Collections of noises

Heard something strange today. "Lyrically dense, formally experimental music is more interesting."

Worth a thought. What is music for? What is its purpose? If music can only be considered interesting if the lyrics in it are considered worth analysis and mining for deeper meanings, then why bother with the music at all? Why not stick to poetry or some such medium without the distraction of the melody to contend with? Bob Dylan would probably have worked as a pure poet, if not for the need to make the money a poet cannot and the desire to be a musician, cool as that occupation is in our society. After all, the music seems to take a back seat to his lyrics. In fact, the melodies and instrumentation seem to be a bit convoluted as they are warped to fit around the lyrics. The message becomes a bit distorted. People can listen to a Bob Dylan song without ever bothering to ponder meanings of lyrics, because there may not be a need to, if the music overall appeals to their aesthetic sensibilities.

I have nothing against interesting, meaningful lyrics, notwithstanding my previous rants about meaning overall. Within the context of the common and popular understanding, meaning can exist for most people in the lyrics of songs. In fact, when lyrics do not mean anything, it usually becomes quite difficult to produce a decent music video to go with the single these days. Do please note the sarcasm here. But I'm not ranting about commercialism today, mostly because I do not really have too much against commercialism. Topic for another day. Anyway, the point is that music can bbe interesting and certainly pleasant without the burden of having to mean anything beyond an aesthetically pleasing collection of noises. That is why I have nothing against musicians such as boybands. I figure that so long as they produce music that sounds good to my ear, I shall not judge them for what they do not even attempt to do.

Which accounts for my partiality toward fluffy Chinese ballads about angsty love.