[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 16 July 2015 - 03:23 PM, said:

Apologies, I was speaking specifically of Kanye. Those other artists you posted are a different ball of wax, and I'm fine with lots of it.

Kanye is exactly what Maark says he is. Dull songs, annoying voice, and seemingly a jerk in the real life we see him presented in (whether that's actually real or an act is up for debate). The kind of individual who goes up onstage at an awards show and tell the audience that the person who won (Swift) isn't better than the person he likes better (Beyonce)...which was about as highschool level of an act as one could pull. Which is only precursor to Kanye doing a similar thing to Beck, and then declaring to Glastonbury that he's the "greatest rock star on the planet". I don't care that he's technically not a "rock" star...what I DO care about is a stupid statement made by a delusional individual with nothing to back that up. He tweets in Caps Lock. Multiple, multiple non-show concerts or 2-3hour late concerts, non-event concerts where he doesn't really sing much, but rants. Mouths off to reviewers who give him a B+ (EW article about his show) and demands an A. Basically everything that is wrong with celebrity-mixed-with-music careers.

And just to show I'm not playing favourites in any way, I feel that people like Liam Gallagher (Oasis), and Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins) are totally on par with Kanye for believing they are the best ever and loudly shouting that...to disbelieving crowds who wonder what is going on in their heads to make them think that.

So we've got people like Dave Grohl busting his leg on stage and finishing the damned concert (AND keeping tour dates with a busted leg), or a Delain bassist having his nuts blasted from behind by a pyrotechnic explosion and finishing the show, or just the sheer energy and class that Janelle Monae brings to her stage shows, Tom Morello pouring everything he has into a guitar career, The Roots spending decades crafting important, progressive hip-hop tracks (to bring it back to the discussion at hand). These people LIVE their music. They don't use it to tell us how great they are...and then prove it by behaving like petulant, celebrity-hogging, constantly late children.

I'll add Freddie Mercury coming to the studio and recording The Show Must Go On when he is critically ill and then passing away a few days later to that list of awesome artists you can't keep down. That song still gives me goosebumps.

I agree about the Kanye criticism. I don't care how good an artist you are, you don't get to behave like that at award shows or for that matter in public with the people who have payed a lot to attend a music concert.

[polishgenius]

Kanye's a massive gobshite but not enough for me to impair my enjoyment of his music when he gets it right. He's Quentin Tarantino type tosser, not Floyd Mayweather. Mostly harmless.


And My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the greatest albums of the last decade, albeit oddly enough probably not one of the greatest hip-hop albums (because he isn't a great rapper or lyricist, and imo those two things are needed to count as a great hip-hop album but not necessarily to make a great album in the wider arena of music). Although it did give us the lyric 'have you ever had sex with a pharoah... I put that pussy in a sarcophagus', which is one of the greatest lines of all time.

[worry]

Quentin Tarantino is something of a good comparison, because Kanye is foremost a child of his influences and something of a pastiche artist (though of course lately he's been putting out more unique, challenging stuff). It's why he can say something striking one minute, something hilarious the next, and something groan-worthy right after that. I think he can be a great lyricist (All Falls Down is a great example), but I don't necessarily think that's his goal 100% of the time. But if you want layered, take Diamonds from Sierra Leone which manages to extrapolate from one image (the diamond): the scourge of blood diamonds, American rags to riches stories/American dream, materialism's role in hip hop for better and worse (and associated peer pressure, responsibility, guilt), nouveau riche stereotypes, society side-eying black wealth...all while also telling a story of his own rise under Jay-Z, and his ambitions to be great and be a lasting artist (there's a strong "Diamonds Are Forever" sample throughout), while also referencing Roc-A-Fella Records and Jay's signature diamond hand gesture. Of course Roc-A-Fella is already loaded with some of this, applying the Rockefeller legacy to young black up-and-comers while also immediately evoking hip-hop rocking the mic/rocking the crowd. Meanwhile, Kanye also happens to be linking black experience to James Bond and the globe-trotting luxurious fantasy he in part embodies, long before most people had even heard the name Idris Elba.

As far as his bad behavior at awards shows: uh, he interrupted Taylor Swift (who I like, and for sure she didn't deserve it) to suggest her video wasn't as good as Beyonce's (which is true, like, indisputably...You Belong With Me's video is a fun, goofy, but ultimately nothing special riff on high school yearning). And then he pretended to do the same thing to Beck at the Grammys in a half-joking self-mocking way. Big whoop. The fact that the Grammys thought Beck had a better album than Beyonce in 2015 is an indictment of the Grammys, not Kanye.

