So what catches your attention when you're listening to music?

[jennythereader]

For me it's the singing. I tend to like pretty female voices (think Sarah Brightman) and "interesting" male voices (think Bob Dylan), although there are certainly interesting female/pretty male voices that I like too. Also, a powerful, passionate voice is intrinsically interesting, regardless of its other qualities.

The words being sung are also very important to me. If the songwriter has something important to say, or even just a clever way of phrasing things, I'm likely to get hooked. Good lyrics can make up for a mediocre singer, while a good singer can compensate for mediocre lyrics.


Instrumentally... it's harder to pick out what grabs me. I love intricate, complex drumming; piano & guitar playing that makes you wonder if the player has extra fingers; and energetic horn sections that play off each other as if the players were sharing a brain. But purely instrumental music, while it can catch my attention, doesn't seem to hold it. I tune it out if I don't hear a voice within a few minutes.

Comments

[jennythe-reader.livejournal.com]

I'm not any sort of musician, which I think is why I can listen to music as a totality. Some elements stand out, so they become what I base my liking on.

It sounds like you listen to music the way I read. I can almost always find something to admire, even if I don't really care for the book as a whole.

Intelligent lyrics grab me, but so do ones where it's just the songwriter playing clever tricks with language. Unexpected rhymes, unusual similes and metaphors, things like that.

[nounsandverbs]

That is how I listen to music, whereas I seem to read the way you listen.

Elvis Costello is the example I keep coming back to of someone who has both intelligent lyrics and an amazing way of playing tricks with the language. (Sometimes he sacrifices one for the other.)