considered “alternative” before it moves into main stream because the commercial stations are too scared to rake a risk unless something is pushed by the record companies.  Generally speaking you’ll here a song months on Triple J before it goes to commercial radio becuase of the ground swell of support from all those “alternative” music listeners.

    • SkepDad says:

      11:28am | 19/04/10

      Don’t get me wrong, I get what you’re saying and agree.  I heard Mumford And Sons on the J’s long before it hit commercial stations and I knew it was going to hit.

      However, they do play a lot of truly godawful “music” as well.  Alternative is great, but being alternative does not necessarily equate to being good.

      But one man’s delicious anchovy is another man’s stinky hairy fish, right?

    • Wayne King says:

      11:56am | 19/04/10

      Except for the dulcet pure pop strains of a Britney or a Beyonce.

    • papachango says:

      12:15pm | 19/04/10

      True. Over the years I’ve listened to a few Hottest 100 CDs, and the ratio has always been about the same - 10% good, 90% rubbish. And this is what JJJ listeners consider their ‘best’ songs.

    • BennO says:

      04:02pm | 19/04/10

      That you can say “Over the years”  means you’re no longer a part of the J’s market so the hottest 100 turns to crap.  Back in the day when it was an 18-35 radio station it was great.  Now it aims for what, 15-23?  Makes you feel old.  But worst of all it’s really boring, musically and thoughtfully.  I miss the morning show with Francis Leach and I think it was Angela Catterns before that. 

      Having said that, you do have to doff your cap to Richard Kingsmill.  How many great Aussie bands has JJJ uncovered for us?  And then there are bands like Mumford and Sons who aren’t that big everywhere else but huge here.  Take Marcus Mumford’s comment in the news here in March, that’s from the herald sun.

      ““It felt like we’d done a lot of work to get people to come to our gigs in the UK. In Australia we got off the plane and the first gig (Brisbane) was the biggest gig we’d ever played, 6000 people going crazy, they knew all the songs. I don’t have a box to put that in in my head,” he says.”

      So yeah, hats off to Kingsmill and the J’s but bummer about getting old!

    • Shifter says:

      04:41pm | 19/04/10

      I agree Benno, I miss the intelligent brekky radio hosts JJJ have had over the years - Paul McDermott and Mikey Robbins, Adam Spencer and Wil Anderson, even Frances Leach in the mornings.

      Regardless of the choice of music today, you can definitely see the shift to a slightly younger market with the attitudes and stylings of the presenters.

      Kinda wish I could get Sydney radio here so I can listen to Adam Spencer again. I miss Salmon Hater.

    • Samson says:

      10:41am | 19/04/10

      Music critics in general are an odd bunch.  I always find it strange to read a line like “this band fell in to the predictable 3rd album trap that lesser rock bands tend to get stuck in”.  Whereas I once thought that the critic was a freelance journalism student who couldn’t play any instrument - let alone had ever recorded a studio album for a major label - it turns out that they’re actually a sage veteran of the music industry, able to show those naive artists the mistakes they made trying to follow their creative leanings.

      And then they get stuck into the chord progressions.  Are they composers?  If so then maybe they could better explain why one I, IV, V progression is ‘nostalgic’ while another identical I, IV, V arrangement is actually ‘uninspired’.

      Of course all crticism of art is inevitably going to involve people’s unfounded opinions.  This is not a problem.  I have opinions myself, and most are unfounded and probably quite wrong.  But when someone decides that their opinion has become so scientifically correct that a score out of ten now needs decimal points to properly reflect its accuracy (looking at one popular website in particluar) , then things are really getting a bit absurd.

      Reply

    • Chet says:

      06:08pm | 19/04/10

      You can review an album without involving your own opinion.
      You sit down, and you write a review that doesn’t involve your opinion.
      Understand what I’m trying to say?
      p.s. Musicians make s#$t music writers.

    • megan says:

      11:01am | 19/04/10

      Same goes for movies. I knew a guy who would casually bring up is favourite movie in conversations whenever possible. He even welled up a few times when talking about it… the movie?.... Armageddon staring Bruce Willis. Yikes!

