I don't suppose this is a new thought, but what instantly popped into my head when I read this post was: Prince. And unpredictability.

His music, circa LoveSexy, always had me thinking "Well, wow. What made him think to put a trombone/glass crash/scream right at that moment of the song. And yet in hindsight it fits so perfectly."

So for me at least some of the music I deem "good" is cleverly unpredictable.

cleverly unpredictable - I like that.
mz

That is such an interesting question. What first came to mind was not Prince, who clearly is an extremely talented musician, but British punk. Why is it that you can listen to early Sex Pistols or The Clash, etc., people who could barely play three chords, and recognize great talent, yet you hear someone mangling "Smoke on the Water", and you know it's just plain bad? What is it in the music's genome that makes "bad" recognizable? And yes, I know I just repeated mz's question, but that is the crux of the matter, isn't it!

exactly - how can the same three chords played at the same tempo in the same key be fresh and original in one recording or performance, and be derivative and flat in another... well put, graham!

as far as what there is in the music genome to recognize that - we are aiming for a collection that has all great music in it, so hopefully something like that wouldn't be required... :-)

mz

Michael - you know I was talking about the Music's genome, not the Music Genome, don't ya? ;)

But I'm serious. Is there something that you can recognize? Is it the order in which three chords are presented? Is it a different tone to the voice? A different tempo? Does it have to be different? If so, in what way? What is it that sounds "authentic"?

What about singers? Why is it that some singers' voices sound "fragile" or "vulnerable", yet others just can't sing?

I think there are seven levels of listening:
1. Checking if the music is "good" compared with other "good" music you've already heard.
2. Checking if it relates to a carefree, aware time in your life
3. Checking if it's "relevant" to your generation and it's values
4. Checking if it's "art" or "commercial", in the judgement of critics
5. Checking if it is part of a "hip" genre or not
6. Checking for what you perceive as technical flaws in performance or sound quality
7. Ignoring all six of these conditioned responses, and immersing yourself in the actual frequency vibrations.

If you can de-condition yourself enough to get to level 7, you may find that "Brandenburg Concerto #3" by Bach is great, and so is "Goodbye to Love", by the Carpenters. Likewise "Smokestack Lighting" by Howlin' Wolf, and the "Pope Marcellus Mass" by Palestrina, etc.

Ok I know that this is not the right venue to contact you guys about my "great idea" for pandora but here we go. So I just read the interview Tom Conrad did over at Palm Infocenter http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9685/interview-with-pandora-about-developing-for-webos/

And I was thinking how great it would be to see what other stations my "contacts" (in my phone) have made, an/or, are listening to. So say that you open up your contact list and pick a name it would look a little something like this:
First: Josh
Last: Smith
email: abc@gmail.com
Mobile: 999-999-9999
Stations: The Ting Tings
Santagold
MIA MORE (link to their stations)

The list would be there past three stations or their most listened to. So that is my million dollar idea for you guys. Keep up the great work.

music is subjective. but it is not. in my mind the music that is great is truly timeless music.
great music is the perfect mix of the technical mastery of a sound and the emotional content of that sound along with my emotional state. pete kennedy above made a perfect point about the seventh level. immersion in sound without no mind is one of the most beautiful things i think humans can experience.
i personally think that too much processing and
studio work removes the emotional content of music. emotional content is the essence of music.
btw-this site has made my life much more musical. thanks

I generally identify bad music as that which fails to achieve its goals. Like a formerly popular artist desperately trying to rewrite his or her old hits but failing miserably.

I think that the place of the music in your life can make a big difference, so it's not always about the characteristics of the music itself. I know people of several different generations, and we often find that one age group won't realize a song is a cover from a much different period. It is almost always the version you heard first that will be your favorite, even if it was from a previous generation's style because your parent / sibling / whatever played it all the time. I've also had a number of experiences of changing my mind about whether I liked or hated a song, depending on the place that song had in my relationships with other people.

The qualities of what makes a good song also are very much affected by genre expectations. I listen to a great deal of world music. The harmonic traits that are my favorites in Eastern European music would almost always be considered dissonant and therefore bad in US popular music. A Middle Eastern musician, after having played a traditional piece full of typical quarter tone intervals reported hearing a listener comment that the piece was very nice, but it was such a shame that the fellow couldn't manage to play it in tune. Some bands can get away with bending the rules, but they usually have to have a pretty strong reputation to get away with it.

It bothers me when the singer uses a word incorrectly (Jason Mraz, I'm Yours: misuse of "godforsaken"). Even if the song is otherwise enjoyable, the knowledge that nobody involved in its production took a moment to say, "You might not be saying what you intended," really irks me.