This post has been edited by worry: 16 July 2015 - 08:44 PM

[polishgenius]

worry, on 16 July 2015 - 08:44 PM, said:

Long post bout Kanye's lyrics

To give him his due, I think he can be very strong in terms of the overall thematics of his songs, when he wants. However his ability to maintain line-by-line rhythm and quality can let him down. It's not terrible or anything, most of the time, it's just not in the same class as the rest of what he does, or as many of his peers.

Roughly the equivalent of having a good story but average prose, I guess.

[amphibian]

Tupac was the same way. His flow was not good, but his charisma and gift for turning out a massive hit now and then propelled him into the hip-hop pantheon.

Kanye's more consistent, but way, way less aware of history (outside of music itself) and less violent/confrontational. I don't mind his bragging or his near-delusional self-belief because that is what it takes to be genuinely great. I've seen this in the athletic/fight world, I've experienced this to some degree in the professional world, and I've watched it happen in the creative world again and again. You have to believe in yourself past the point reasonable people would stop in order to succeed at the highest levels.

Miles Davis changed the course of music two or three times. He was also captured by the media being a dickhead who was really full of himself a bunch of the time. Still a great artist and the constant reinventions of what was "his music" drove almost everyone around him in the industry to bigger and better things.

Kanye does that same reinvention cycle to a lesser degree. He really gets in the studio all the time with top of the line musicians and producers and works. His fashion work is kinda terrible, except for that one tiger sweatshirt he never commercially produced (http://s3-us-west-2....pearance-03.jpg), but it's what he wants to do. Ok, let him do it. He's right about Beyonce's video being better and he was right about George Bush not caring about black people.

He's essentially right in much of what he means, but not practiced in actually saying/doing it in the right way. And he doesn't appear to read much, so his development in expression outside of music will be slower than he or we would like.

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 16 July 2015 - 08:44 PM, said:

As far as his bad behavior at awards shows: uh, he interrupted Taylor Swift (who I like, and for sure she didn't deserve it) to suggest her video wasn't as good as Beyonce's (which is true, like, indisputably...You Belong With Me's video is a fun, goofy, but ultimately nothing special riff on high school yearning). And then he pretended to do the same thing to Beck at the Grammys in a half-joking self-mocking way. Big whoop. The fact that the Grammys thought Beck had a better album than Beyonce in 2015 is an indictment of the Grammys, not Kanye.

Hang on. We're talking about integrity in Hip Hop music. This is okay behaviour? This warrants a "big whoop"?

I don't care if it's the grammy's or the razzies. Going on stage and petulantly mouthing off about who he thought should have won is highschool bullshit that should have seen him hauled offstage by security. By fucking ADULTS. The subjectivity of whose video is better (and it's not song, this was the damned VIDEO awards FFS) is up for the grabs of whomever voted most. Not you and me, and not Kayne West. You can think the other nominees are better till the cows come home, but that doesn't stop this from being a childish act of assininery. It's DISRESPECTFUL of the highest order. From a guy who claims that disrespect his a pet peeve in interviews...he's certainly no stranger to being disrepectful to everyone else.

I'm not giving him a pass. I'm not giving him anything. He behaves like a tool, and I'm going to call him out on that everytime.

And let's not even start on his misogynsitc lyrics, shall we?

[Studlock]

If we're going to start listing misogynistic lyrics from artists we'll literally be were all night--no genre is particularly good at representing women in a respectful manner. That's not say it is excusable--it isn't--or not worthy of criticism but it isn't particularly unique to hip-hop or Kanye. I'm not going to defend Kanye's asshole behaviour--he's an asshole and should be treated like it but I will point all these problems people have with him are not unique to him but the way the larger society does is. Honestly I do think there's some racism involved (not from you of course)--hes an arrogant black man and there's nothing else that frightens a certain population in North America more.

[Andorion]

QuickTidal, on 17 July 2015 - 02:40 AM, said:

worry, on 16 July 2015 - 08:44 PM, said:

As far as his bad behavior at awards shows: uh, he interrupted Taylor Swift (who I like, and for sure she didn't deserve it) to suggest her video wasn't as good as Beyonce's (which is true, like, indisputably...You Belong With Me's video is a fun, goofy, but ultimately nothing special riff on high school yearning). And then he pretended to do the same thing to Beck at the Grammys in a half-joking self-mocking way. Big whoop. The fact that the Grammys thought Beck had a better album than Beyonce in 2015 is an indictment of the Grammys, not Kanye.