      Reply

    • Shane From Melbourne says:

      11:03am | 19/04/10

      When are Roxy Music going to tour Australia again???

      Reply

    • Zeta says:

      11:12am | 19/04/10

      Animal Collective: chillwave-shoegaze-laptop-ambient-glitchery. They fail on multiple levels, too numerous to detail here.

      Music has been universally shit since 1998. This is a fact. If anyone actually read the Encyclopedia Britanica anymore instead of just using Wikipedia, the world would know that scholars and statesmen alike have acknowledged 1998 as the last year a good album was produced. The last good album was Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, and it bookends over 75,000 years of people rhythmically banging things and singing songs.

      Fact: Neutral Milk Hotel, Faith No More, Failure and Dead Can Dance all broke up in 98. Smashing Pumpkins would no longer resemble anything other than an enourmous egg headed whiney man after ‘98. Fact: Marilyn Manson grew boobs in ‘98. Fact: On every Nine Inch Nail album made after ‘98, Trent Reznor was not doing drugs, and wasn’t depressed enough to be awesome.  Fact: David Bowie died in 1998 and was replaced by a robot.

      Prove me wrong.

      Reply

    • papachango says:

      11:56am | 19/04/10

      Actually music hit it’s zenith in 1991, about the time Freddie Mercury died. It’s been all downhill from there, though the decline has been gradual but inexorable. 92-98 saw a few good acts like Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nirvana etc, but Smells Like Teen Spirit was hardly the ‘greatest song of all time’.

      You’re probably about right - 98 was about when it sunk from passable back into ‘complete shite’. I cannot remember a single memorable act from the ‘00s except Britney Spears. I recall someone called Justin Timberlake was hugely popular, but I’m not familiar with a single song of his.

      In an effort to re-connect with the zeitgeist I looked up a couple of Lady GaGa’s songs on YouTube, and tried to concentrate on the music rather than the elaborate outfits. Yeah OK, Poker Face is kind of catchy, but is this really the best we can do?

    • Samson says:

      12:23pm | 19/04/10

      I definitly can’t prove that Bowie isn’t an android (are you sure that wasn’t always the case?) but if you’re asking for evidence of good albums produced since 1998 I would suggest Sun Kil Moon’s ‘Ghosts of the great highway’.  The guitar work is really creative, the production is excellent and there’s not a retro synth or ironic reference to be found anywhere.  Mark Kozelek is a real guitar hero and a pretty cool guy too.  I like that when interviewers compare him to someone like Nick Drake he doesn’t mind admitting that he’s never listened to him, and that his influences are mainly classic rock.

      Also, whenever people talk about how music nowdays isn’t what it used to be I always think about the quantity of really terrible music that was made in a decade such as the 80’s.  In fact I would hazard a guess that (regardless of how much good music there was) just as much, if not more, shit music was being made in decades leading up to 2000, than in the current decade.  Anyone disagree with that?

    • Paul says:

      12:20pm | 19/04/10

      Aeroplane Over The Sea: god-smiting genius. 

      I didn’t read all that other stuff you said.

    • Zeta says:

      12:58pm | 19/04/10

      @ Paul - You are now YouTubeing ‘Sailing Through’ off NMH’s unreleased demo tape, it is the greatest song of all time, your ears will bleed, you will pick up the phone and call every woman you ever loved and compulsively play it down the phone at them, I’m not kidding, this happened to me. Do it now you won’t regret it.

    • Samson says:

      02:13pm | 19/04/10

      Haha that demo tape is almost unlistenable!  I thought I liked my music as lo-fi as it gets but it sure taught me a lesson.  Makes Guided by Voices sound like Tchaikovsky.

    • BennO says:

      04:09pm | 19/04/10

      Those are compelling arguments Zeta.  But two albums or rather EPs that I’ve really liked this last couple of years?  Those by The Middle East and Tame Impala. 

      Probably won’t appeal to everyone though, the middle east might be too wannabe folky and sensitive for many.

    • Douggie says:

      05:05pm | 19/04/10

      Zeta- A Perfect Circle’s first 2 albums came out in 2000 and 2003,... apart from that, I agree with you 100%.

