Good, Bad and All In-between

As an adept to music, it's hard to find where to draw the line with the debate about what's good music and what's bad music. Good and bad are adjectives that determine some sort of qualitative measure. So, it is entirely dependent on taste and the knowledge you have about the particular thing.

Music is as language. Your ability to understand it may tip the scales towards a side according to many factors. It depends on where you were born, what do you listened to while your grew up, your education on the subject, if you play and instrument and a plethora of other things.

The thing is that good music is timeless, but the measurement of good depends on the epoch. By the time music got under the wing of the Catholic Church. There was only one kind of good music. It is was all that music that was made with religious intent. Adoration music. That's what was considered good. Secular music was for the uneducated masses. But it could also be considered good on the sense that it kept the traditions of many places.

One thing we could throw to the bin of bad music are these modern binary rhythms of reggaeton and trap. Yes, they are cool for parties and the kind of ambient of sweaty dance, but in regards to the structure of music and lyrics, well, they are lackluster. Even erotic genres of music like the variants of Salsa have a lot more complexity in the lyrics and the arrangements can be considered superior music since there's actually music involved in the matter. The leud language is a thing that seems to rise up to the occasion in many kinds of lyrics regardless of the genre.

You can compare any modern song to a classical piece and get a lot more input from the latter. At some point in history, people lost the way of making great music like that. But this is a phenomenon that happens in every genre. There's a golden age that creates the bases of what the genre is and then comes the experimentation. Sometimes it works; others, not so much.

For me, good music requires the work of an idea and the best execution of said theme in the music. Maybe that's why I love so much instrumental music. When you have words, it is easier to convey a message or elude to certain emotions. Without them, you're off to piece out the same emotions and ideas with only sounds. That's why classical music stands the test of time. It was created to communicate in the best way possible ideas that people might think can only be done with words. But when a song nails it at both ends with music and words, it is a miracle!

In the end, good or bad will only be determined by the ears of the listener. But if you have poor taste, please, put some headphones on!

Before I forget, some examples of good music:

And now for the bad. It took me some time to find an example for this:

• Photos 📷: taken by me (Redmi Note 13)

• Editing 🎬: by me, made with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

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