What I listen for in music is intent. What I mean by that is, is the music contrived? Does it follow a formula? Or is it truly unique. I know that most pop music is not truly unique, most of it is derivative from something else. But what I like to see from bands is when they venture out into new territory. Of course the Beatles were probably the greatest at this. I can tell when a band or an artist is just going through the motions in the studio. The lyrics tend to be trite and forced and the melody and rythym are usually uninspiring. That's what I consider bad music. See "We built this city" and David Bowie/Mick Jagger's cover of "Dancing in the streets" for examples of what I consider "bad music".

Ugh. What am I doing wrong? I don't have any comments on the artists because I can't figure out how to listen to them. Santa brought me a new computer for Christmas, I'm 40+ and not understanding how this works. All I want is to listen to Pandora while I write. Pls. help.

To me, any music, regardless of genre, is good as long as it strikes a responsive emotional chord. Songs I love invoke everything from happiness to tearful sadness within me, and I believe this is true for others, too. On the flip side, bad music doesn't strike that inner "chord" and is why we will judge a song within scant seconds of hearing it, it's instinct. It's either "good" or "bad" according to what, good or bad, it stirs inside of us.

hey lori - looks like you have a web connection since you can post to this blog - now all you have to do is put a song name or an artist name into pandora, and make sure you have speakers or headphones so you can listen. if you continue to have problems, email the folks at pandora-support[AT]pandora[DOT]com and they can help you out -

very interested in the other comments so far - I will reply soon but just wanted to let everyone know that I'm reading em! mz

There's a very interesting book discussing this very question written by a neuroscientist who previously worked in the music industry. I believe the book is called "This Is Your Brain On Music".

I understand that the campaign against internet radio has made it difficult for you to make money. This has been evidenced by your increasing willingness to force users to activate the pandora tab in order for the music to continue playing. I'm not sure how much longer I can put up with this - I find it extremely annoying that I can't just continue surfing peacefully in another tab while listening to Pandora. I don't like being forced into paying for your service.

That said, I hope you aren't forced to go out of business. But there are two paths to going out of business: 1) No business model 2) Annoy your users away.

Joshua: I see Mraz's use of "godforsaken" as wordplay, something that he does fairly often: take a phrase that is immediately recognizable ("God-given right") and twist it a little (into "God-forsaken right")...

That said, I agree with your original point: that lyrics that aren't well thought out or mangle grammar in order to make a rhyme (see: using "I" instead of "me" in about 89237498758923 pop songs) put a song from good to bad in a heartbeat. I also agree with Jerry Murphy, in that songs that lack a certain soul (I don't mean the genre) or spark of interest fall flat to me, too.

I look for originality and creativeness in music. I understand that we don't create in a vacuum. Everything we create has come from somewhere else in some way. To create something good you need to include something original from within yourself. I think this is where the "soul" in music comes from. Music without this is pointless, easy to detect and boring.

For me, music has to evoke or show an emotion through the use of voice, instrumentation, or recording.
I listen to many different genres of music, but those songs, those songs that can inflect the emotion that the artist is trying to project, are the songs that really have a powerful and lasting quality. It really comes down to an emotional trust connection (e.g. happiness, sadness,anger, joy)between the listener and the artist. If that "ET" connection comes of false or not real then a trust is never established between the artist and listener. These songs become the okay type songs; the songs with out personal meaning ( for the listener). That's what happens to music that is over produced or CC'ed by another artist, it just comes off as false and without a true "ET" quality.

Leigh-Anne made a comment on a book written about this question. Another book, "blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, describes the struggles of Kenna. Kenna gave his demo to professionals in the music business who thought that is was gold but the general public did not. This goes to show that whether a song is good or bad depends mainly on the ear that hears it.

Hi -- Your question is a deep one. Most people are likely to stop at genre, but I get it. You're asking what makes bland music soul-less, like elevator music or like the canned, repetitive, non-nutritive music that plays in endless loops on radio stations that nobody actually mans -- the pseudo food of sound, some people might even say poison. I won't argue *that* point, but I get it.

I think for me, "competent music" as you say has to have a human sense behind it. The nauseating songs on canned radio are maybe C-level songs, which isn't that bad, but putting the loop on auto, removing the human being, and forcing the radio-listening public to hear those songs 7 times a day, every day, is a crime, especially when there are so many other good choices out there.

I believe it simply makes us hate the song more than it perhaps deserves, and contributes to a general anti-social environment, where people become increasingly inured, depressed, and numbed to the soundscape around them and the voices of others.

Anyway, A-level song for me has a major human presence, something very, very human about it. Supporting that is exceptional musical skill (both ear and technical production), and is an excellent sound recording. All three elements need to be present, none overtaking the other.

B-level is when the marks go down in *any* of these areas.

And so on.

By skillful 'ear' I mean able to discern interesting elements in the music. Something engaging.