Hang on. We're talking about integrity in Hip Hop music. This is okay behaviour? This warrants a "big whoop"?

I don't care if it's the grammy's or the razzies. Going on stage and petulantly mouthing off about who he thought should have won is highschool bullshit that should have seen him hauled offstage by security. By fucking ADULTS. The subjectivity of whose video is better (and it's not song, this was the damned VIDEO awards FFS) is up for the grabs of whomever voted most. Not you and me, and not Kayne West. You can think the other nominees are better till the cows come home, but that doesn't stop this from being a childish act of assininery. It's DISRESPECTFUL of the highest order. From a guy who claims that disrespect his a pet peeve in interviews...he's certainly no stranger to being disrepectful to everyone else.

I'm not giving him a pass. I'm not giving him anything. He behaves like a tool, and I'm going to call him out on that everytime.

And let's not even start on his misogynsitc lyrics, shall we?

I agree totally. It doesn't matter how great his stature, this behaviour opens the door for disruption and disrespect. You can differ with the choices in an award show, we do that all the time and you can certainly air your grievances, I mean Kanye will get maximum media exposure if he says anything, but actually walking up on stage and openly and brazenly disrespecting the awardee is something just not done. In Becks case he hadn't even heard the song in question. In Swifts case, it was a teenage singer on the cusp of her fame who is just beginning to deal with the music world and to do something that rude to her was simply idiotic.

Plus there's the whole Kanye brand thing. A couple of years back there was this blank white T shirt that was selling for around $90 becasue it was Kanye branded. In Indian money thats around rs 5400 at least and I could get 11 T shirts for that money. This sort of arrogant celebrity branding makes no sense to me

[Andorion]

Studlock, on 17 July 2015 - 02:57 AM, said:

If we're going to start listing misogynistic lyrics from artists we'll literally be were all night--no genre is particularly good at representing women in a respectful manner. That's not say it is excusable--it isn't--or not worthy of criticism but it isn't particularly unique to hip-hop or Kanye. I'm not going to defend Kanye's asshole behaviour--he's an asshole and should be treated like it but I will point all these problems people have with him are not unique to him but the way the larger society does is. Honestly I do think there's some racism involved (not from you of course)--hes an arrogant black man and there's nothing else that frightens a certain population in North America more.

It definitely isn't unique to Kanye. One of the reasons I stopped listening to Eminem was because of the violence in his lyrics. But if you already dislike Kanye, the misogyny is just another reason to strengthen your feelings

[worry]

It was rude behavior, sure, but it's not like they were at the White House receiving Medals of Honor. It was the MTV Music Video Awards. It sucks that he hurt TSwift's feelings (not being sarcastic; alternatively her reaction was a bit humorless too tbh), but that's about as far as it goes. I do not condemn AT ALL someone doing something wacky at the VMAs, a show that's seen Howard Stern as Fartman fly down to the stage, or Tim Cummerford (of RATM) get drunk and climb on the stage props, or Kurt Cobain calling out Axl Rose from the stage. It's not a dignified event, it's a spectacle (and it's meant to be, even though MTV has tried to sand off all the edges in the last decade or so). Courtney Love famously (and intoxicatedly) interrupted an interview with Madonna. This isn't even the first time an acceptance speech was interrupted. The late great Adam Yauch rushed the stage after Everybody Hurts won best director, and Michael Stipe certainly wasn't in on the joke, but that didn't hang over his head every time he did anything else. Obviously Kanye (in a fit of drunken passion) was disrespectful to the winner, but "of the highest order"? Really? Either that's hyperbole in service of a grudge position, or I'm just gonna have to beg to differ on that one.

[amphibian]

It's hyperbole in service of a dug-in opinion.

[polishgenius]

I know Yeezus got a lot of criticism for misogyny. Which is a shame because I'd never previously thought of him as such - some problematic moments, like Gold Digger, but also several songs where he puts the focus on women in a way not common in the genre, or even really in music at all (url=http://www.thefeministwire.com/2011/01/kanye-west-is-not-a-feminist-but/]here[/url] is an article I found which tallies quite closely with my thoughts on the matter). Certainly there's no comparison to be had between him and Eminem.

