Music or Lyrics?
I’ve come to understand that most of us have specific choices with respect to what is more important when listening to music: the lyrics or the music. Our choices play an important role in an indie artist’s life, because they are always eager to know what the audience would like to hear. Although it is clear that both lyrics and music together make a song good, a lot of us are more interested in either one of these. I personally am a lyrics person. No matter how good the music is, unless it has good lyrics, it doesn’t interest me. I do acknowledge music plays an important role in setting the mood, like you really need a peppy number to have your feet tapping on the dance floor.
As mentioned in my blog “Make What You Like”, a lot of time artists keep procrastinating their work, for the right time. It only keeps fans from listening to your music and keeps success away from you that much longer. Remember, time is never right. You have to make it happen now. There have been bands that shot videos on the streets and the world loved it. It is the idea and creativity that sells. In the same way, I would also advise my indie friends not to hold back on good music if it doesn’t have great lyrics or vice versa. Give your best, you have no idea how many uncountable types of listeners exist in the world and are waiting to hear you.
Every song conveys a message – with or without lyrics – whether you care about the message’s significance or not is a different matter. My blog “Making Music With Less Money” talks about how, if the song sucks, it obviously doesn’t matter how incredible the video is. However, if the song is great, you wouldn’t require a costly looking video – simply something that does justice to it. The video must improve the song – not spoil it. It should tell the complete story. That story, however, shouldn’t be “a crappy local band that makes music videos because they read on a blog that it’s the in-thing.” You know what I mean!
What I am trying to say here is, just like the video and song should complement each other, so should the lyrics and music. Listening to a song carefully and concentrating on its lyrics unleashes emotional energy. An indie artist has the power to bring out a specific kind of mood in its listeners. In moments of grief, the music we want to listen to is more slow with meaningful lyrics. At the same time, some individuals want to listen to peppy numbers when they are feeling low, in order to feel charged up. Of course, there is no way for an indie artist to know how their music will affect the listener. What you can be sure of is that you have to make the best you can, everywhere you can, anytime you can.
I believe, it’s the difference in individual energies that makes people vibe with the beats or pay attention to lyrics. Our choice of genre also indicates the kind of vitality we exemplify. Similarly, an indie artist’s work also speaks volumes about his personality. Like I mentioned in my blog “Impact of Indie Music”, Indie musicians are bearers of impact, regardless of whether they know about it and regardless of whether they mean to be. The message they convey through their work of art directly affects their audience in many ways. This is particularly valid for the young and teenagers, who are still responsive to their general surroundings.
Some indie artists are masters of music because the vital energy within them inspires them to create great music. Others may value song lyrics because for them, making sense is the important element of a song. Music is a beautiful form of art and needs to be accepted with an open mind. Having said that, we as listeners should refrain from criticizing the form of music that we don’t prefer, because one, there are millions who find our choice of music equally disinteresting, and two, there is an indie artist who has put his life and soul to bring this music to us. No matter what our choice of music, we should never forget to be good humans.
Have a story to tell? Please share it in the comments section and I will add it in my next post.
