What's more important? Lyrics or music? (Poll)

I don't even know half the lyrics I hum. But I know the song!

 

I'm not sure that's a good test. You might also be incapable of remembering or singing along with every instrumental note played on the record too, but I'm not sure that would be evidence that the music wasn't something that mattered to you.

 

Sometimes people want to dwell in a 2 dimensional world... I guess by simplifying their choices, it makes everything earlier...?

I prefer all aspects, in varying degrees.

 

Music over lyrics. Songs can be good with one over the other, but when they have both it's magical.

 

I love 'Powderfinger' but I don't think the lyrics are necessary to my enjoyment. I should say those particular lyrics. It wouldn't be as good as an instrumental. If the lyrics were different, but Neil's singing was the same and he was hitting the same vocal notes, I think I would like it just as much. This isn't to say I don't enjoy the story these particular lyrics tell. I just think the music/singing would elevate any lyrical choices. It's kind of like when Dylan will substitute a completely different verse in a song without radically changing the song (or my enjoyment of it).

 

It's a really interesting question, especially in a forum like this. Although the voting is running 95% pro-music, why is the music posted around here 95% vocal? And, in a cohort of, largely, intelligent adults, what's the lifelong attraction of what they used to call Teen Beat Vocal? We take very seriously, and invest considerable energy in, other putatively intelligent adults singing about concerns that could only be of vital importance to, to generalize, dopey adolescents. Is it arrested emotional or intellectual development? Does music appeal mostly on some primal unevolved level? Or is it about escapism from adult concerns? Or nostalgia? Does our subconscious desire simple signposting?

Not citing examples, because that would feed an equally childish "your favorite band sucks" dynamic - and some of my own faves are pretty immature. Just...curious.

 

I believe that my example demonstrates that I still like the song 40 years later, but don't care enough to know the words all the way through. I am quite capable of hearing nuances and changes in some songs.... A finger slip on the string, or that extra hit on the cymbal at 1:47 in "Mob Rules." I'm not being twitchy, just explaining my point.

 

Cream (w. Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker) had their motto:
“Forget the lyrics, forget the message, and just play.”

It’s the music that is truly important

 

Music

What good are great lyrics if all you have is crappy music to accompany them?

 

Initially the music but if the lyrics are weak then the song will die over time for me.

 

I can't say what's more important, but I personally find myself paying more attention to everything but lyrics, but not all the time though. Nowadays especially, I can hardly understand most lyrics in modern pop songs, and while I'm gradually losing my hearing due to aging, I'm convinced it's more due to the fact that vocalists nowadays don't project their voices well, nor do they pronounce words clearly. Also, at least with modern pop music, lyrics are becoming increasingly idiotic and/or salacious. So then, I'm voting 'Music', but it's totally a personal thing.

 

It depends on context.

On albums where the music is the prominent feature, then the music is more important.
On albums where the lyrics are the prominent feature, then the lyrics are more important.
On albums where the vocals are slurred or otherwise not ascertainable without a lyrics sheet, then the music is, by default, more important.

IMO.

In other words it seems crazy to ascribe great importance to lyrics in progressive rock songs that are mostly instrumental, and it seems wrong to downplay the role of lyrics that are upfront and clearly heard in the mix of relatively simple songs.

 

My wife and I had this discussion about Zeppelin. She doesn't like them because she doesn't like the lyrics. I on the other hand don't care because I don't listen to (or understand) Zeppelin lyrics. It's ALL about the music for me.

 

Maybe that explains why I never cared for anything by Cream -- were they intentionally making music that had nothing to say? On the flip side, Lester Young and Sonny Rollins played instrumental music, but when they played songs that had been written with lyrics they always considered the lyrics, it's something also JD Allen made a point of talking about when he recorded his great standards ballad instrumental album, Love Stone, last year.

 

Music

For reference however, 4 out of 10 in my all time best albums don't have any lyrics.

 

Interesting question.

 

I'd ask the other way round: Although the music posted around here is 95% vocal, why the voting is running 95% pro-music?

One thing is true though, at least to me it's much easier to hum an entire song than to memorize say more than a couple of sentences. Well, I'm not a musician, but it's probably what I would have most loved to be. On the other hand, poetry (or poem) books never added up to my hobbies.

 

I think that conditioning plays a big role in how people hear and enjoy music. I grew up listening to AM (MW) radio broadcasts on pocket portables, which rendered audio in very lo-fi and hardly did justice to vocals. Also, Muzak was everywhere. I enjoyed it then, and I enjoy it now. So with all that, I'm conditioned to focus on instrumentation, arrangements, and melodies.

When I got my first decent stereo and compact disc player in the '80s, I was surprised to hear old favorites sounding so very clear revealing lyrics I could actually understand. More often than not though, I still found lyrics to be distracting unless uplifting and joyful. Ah! Now that I think about this further, it's downer lyrics that I don't like and feel distract from my enjoyment of many songs. For instance, Gilbert O'Sullivan's 'Alone Again Naturally' has what I consider a very pleasant melody, but its lyrics are dreadful in my opinion.

As an aside, recently I added something special to my music collection in the way of a series of compilations documenting every instrumental pop recording to chart on the BillBoard HOT-100 from 1959 through 1979. The set was obviously assembled with love and dedication, and its audio fidelity doesn't disappoint!

 

There are some artists where the lyrics are a HUGE component of the songs.

Dylan
Simon & Garfunkel/Paul Simon
The Who/Pete Townshend
The Kinks/Ray Davies
10 CC
XTC

Just for quick examples of artists whose lyrics have always ben a huge part of it for me.

 

Music, off course....
But don't forget Bob Dylan...

 

That could be, and for me, I started taking drum lessons right after I turned 6, and then by the time I was 8, I was taking piano lessons, too. So from about the time that I have regular rather than just sporadic memories, I was very focused on what the instruments were doing, not what the vocals were doing, and I was focused on it from a music-theoretical perspective, where I was learning that along with everything else from kindergarten age.

 

Here's one way of assessing it - would you listen to so-and-so if they were singing in a language you didn't understand? Led Zeppelin - sure, why not? Frank Zappa - hey, it's better that way! Bob Dylan - nope.

 

Music. Great lyrics can exist without music as poetry.

 

Vocals are most important for me
If I like the voice I keep listening and often if I’m not sure I keep listening and over time pick up on it
Words are crucial
I grew up in a very conservative family
Sex drugs rock and roll bad
Surfings bad Levi’s bad bare feet bad no job bad on and on
And then
for the ones that have a feeling
Deep down inside
That it ain’t no sin to be glad to be alive
Or Dylan
If these thought dreams could be seen
They’d probably put my head in a guilotine
Or my teenage self
Pretty flamingo
When she walks by
She brightens up the neighbourhood
What male hasn’t seen a flamingo walking down the street
Or this from The Flying Burritos
And on the 41st floor not even a gold plated door
Will keep out the Lords burning rain
both my obsessions religion and politics on a sentence
Song lyrics resonate decades after I hear them and create millions of thoughts
A few months after Blood On The Tracks
I understood every word and nuance on that record
Like a corkscrew to my heart
Or
I’ve never gotten used to it
I’ve just learned to turn it off
I could go on indefinitely but having said all that none of these words would have figured in my consciousness if they weren’t set to music and sung by people who could channel their feelings into a song and make them real
So I guess for me I can’t really make the separation of words and music
Bit like wearing shoes without socks

 

Music is more important for things that are M U S I C in the first place (songs, albums, concertos, etc).

Lyrics are more important for BOOKS. Duh.