Value of lyrics?

[Fat Tony!]

Me and my friend had a bit of a disagreement to whether the sound of music is more important then the words. Personally I think if the sound of the song is good then the words can be as crap, it doesn't matter. His viewpoint is obviously the opposite.

What do you think?

 

[Pressure]

I say both are very important. If the lyrics are crap but the sound is good I don't really like it. If the lyrics are good and the sound is crap I don't really like it. It has to be good in both aspects for me to be able to enjoy it to the fullest extent. Sometimes the singer's voice is the problem or maybe it's the way the guitar riffs are but I have to like both to like the song.

 

[ThomasToad]

Sound is extremely more important in terms of music...Obviously the combination of the two can be greater than each seperately but the whole appeal to music should be THE music itself, which includes the singing. For me personally, in most cases, I couldn't care less what was being sung lyrically, and many times I'm drawn more to instrumentals songs than those with singers. To be honest with the vast majority of songs I don't even make an attempt to figure out what is being said in the lyrics, nor do I look up the lyrics online or anything. It just boggles my mind that some people are SO focused on the singing/lyrics of songs that they literally wouldn't be able to listen to a song without them.

The whole appeal in my mind is that music can do infinitely more things than lyrics can.

 

[Axyon]

I don't care about lyrics at all... in fact, I know pretty much no lyrics from every song I've heard and been exposed to for a long time - I couldn't recall them if I tried my absolute hardest. I can, however, recall the structure, beat etc. of those same songs really easily. Guess it's the way I'm wired. So long as the vocal sound and general sound is to my liking, I couldn't care less about lyrics.

 

[SimonomiS]

Acapella or Instrumental.
I guess its not THAT simple, as lyrics can totally change a song, lyrics ARE important, but compared to what a song is all about, the sound, it pales in importance.

 

[Direwolf]

A good song has both excellent lyrics and sound.
A great song has lyrics and sound that can't be considered seperately.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I guess it depends. The Microphones have amazing sound and good lyrics, but for him the lyrics are basically icing on the already oh so delicious cake.

 

[Ennui]

Both can be important.

 

[Laivasse]

The sound is of course more important, though I do not think that lyrics can be completely disregarded. Lyrics are a window into a band's outlook on the world - while the notes and riffs can be mean many things to many people, lyrics are less flexible. Good lyrics are often good partly because they are open to multiple interpretation.

In metal there are a lot of bands with good riffs, but terrible lyrics. I can't listen to gore metal as anything more than a joke, no matter how good the riffs are (eg. Impaled and Aborted) because the music can never be more than a quick feelgood blast. Similarly, if a band focus on something I consider to be lame and uninteresting, then it destroys the chance of any deeper connection with the music. For instance a band like Theory in Practice, virtuoso playing and sometimes nice riffs, but stupid focus on UFOs and aliens.

 

[Hazar]

70 - 30 for sound to lyrics

 

[PoeticRocker]

I believe that lyrics can sometimes cause a persons interpretation of a song to be confined. Music should just be fluent with sound that reflects the composer’s feelings. Even then it’s more meaningful if they can always listen to the song with different views of emotion each time. Whether they feel angry, depress, or happy it wont matter. Though it would if a song is a happy tune singing about love and you just got dumped by your girlfriend. And what happens next? You throw away that damn song and never listen to it again because it reminds you of that BS relationship. But then I think lyrics do work if you can make it universal for the listener.

 

[Stigmata]

I say the sound of music is more important. Sound can exist without lyrics and still be music, but lyrics without sound is poetry.

 

[Ennui]

60-40, sound to lyrics. They both are major, I can like a song but hate the lyrics, and only moderately like a song but love the lyrics.

Generally it leans far more towards sound but lyrics are very important to me.

 

[StardogChampion]

I think lyrics are kind of underrated sometimes. Lyrics aren't just words, they often make up the melody of the entire song. Lyrics can turn an average sounding riff into a great song, but music often can't turn bad lyrics/vocal melody into a good song.

We could debate forever, but I'd say it's an equal 50-50.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

I listen to electronica alot, so I can live without it just fine. But that won't stop me from complaining about Linkin Park, so perhaps I'm hypocritical.

 

[chu]

When I listen to music I listen to the instrumentals more than the lyrics. That's why I don't really know any lyrics to songs I've heard 50 times.

 

[DeusExMachina]

I think its 40-60 for me. I've memorized most of the lyrics of the 800+ songs I listen to.

 

[Teh_Poet]

It depends in what kind of music. In rap, for example, the lyrics are very important. In heavy screaming metal, they are less important.

 

[Narcolepsy]

I find that incredibly shortsighted. Metal has some very good lyrics, as well as some very poor ones. The fact that many bands use screamed, growled or otherwise distorted vocals doesn't make the lyrics any less important.

Yes, but when you hear rap, the main component of the sound of the song itself is the lyrics. This means that when you hear a rap song with terrible lyrics, unless the song has some kind of really incredible beat, it is most likely worthless.

On the other hand, because metal lyrics are often hard to understand, one can ignore terrible lyrics and focus on the melody. If the lyrics are good, then the song is just that much better.

This is just a generalization, of course.

 

[sabre0001]

Both are very important but overall the sound is probably more important...Although if it's a quiet song or a band is actually trying to emphasise the words then lyrics are unbelievably important...