    • Ross says:

      11:40am | 19/04/10

      I like both the song Mona Lisa and the painting Mona Lisa I also like the Beatles and beetles so what.

      Reply

    • Grumbles says:

      12:13pm | 19/04/10

      They only problem with your self-satisfied summation is the fact your opinions smack of tedious pomposity full of sound and fury but, ultimately, signify nothing.

      Reply

    • AlexC says:

      12:28pm | 19/04/10

      Whereas nothing says “man of the people” like quoting Shakespeare.

    • H of SA says:

      03:34pm | 19/04/10

      Interesting, the bard was actually considered somewhat of a man for the people, if not of the people, in his time for shocking the establishment by letting the riff raff attend his plays.

    • DanMunchie says:

      12:23pm | 19/04/10

      Alexandra Carlton - I issue this challenge - listen to anything by Brisbane band Portal. It redefines “music” to the most basic, primal sense.

      Reply

    • metalhead says:

      12:27pm | 19/04/10

      I’m proud of the music I listen to, and proud of the fact that there are only a small amount of people who can handle it. Thats right. I’m talking about underground metal. It will never be mainstream and never be polluted by immitators who try to “pop” it up a bit, like they do other genres of heavy music (metalcore, screamcore etc etc). People go on and on about music being better in the 80s or 70s of whatever. Maybe thats the case for popular music, but I don’t listen to that nor care about it. Underground metal has enjoyed 30+ years of awesomeness and it continues well into 2010.

      Reply

    • jhamiltonwa says:

      12:33pm | 19/04/10

      The author’s irony aside, not all opinions are of the same value and yes it is possible for somebody who is note a sage veteran of the recording industry to write perceptively about a band’s canon. I suspect but don’t know for sure it is also possible for for certain chord progressions to be nostalic in one context and uninspired in others.

      In other words all this one vote one value in the matter of opinions on matters of taste or anything is just hogwash. Don’t confuse our right to an opinion with (e)quality of opinion.

      It’s not hard to grasp, some people know more about music /art/cinema/upholstry etc and what makes it good than we do.

      Personally I have lots of good music but i don’t want to listen to it all the time so I listen to the huge pile of crap I also have in my collection.

      Reply

    • Opinion #3 says:

      01:11pm | 19/04/10

      I always think a good song is one that you hear once or twice and can’t quite remember the words too, but remember the vibe of the song or how it made you feel hearing it, and you can’t get the idea of the song or the tune of it out of your head. This is usually an indicator that the song has layers and has taken some time to get it to this point where every time you listen to it, you hear something new about it. You also don’t get sick of hearing it again and again, or in 5 years time, or 10 years etc.  You can always tell a bad song when after listening to it once, you can remember every single word. And after hearing it once, it feels like torture to hear it again, because it is so predictable you could have written it yourself.

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      02:09pm | 19/04/10

      Listening to music is an aesthetic experience.
      Everyone’s aesthetic judgment is different.
      The concept that the music you like is somehow better than the music I like is a statement that your aesthetic sense is “better” than mine.
      That attitude is ridiculously snobbish and quite juvenile.

      Reply

    • JHamiltonwa says:

      04:49pm | 19/04/10

      No, it isn’t., well, not necessarily at least.

      A knowledgable opinion would be one which starts with working through the process of understanding the subject and is honed and developed by taking the time to reflect on that subject matter and indeed consider and understand the opinions of those who have perhaps understood more and studied deeper than you have.

      Some of my music (all of it I like) collection consists of rubbish and some doesn’t. Some remains a mystery to me. Snobbishness need not enter into it. “Music I like is better than music you like” might indeed betray a snobbish and juvenile attitude, but it could also be true. One would hope that those with greater knowledge would be more gracious and carefull with how they impart their knowledge and those receiiving it would be gracious and willing to apreciate what they were being given.

      Crimson & Clover by Tommy James & The Shondells is a pop masterpiece, I say the equal of River Deep Mountain High (experts may disagree and non experts, well…) but if or when someone tells me that Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto is better music, they aren’t being ridiculously snobbish, they’re just being right (albeit tediously obvious)

    • iansand says:

      07:08pm | 19/04/10

      Nonsense.  Music is there to give pleasure.  If it gives the listener - any listener - pleasure it succeeds, and is ipso facto good music.

