The more music I listen to, the more I ask myself this rhetorical question of what makes a song good?
Is it the cool chord progressions that make the harmony inquisitive and never allow the song to return to the root in order to give the listener a sense of unease?
Or is it the slapping drum beat? See Led Zeppelin IV for a song that has a rhythm that is immediately recognizable…
and finally, is it a simple, catchy melody that will bounce around a listener’s head all week? Having them hum it to themselves while they brush their teeth?
Music is too subjective to ever have a definitive answer as to what makes a good song good in my opinion.
Classical composers like John Cage have toyed with this idea in the past, creating pieces like 4’33’’, which is a piece of music that requires silence for the whole time, with the actual audible noises being the crowd.
It’s hard sometimes to define what we even like. Most casual music listeners have music forced upon them and that has mostly been the case with the record label model, the executives gatekept the industry for so long but for the past 10-15 years, consumer music software has become so powerful and thanks to Moore’s Law, so has our computing power.
I wanted to share a couple of different records I’ve been listening to recently and some thoughts.
Gung Ho by Kolumbo is a very impressive record. I'd never heard of Kolumbo until the L'Clair show at the Sultan Room in June where Kolumbo was opening and he came prepared with a full vintage synth setup, sporting a Fender Rhodes and Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 Rev 3 and a full Vintage Mellotron. This record just oozes Jobim vibes and spacey Bossa Nova vibes. Kolumbo is an amazing live band as well, breezing thru the complicated synth lines with ease. This record has it all nailed down, amazing rhythms, amazing harmonies and amazing melodies. Can't wait to hear more and catch another live set. Some favorites off this one are Lost Paraiso and the Key Club, 1976.
Listen here:
Confusions by L'Eclair is a great record as well. It's funny to me how they called this record Confusions considering that's how I feel whenever I try to describe L'Eclair. A good term I've heard before is Post-Rock, because while L'Eclair uses distorted guitars and keyboards ala 70's rock and funk, the ambience and texture of their music goes much deeper than any one genre. Their music sounds like so many things at once yet still fresh on its own. L'Eclair is a amazing live band and have some amazing musicianship. I love instrumental music but it has to be really good instrumental music for one to captivate a crowd. It's hard enough with a full band and a singer so once you remove the singer, the music and sounds need to be solid and L'Eclair delivers heavily on that.
Listen here:
Pachyman came across my TikTok feed many times over the past couple of weeks with his studio videos. At first, I only poked around his page to see his studio setup, he has a nice Tascam mixer in most of his videos, but once I began to hear his music, I was very interested. As a musician and producer, every note you play means something and lately i've embraced the principles of dub, less is more. Texture and space is something I've always loved playing with in my own music and I'm always looking for new recipes to try. Going to make some OG style dub records now I guess.. highly recommend this record and his earlier records. Can't wait to catch a live Pachyman set in the future.
Listen here:
This record is a breath of fresh air to me personally. My family is Colombian and my childhood was spent listening to music like this from all the older legends. I couldn't really name you a song or an artist to be perfectly honest with you but I know so many songs simply by their harmonies and rhythms. I found Quantic on Instagram a couple years ago totally unrelated to his music. He has a cool old Mercedes he had some pics of in Jackson Heights, which is where I grew up so I got curious. It turned out Quantic is actually as OG as it gets, living in Cali, Colombia for a couple of years and making records with all the OGs of Colombia. Hard to not respect someone who travels halfway around the world to learn about a different culture and language and then helps further develop that culture. Quantic's talent really shines on this record through the latin textures and rhythms that ooze out everywhere. Furthermore, the authenticity of this record is further bolden by the singers on the record. If you played me "El Chiclan" and told me it was from the 70's, I would 100% believe you. Truly fooled me at first. Amazing record that now has me diving into Quantic's discography which is massive.
Listen here:
was shown a song off this record a couple of weeks back and thought this record was ground-breaking. it's produced by giorgio moroder... what else do you need to know? Sparks is a band I haven't really heard of until recently but they were a very influential band that tried to experiment a lot and No. 1 In Heaven is a result of one of those experiments. I love me a good synth-pop song and these songs don't disappoint by holding a traditional structure while still using very new sounds. Great hooks all over and full of arps and synth sequences, which I love.
Listen here:
As always, you can listen to my own music here
and follow me on social media here
looking to get more consistent with my posts and content, it’s just overwhelming sometimes.
All the best and much love to all! Let’s heal this world with music
- Michael
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