He's also been outspoken on stopping homophobia in hip-hop, which is important and earns him some respect in my book.


As for the awards thing- yeah, it was a dick move and at the time deserved criticism but in the long term people have blown it out of all proportion. He interrupted her speech, he didn't kill her.



In general, I'm not a big fan of him as a person but I think some people go in waaay too hard. He's an abrasive character sure but quite a lot of that is just entertaining.

[Studlock]

This has little to do with the conversation but I kind just remembered a couple awesome bars from Kanye and thought I'd share. 'Penitentiary chances, the devil dances/ And eventually answers to the call of Autumn/ All of them fallin' for the love of ballin'/ got caught with 30 rocks, the cop look like Alec Baldwin/ Inter century anthems based off inner city tantrums/ Based off the way we was branded/ Face it, Jerome get more time than Brandon'

Now if QT can cherry pick lyrics so can I but this is a surprisingly dense set of bars--which I'd agree it a tad unusual for Kanye--but it does have the 'important' subject matter that QT wanted. It questions and talks about a couple of things with a couple clever double entendre and allusion to 30 Rock. First it opens up with the reference to chances of black Americans to be sent to jail, followed by how it makes Satan dances, a clever double entendre with falling (like a leaf in Autumn and in the biblical sense) followed by the silly but appropriate reference to 30 rocks (crack--and the officer will look white like Alec Baldwin), then follows how this influences rap specifically, anthems based off a 'gangsta' live styles, which are actually based off how black Americans are 'branded' or rather seen by larger, whiter American, and finally brings it around by point out none of that matters because a black man (Jerome) is going to face more time than a white man (Brandon) from the same crime--which points to the first couples of the bars 'penitentiary chances'. It's not, poetically, all that and a bag of cheese though its serviceable but lyrically it is pretty dense given how little of it there is--it is only half a verse--and I think highlights the Jackle and Hyde nature people are talking about when it comes to Kanye. West he's a narcissistic asshole but the doesn't mean he's a untalented hack and I'm still waiting for to answer my question what is an interesting sound? Mostly out of curiosity because this thread shows I have an unusual judging system when it comes to interesting sound.

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 17 July 2015 - 03:38 AM, said:

Obviously Kanye (in a fit of drunken passion) was disrespectful to the winner, but "of the highest order"? Really? Either that's hyperbole in service of a grudge position, or I'm just gonna have to beg to differ on that one.

I think where we differ if that I really don't see the event itself as important to what was done (and I'm using the TSwift incident as main example, the other exmaples of his behaviour do still stand). I don't think that where they were or what was happening is important with regards to human-to-human respect. So yeah, I think that's pretty highly disrespectful. If you stand in front of a burgeoning young star in front of a crowd of thousands at a televised event and say "I don't think you are as good as this other person", and then didn't apologize for 6 years? I don't think it's hyperbole to say that was a high order level of disrespect. I mean what level of disrespect is it then? What constitutes that level?

Look, the guy can change my mind, if he acts differently for a while and his public image becomes less crappy...but for now, this is how I see him personally.

You guys don't. That's cool. Agree to disagree then.

@Studlock. I don't know that I can accurately answer "interesting sound", since that's a subjective thing...but I'll try. For me it's a musicality, and interesting layering, changes of the status quo within one song (more than one bridge to different layers is great). Like for exmaple, I don't think The Roots have ever done a song (that I can think of) which I haven't found at least moderately interesting due to how it was constructed. You also don't see a lot of sampling, or the like in their music. I think that's what I'm getting at. If that mkes any sense?

[Studlock]