      The word I want to use seems to upset The Punch Powers.

    • jhamiltonwa says:

      11:42am | 20/04/10

      I’m not willing to concede that music is there to give pleasure, nor am i willing to concede that pleasure is just pleasure. And don’t stress about the Punch powers I can figure out the word you mean; it’s my ability to analyse and interpret that makes my tast so much better than most people’s. Anyway thanks for your thoughts and happy listening.

    • Kallan says:

      02:23pm | 19/04/10

      I actually hate pretentious “alternative” music fans more than the generic pop ones.

      Reply

    • Joel says:

      02:29pm | 19/04/10

      Is there a word like “circlejerk” that has competitive, rather than exaltory, connotations?

      Reply

    • Anthony says:

      03:28pm | 19/04/10

      Herbie Hancock is the greatest musician alive, but do you hear him on mainstream radio? No. Mainstream radio, including JJJ, is so ridiculously limited and represents the smallest portion of music being created worldwide. It’s all pop.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      03:46pm | 19/04/10

      Pop music relys on memory and sentimental notions for its success. You hear a song and you like it because it brings up identical feelings(or extra-musical ones) you had last time you heard it. We tend to like what’s familiar.
      Some songs i like for this reason i know are no good.

      Reply

    • casey says:

      04:09pm | 19/04/10

      Not everything I listen to is bad in the way that not everything you listen to is good. And going out on an assertive limb does not change this.

      Descriptions and analogies for someone else’s taste in music is shallow unless you can come up with a real and logical reason for why you dislike it.

      What I’m trying to say is you sound ilke a twat.

      Reply

    • BennO says:

      04:55pm | 19/04/10

      So why didn’t you just say that in the first place and save us all some time?

    • KateM says:

      09:13pm | 19/04/10

      “Just because you like a song doesn’t make it good”.  Conversely just because a song is good doesn’t mean you’ll like it.  The problem is that personal taste is just that, personal.  It is influenced by memory, emotion, location, time and yes the opinions of your friends.  Just as the writer says many songs have a time and place where they sound ‘better’ than other times.  There are plenty of songs I listen to that aren’t really my taste these days but I like them because they remind me of my school days in Wagga (pre Triple J broadcast) when 2WG was the radio station to play.

      There are songs that you like, there are songs that are good, there are songs that are both…. and then there are the songs by Nickleback and Creed which are neither good nor likable.

      Reply

    • James says:

      05:46pm | 22/04/10

      Most Nickleback and Creed songs sound the same. There’s a clever video fading many Nickleback songs into one another and it’s true there doesn’t seem to be any difference.
      But it’s catchy, predictable and easy to listen to.

      I actually like that once in a while. It’s like the eye of a storm when listening to commercial radio. Even radio show hosts aren’t a good reprieve from the music.

    • John in Alice says:

      09:53am | 20/04/10

      As a musician of some 60 years I have to say that modern songs aren’t so much songs as chants accompanied by uninspired keyboards with drum machine fills.  If it weren’t for the trashy videos of soft porn these untalented performers would be completely unknown. Pop music of today isn’t about music, it’s about who can slip the most obscenities past the censor, who can come up with the most bizarre outfits or who can expose the most skin.

      Reply

    • Joel says:

      12:27pm | 20/04/10

      I can’t believe I have to point this out, but people have ALWAYS thought this about “young people’s music”, John.

    • Eleanor says:

      02:00pm | 20/04/10

      So, the conclusion we can come to at the end of this is that…different people like different music? Great Scott!

      I want my five minutes back, please.

      Reply

    • acai berry cleanser says:

      10:32am | 02/09/10

      Another Charge,essential something thin partner nose back inside eat typical water watch index chemical hope customer there discuss heat again boy threat or piece duty indicate few fix watch stick somebody award existence history journey report alright secretary weapon male wild interest first base enterprise private win small author yes pleasure both focus fall entitle message shout notion settle inside often concern table surprise cover law observation merely knowledge distance ready aid selection perform emphasis party control interesting shop about complete street at quiet disappear estimate representative instrument useful

      Reply
 
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