By 'excellent sound recording' I don't mean washing the humanity away. Authentic is better than sterilized.

Competent music is not soul numbing. It's not empty or vacant.

It's music that actually connects, with mind, heart, body and/or spirit. Not music that has an anti-social impact.

Some of this also, I'm sure, has to do with timing and rhythym, which I know little about. But I believe human beings digest at a certain frequency, in some kind of system harmony with the heartbeat. And the music we are often fed is often too high a frequency, hence not fully digested. There need to be pauses in music, time for the head and heart to catch up -- because music is, after all, when the head and the heart do just that, catch up.

Thanks!

One thing I've found is I consistently prefer a studio version of a song over a live version of the same song (by the same singer/band).

I feel like there is definitely some "bad" music, but I can't think how you would define it or even find it, because I think for practically any song out there, there is going to be *somebody* who responds to it. For me, bad music is music I can't *hear* because there's too much sound within a given period of time; heavy metal comes to mind. But I have friends who like that kind of music, and can't stand the folk songs I listen to.

I have a really wide taste when it comes to music... I listen to a little of everything, from 80's pop hits, to Vivaldi, to classic rock, to old folk songs, to modern alternative rock, and others. I don't go based on genre, but which melodies I respond to. I also almost never pay attention to lyrics, at least for the ~50 times I listen to a song. Vocals are just part of the sound for me, and I don't want to let bad lyrics or lyrics I don't understand get in the way of an otherwise pleasant listening experience... and I usually can't pick out lyrics much at first, anyway--I just hear them as syllables.

This "response" is what's hard to pin down. I think the 'answer' as best you can get is that everyone is different... their experiences, their connections, the ways their nervous systems and brains process stimuli... we're all wired slightly differently, and that leads to differences in taste. But really, is there *any* (universally) bad music? If even a few people enjoy it, can it be considered bad?

I have always been eclectic in my music preferences.
I can listen to just about anything, with the exception of "hate" music. At different times, in different moods, I like different musical types, but they all have to "touch" me. There have been artists that I have been opposed to(at first blush) but knowing that I would be exposed to them on a constant basis, I gave them a second chance, and really listened and started to really like them.
There is a certain band, however, that I just absolutely cannot get into, The Mars Volta. My son listens to it almost constantly. They (to me)are discordant, frenetic, and just auditorily jarring.

This really is an interesting question.

Most of the time, the music I listen to evokes memories. I am lost in the memory of the song that plays, and often not the music itself. I have plenty of techno that I identify with because I was at a robotics competition while it was playing. I listen to more rap than I used to because my girlfriend listens to it on the radio a lot, and many of the ensuing good memories I have associated rap with.

But there is some element of the sound, too. I lose myself in Kansas because many of the songs are complex technically. I try to pick out the different parts, or I just completely let go and immerse myself in the layers of sound.

And there's stuff I can not listen to, too. Metal is something that, after a few minutes of, I become comatose.

It is an interesting question, one which I somewhat doubt anyone here will be able to come to an answer on.

hi love what you have 2 say

Well, i am tone deaf and play no instruments competently but when music is bad to me it is because it sounds false-insincere-not true. This is nebulous but it is as exact as i can get.
good question.

What a fun discussion! I think at some level we're trying to arrive at an evaluation function for musical skill. Think about it - the same four chords, at the same tempo, with two different kinds of inconsistencies: If we feel that the inconsistency was a slip-up, then our skill assessment is lowered. If we feel that the inconsistency was a clever embellishment, we will be quite impressed.

So how do we determine what the character of an inconsistency is? Our brains sum pretty easily, but they don't subtract, multiply, or divide naturally. We're pattern matchers in a big way. That's why music makes such intuitive sense to us. We're following patterns in frequency, tonality, and rhythm, and we have established societal [and perhaps some built-in] notions of how those inconsistencies should flow as well. Think of it as a larger pattern modulating the smaller one.

Other arguments on this thread have focused on originality, which is a second question - was the songwriter (often a different person) skilled? Perhaps that has more to do with mood and how the music fits into our lives. My assesment has similarly changed through my life, so I suppose that egg is less easy to crack. Keep the discussions rolling :)

I don't see any other place to post this comment so I am posting it here.

like Pandora, it helps me do research for a radio program that I do for WORT in Madison, WI. The only question I have is, where is the input regarding African American artists? R & B or Soul? The only thing I get are mainstream artists or constant selections of the artists that I put in to build the profile of the station. A bit disappointing. Maybe hire some researchers for those genres. Especially since the majority of influence of all music is based on the stylings of people of color.

Sigh. I am moving to Australia and madly hope Pandora launches before I move ( 2010) I am seriously considering staying in the states if they don't!

Founder of pandora is a genius. good job