Yeah it makes sense. To me though, an interesting sound is something that creates a 'complete' vision both musically and lyrically--maybe that's why I like hip-hop so much I don't know--like Glory above. It presents a theme with its lyrics and a mood with it sounds that creates, for me, a perfect emotional response, something like melancholy, an unbearable loss. That's an interesting song because it gives both the sound and lyrics meaning--it tells an emotional story. I'm not saying non-repetitive songs can't do that--I love the fun improv of Jazz--it makes me excited--but that's not because it complex or has constantly different 'motives' (had to look that--like I said I'm a music academic) every other note but because like it to evokes an emotional response. It just seems supremely arrogant to dismiss an entire genre of music simply because it has 'rarely anything interesting going musically' in a very narrow definition of 'interesting (it must look like jazz or be highly layered)'. If we applied this logic to writing (crudely) he'd get something like 'all good writing must be like Faulkner, there's no room for Hemingway's iceberg theory' or in comics 'everything must be like Morrison's compression, there's no room for Ellis's decompression'. It seems silly and bit elitist and all the assumptions that brings along (like assuming one of the most critically acclaimed artists of the 21st century is actually only popular because they're famous--and the unfortunate implication of calling an art form that is mostly driven by black, and brown poor people as mostly 'uninteresting' despite ones intent). That's not to mention that the people who most often criticize rap usually either hate everything of only a few samples of music or have a few token favourites which then claim 'all rap must sound like this because this is good because it like stuff I like from other musical traditions'.


At the end of the day you and I probably have an incompatible view of what good music is and isn't suppose to do. But like you said its all subjective.

[QuickTidal]

Studlock, on 17 July 2015 - 11:06 AM, said:

Yeah it makes sense. To me though, an interesting sound is something that creates a 'complete' vision both musically and lyrically--maybe that's why I like hip-hop so much I don't know--like Glory above. It presents a theme with its lyrics and a mood with it sounds that creates, for me, a perfect emotional response, something like melancholy, an unbearable loss. That's an interesting song because it gives both the sound and lyrics meaning--it tells an emotional story. I'm not saying non-repetitive songs can't do that--I love the fun improv of Jazz--it makes me excited--but that's not because it complex or has constantly different 'motives' (had to look that--like I said I'm a music academic) every other note but because like it to evokes an emotional response. It just seems supremely arrogant to dismiss an entire genre of music simply because it has 'rarely anything interesting going musically' in a very narrow definition of 'interesting (it must look like jazz or be highly layered)'. If we applied this logic to writing (crudely) he'd get something like 'all good writing must be like Faulkner, there's no room for Hemingway's iceberg theory' or in comics 'everything must be like Morrison's compression, there's no room for Ellis's decompression'. It seems silly and bit elitist and all the assumptions that brings along (like assuming one of the most critically acclaimed artists of the 21st century is actually only popular because they're famous--and the unfortunate implication of calling an art form that is mostly driven by black, and brown poor people as mostly 'uninteresting' despite ones intent). That's not to mention that the people who most often criticize rap usually either hate everything of only a few samples of music or have a few token favourites which then claim 'all rap must sound like this because this is good because it like stuff I like from other musical traditions'.


At the end of the day you and I probably have an incompatible view of what good music is and isn't suppose to do. But like you said its all subjective.

Indeed, that's a fair statement.

And that Glory track (which I'd never actually heard before) really IS great. So at the very least, you've introduced me to a new song.

[polishgenius]

I always wonder what Kanye haters think of the song Runaway. Not that it should be changing their minds (though it did affect my view of him a little), but it's such an open song about the way he is, accepting that he's wrong without quite being an apology... I just wonder how that's taken by the people he kinda wrote it for.

Studlock, on 17 July 2015 - 08:19 AM, said:

lyrically it is pretty dense given how little of it there is--it is only half a verse

This sort of thing is why I find it tricky to listen to Kendrick, even though I love his stuff. Nearly every verse is like that. He's so lyrically dense (and he doesn't smooth it with the music either) that my brain has to work far harder than usual to unpack everything. He's one of the few musicians I can't just casually stick on in the background and enjoy.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 17 July 2015 - 05:14 PM

[Nevyn]

EmperorMagus, on 14 July 2015 - 06:47 AM, said:

I'm really interested to hear what people think of this article on Guardian. I disagree with the gist of the article because I dislike Kanye West myself, but since I'm not familiar with his music, I can't comment on whether the Rock'n'Roll's "Old Guard" is attacking him because of Racism or because he is just bad.

It is a pretty bad article. The blogger has a dumb, off the cuff opinion, and decided to spout off without doing a lot of research.

So he contrasts Kanye with rock n roll bad boys over the years, without noticing that those bad boys got a lot of hate from everyone but their fans just as Kanye does.

