To music...

Now, when people talk about music, the first thing 90% of the population thinks about is the lyrics... Nowadays, apparently how good a song is depends upon its lyrics. If the song is not "meaningful" (whatever the fuck that means) then it's not worth listening to. Modern bands seem more focused on the lyrics than playing their damn instruments, and this infuriates me.

Pink Floyd's song, Cluster One (from the album The Division Bell), starts off as a long fade-in of synth, a calm flowing river of emotion... The guitar comes swiftly in from the blurred sky and snatches you from the endless flow, pulling you higher and higher, as you watch the endless river become smaller and smaller... The darkness of the world around you is overwhelming, yet soothing, entrancing... The grand piano creeps into your attention and delivers a spine-tingling upward reach, from low to high, before delivering its slow melody, dancing in and out of the flying guitar... The soft drums come in to start a rythm, to rouse the soul from it's stupor... As the rythm and beat slowly increases, the river below still flowing, you a) realise I'm a crackpot and b) realise that THERE ARE NO VOCALS IN THIS SONG. Yet, it has attained perfection. It has taken the listener on a journey to the depths of their soul, to a place they never knew existed. Sure, you can't headbang to it, you can't dance to it... But it has delivered a stronger message than any huge egotistical (or not even that) band's lyrics ever will.

Led Zeppelin's song Bron-Yr-Aur (from the album Physical Graffiti), I credit for being a song that brings out intense emotion in me. It is nothing but an acoustic guitar with a bit of echo effect added to it, yet it takes a swirling trip through.. well, I don't really know. It's a love song; a song of tragedy; a song of yearning; a song without lyrics. Yes, another song that in today's age fails because there isn't some guy singing about how much the world sucks in it. It is really up to the listener what the song is about, the only one who knows what it truly is about is Jimmy Page, the one who wrote and played it. He expressed his emotion and it has been crystallized in eternity, in the souls of devoted Zeppelin fans such as myself. No meaningful lyrics. Just MUSIC.

Seriously, in MY opinion, any band who sings about fixing the world is doing NOTHING to ACTUALLY help the world. Music is a language, people. You can't fix the economy by playing loud music on wall street and holding up all the workers there. It just doesn't work. As much as I hate the system we use, the world NEEDS wall street until we can find a better way of managing our money. Playing music is not going to rouse our government into action to stop world hunger, war, fighting, whatever the shit. If politicians WANTED to help the nations under their control, they would have done so a long time ago. Music is not going to make them do anything. Sure, people will be able to relate to the singer's whingeing complaint about how much the world sucks, but essentially it ain't gonna do anything to help the world. AT ALL. *sigh*

Another thing about music nowadays is top 40 shit. All it is is what the audience wants to hear. No talent involved in making top 40 music. Just make a song that has repetitive lyrics about the same old thing (girls, love, love, girls, love, love etc), give it some trippy sound effects, make it sound "emotional" (today, adding a string section to ANY song makes it sound emotional) and you're away. But then, it doesn't even have to have emotion. "Shake It" by Metro Station *shudders* for instance, the only appeal of the song is that the guys who wrote it are metros and apparently (most) girls like that. Oh and it also has a strong beat, people like that too. Loud rythmic noise, no breaks in the sound (because that involves brain activity), and lotsa sound effects.

*sigh* Basically, my point is that people don't seem to appreciate music any more. Back in the days of the cavemen, music was made by instruments to make people feel good, and to express the way they felt. This continued to be the thing until around 1980, when music started to become boring and repetitive. Today, find a new band that DOESN'T have a song about how much their life sucks or how much the world sucks, and you're incredibly lucky. And I am well aware that bands such as AC/DC sang pretty much exclusively about women and getting wasted, and essentially all their songs sound the same, BUT THEY KNEW HOW TO PLAY!!! The riffs they came up with, you gotta admit while repetitive as all hell, had a degree of awesomeness to them. Modern bands have a thing for playing the same chord over and over, plastering it with lyrics and vocals to cover up the fact they can't play (Fall Out Boy for instance).

I will stop now for I am likely to die the next time anyone who reads this confronts me. It is likely that I have offended everyone. But back to the second and third paragraph, think about it. It's about the music, the way the sound makes you feel, the intricacy of such talented artists of sound. Not "good" lyrics and repetition. Sure, it makes many people feel good, and I am not saying songs should not have lyrics. I am simply saying that people today would rather listen to music that has "meaningful" lyrics and lots of loud noise and sound effects than anything... *sigh* I'll stop now.

I don't think I even proved my point, since I can't recall what it is anymore.

Meh.