As to the musical talent questions, generations before hip hop went mainstream have always struggled with respected it as a genre. That is not about racism. That is about a completely different style of songwriting, expression and performance. It is easy to see how guys who spent years with a band coming up with their own tunes out of whole cloth with a variety of different instuments, the vocals often being the final element, would look down on a genre where the central 'melody' is often adapted from pre-existing material, or generated on a studio with electronic equipment. That need not be about race. I think you will find a bunch of the quoted artist with an abiding respect for the blues, among other things. Hip hop is just a different animal, and there are some who will never consider it music.

So why pick on Kanye specifically? Because he crosses over. Because his behaviour is at industry wide awards shows and other events, and thus is seen and perceived by a much wider audience. Hip hop has no shortage of bad boys, but for many of them, if you aren't following that genre, you don't hear about their antics.

[worry]

The weird thing though is seeing Kanye as a "bad boy" at all. He is like the apex backpacker (not used as an epithet, by me at least) in all of hip hop. He did something dumb when he was drunk at an awards show. That might be "high school" behavior, but that'd be the NERD in high school, archtypically. He's the know-it-all on the debate club, not the greaser with the leather jacket and switchblade. Like the actual worst behavior he's shown is aggressively grabbing a camera from an obnoxious paparazzo. If he were anybody else doing that, change.org would circulate a petition to get his face on a postage stamp. Even Puffy, king of all pop-rap (at least before like Will I Am lowered the bar to Hell depths), has done far worse.

[Terez]

Sorry for leaving the thread for a while (seeing as how it's partly my fault the thread exists) but I was crazy busy with work and didn't want to spend time on anything else. And everyone was talking about Kanye anyway; I don't know much about him and from what I have seen I'm not sure why I should want to. There was a video going around my Facebook the other day with him singing Bohemian Rhapsody and I made the mistake of watching like 20 whole seconds of that shit.

Studlock, on 16 July 2015 - 02:10 PM, said:

Again, I think we just have different view point in what a song should and shouldn't do--for me music, as itself, doesn't have any kind of inherent meaning, lyrically sure (which I agree Kanye's not the greatest), but just sound? No.

It is that way for a lot of people. This generally correlates to musical ear, I think. I'd love to see some good studies done on this; maybe if I get rich some day. Anyway, there are various degrees of musical ear which can be judged by whether you can sing in tune, even just one note; whether you can sing a tune from memory, even a short one; on and on up to various more complicated tests you can do with people who can read and write music, mostly sight-singing and dictation, the latter of which does not even require any kind of proficiency with a musical instrument; lots of people who can't play their instruments worth a shit are very good at this. As to the singing, this has nothing to do with how pretty your voice is. Lots of people with beautiful voices sing karaoke off-key.

Studlock, on 16 July 2015 - 02:10 PM, said:

So what is an interesting sound? Some thing that deviates furthest from the norm? Like Death Grips?

It depends on who you're asking, what makes an interesting sound. But we are talking about my opinion, not objective reality, though it's possible that most people who could pass the aforementioned tests would have similar inclinations. This anecdotally seems to be the case.

That particular video was definitely genre-crossing, but it's not what I look for in music, to be sure. That is all about the notes, and there are not many notes there.

Studlock, on 16 July 2015 - 02:10 PM, said:

Or something that is more complex? Or layered like you say? Where is the value in that, musically? Other than the circular argument that's its interesting because its interesting? Something like this Flatbush Zombies (who I adore) track?

Layered is good but there's more to it than that. This video had a couple of layers, and interesting rhythm, but musically the layers were repetitive and mostly lacking in variation.

Music is a language. Some people speak it (singing, performing) and some of those people do so without any real training. Others can understand it even if they don't speak it. To an extent, it can be learned. I don't mean to imply anything mystical here; it really is just a language, and the current written form developed around the turn of the first millenium.

Rhythm is a part of music but the iterations are more limited. You might think of music as a system of different types of measurements, the most basic being beat (duple, triple, etc.) and tempo (speed). Specific rhythm goes on top of that. Notes are themselves rhythmic, sort of, on the micro level; a pitch is defined by its soundwave frequency. It's just a much more nuanced rhythm, and even people who have a sensitivity to that nuance don't perceive it in a fully conscious manner, much like a great baseball pitcher doesn't really have to understand the physics of what he's doing. We perceive the exact (enough) science through a lens of relativity.

The most basic unit of measurement in tonal music is the octave, which is esentially the foundation upon which Western music was built. When you double the frequency of a pitch, it sounds the same tone an "octave" higher, which is the next closest iteration of that tone. The ancients discovered its scientific nature by way of stringed instruments. On a guitar, the fret that marks the distance of an octave from the open string is exactly half the distance from neck brace to body brace. (Orchestral string instrument performers have to judge that distance by sight; they don't have frets, and neither did ancient instruments.) It sounds like the same note being played on different planes, one distinctly higher than the other. Later we discovered that the vocal cords function in the same way.

The story about Pythagoras and the hammers^* is both apocryphal and scientifically impossible, but it was around that time when we get our first indications of the 4th and the 5th being deliberately used. Just as the octave is derived from the 2:1 ratio on the guitar string, the 4th is derived by 4:3 and the 5th by 3:2. Nice, clean ratios. These "perfect" intervals were exclusively preferred when polyphony was first adopted in church music around the 12th century, and music revolved those intervals.

A full piano keyboard has a little bit more than 7 octaves plus a minor third. That is enough space to play out the entire circle of 5ths. If you start at the bottom, and go up a 5th, and another 5th, and another 5th, so on and so on, it's a different note every time until you eventually arrive at the pitch exactly 7 octaves higher than the pitch where you started. This is how the 12 tones of Western music were derived.^† They happen to be, in chromatic succession, a fair representation of how closely the average human ear can distinguish pitches,^‡ but they are not derived chromatically—they are derived from the circle of 5ths. Those widely-scattered tones, regrouped inside the same octave, make a chromatic scale.

In terms of the octave, a 4th is the remaining distance to the next octave from the 5th, what we call an inverted interval. In terms of those 12 pitches, the 4th and the 5th straddle the halfway point of the octave, which is called a tritone. (In musico-grammatical terms, a diminished 4th or an augmented 5th.) It's a very dissonant interval, meaning the wavelengths of the interval's endpoints clash with each other. Some people appreciate dissonance for its own sake, but it has traditionally been used as a tension-building device in Western music. It is a distinction that can be heard, even felt, and certainly measured. The "perfect" intervals, in addition to being mathematically pleasing, also happen to be the most consonant intervals (soundwaves and overtone series complement each other).

The non-perfect intervals are a mix of consonance and varying degrees of dissonance. As the 4th and the 5th are inversions of each other (in terms of dividing the octave into parts), so are the other intervals: major 7th + minor 2nd, minor 7th + major 2nd; major 6th + minor 3rd, minor 6th + major 3rd. The inversion of the octave is unison (e.g. two voices singing exactly the same note, in the same octave).

As for how we get those terms (5th, 8ve, etc.):

The Ancient Greeks further simplified the 12 pitches derived from the circle of 5ths into a series of 7 pitches which are even more easy to distinguish from one another than what we now call "half-steps". The 7 pitches always followed a distinct pattern but the starting point of the pattern could be changed. These were called "modes". The modern "keys" are derived from two of those modes in particular: the Ionian and the Aeolian (major and minor respectively), though the Aeolian mode turned out to have a great deal more room for functional variation than the Ionian. Either way, the pattern is irregular: that's why black keys on a piano come in sets of 3 and then 2, and there are two places within any octave where there are two white keys next to one another. The irregularity is what produces a number of distinct modes.

We did not really begin to see the modes in terms of keys until the Renaissance, when the Church lost its monopoly on written music and those evil non-perfect intervals started making their way into the corpus. But even the first secular music that was written down was based more on the concept of perfect intervals than it was on modes. The treatment of the 3rd and the 6th as consonances came to mainland Europe from the British Isles in the late medieval / early Renaissance; the 3rd can be derived from the overtone series so it did not take long for it to be considered a consonance (against the wishes of the Church, who judged consonance merely on the mathematical ration of the interval).

The 2nd and 7th are still considered dissonant, in a technical sense; they are always supposed to be "resolved", whereas music today almost always ends (resolves, finally) on a triad which is spelled 1-3-5-8(1). The interval between 1 and 3 in a major triad is a major third (opposite for a minor triad). The interval between 1 and 5 is a perfect 5th (major or minor mode). The interval between 1 and 8 is an octave; it's just a doubling, so the chord is still a triad. The interval between 3 and 8 in a major key is a minor 6th (opposite for a minor key).

So, consonance and dissonance are the contrasts that make music interesting. That's not all, though. Another important element is form. What kind of structure does the music have? The structure is defined by how the dissonances are introduced and resolved, which is a specific way of introducing and then resolving tension.

The basic unit of measurement in musical form is the phrase. Typically it's 8 bars; the Wikipedia page takes care to provide atypical examples. You have 4 bars that state a musical idea, and then 4 bars that respond to or elaborate upon the first 4. Typically a phrase starts on the home chord, goes to a subdominant (usually ii or IV), then the dominant (V), then back home (I). That's not a hard and fast rule, but it's the basic shape of an introductory musical phrase: start at home, wander away (without getting lost), return home.

Take, for example, the contrast between Joey Boringass and the World's Most Depressing Bar Singer. Joey does not even manage to construct a complete phrase; he repeats the same half-phrase over and over and over and over and over and...you get it. Lera writes simple music, but she at least writes in complete phrases.

The lyrics to My Least Favorite Life are terrible, but the music is interesting to me. "This is my least favorite life/ the one where you fly and I don't" is the first half of the phrase. The next bit is an answer/elaboration to complete the phrase and resolve the tension. The next musical idea, what you might call the chorus, contrasts with the original phrase (which itself is repeated like a verse). It's a simple form but it's complex enough that it actually says something. The harmony and the melody go somewhere, and then return. There is tension and release. Also, the voicing melds really well on her 12-string; again, the minor mode (which she uses) is more colorful than the major mode.

One very unorthodox aspect of Lera's MLFL is that she begins her verse on a dissonant chord that needs to be resolved. (It resolves on "life".) It's more typical to start a song on the home chord (which is what Joey does). Her verse then raises the tension bar again, but instead of resolving by the end of the phrase she merely comes down in pitch (an aspect of resolution) and resolves the dissonance in the same place, partway into the next phrase. IMO the trailer song is even better, but the verses begin on the home chord / consonance like most songs and the opening phrase fits the basic form outlined above. The guitar intro to MLFL is also pretty standard.

Now, the matter of repetition. Repetition is not inherently boring. It's all about variation, or lack thereof. There was almost zero variation in Joey's background music, not that there was much to build on with that boring half-phrase. Lera gets away with repeating her phrase because it's a good phrase. And then she complicates her form further with the chorus. It's a typical strophic form which can be found in many classical songs which was all originally designed to accommodate poetry and dancing with prescribed movements, but it's still a great deal more complex than Joey.

One of my least favorite of Chopin's most popular pieces is his Berceuse (in major mode). That is the French word for lullaby (for those who don't know) and it was probably written when he and George Sand were babysitting for Pauline García-Viardot while she was on tour. It was literally meant to put the baby to sleep. The bassline is one measure of I-V repeated over and over again. Still, with the variation in the right hand it kicks Joey's ass. Eventually, toward the end of the piece (when presumably only the adults are still awake) the bassline finally changes and does something interesting, but it's still meant to be lulling, and I don't listen to music to be put to sleep.



Theme-and-variations forms have been popular since the Renaissance era, and those kinds of forms revolve around repetition. Chopin's Berceuse is one of the most bare-bones examples I know.

Somewhat more complicated is Dido's lament from Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas. (It starts out with recitative; the aria kicks in at 1:13. For the record it's unusually good recitative.) The bassline which is repeated over and over again is 5 bars long. In the beginning, the chords over that bassline are always the same while the vocal line supplies the interesting variation, but as it goes on the harmony also has significant variations that work over the same bassline.



"Remember me, but ah! forget my fate." A good line on its own merit, but the right musical setting can bring tears to the eye.

I will post again later with some more examples of interesting repetition, and also some modern songs I like and explanations of why I like them.


^* I wrote the middle part of that page a long time ago.
^† Fun catch: the ending point did not quite match up to the 7th octave. Throughout the Renaissance and Baroque/Enlightenment periods we tweaked it in various ways to make it match up until we finally settled on equal temperament. In meantone temperament the problem led to a terrible-sounding interval called the wolf for the unique way the soundwaves clash. Keyboard instruments back then were designed to play only in certain keys where this interval would not be heard. (Other instruments were not so rigid and the difference was fudged in other ways.) When in those keys, the sound was almost indistinguishable (for most people) from equal temperament. Music written then sounds essentially the same on modern instruments.
^‡ Eastern Indian music is a fun exception, though it doesn't really require you to distinguish microtones exactly. But even far Eastern traditional music is pentatonic, which has 5 tones all of which are accounted for in the Western language. Those 5 tones fit the pattern of the black keys on a piano.