Difference of musical opinion

As some of you may know, music has been a big part of me for my entire life, starting with the dabbling on the piano back in first grade.  Shortly after, I learned drums, clarinet, and sax.  Then in sixth grade my parents got me a MIDI program for our old Pentium 3 called MIDI Orchestrator Plus.  This thing captivated me for hours every day because up until then I never really had a way of writing music that could be played by more than one instrument at a time.  It was very primitive, but it allowed me to explore the realms of composition writing.  My influences were largely oldies/classic rock, and symphonic pieces we'd be learning in band class.  This program enabled me to create things that sounded like they could be played by an orchestra, but never anything that could really be considered "cool".  Sure the songs were pretty advanced, especially for a 13 year old, but ultimately I wanted more.  This background is where began my defining of  "what I look for in a song".
In 7th grade, my brother-in-law taught me some of the fundamentals of guitar (my first song being Glycerine by Bush...which was exactly the same chord progression moved up half a step as my favorite song of the time, When I Come Around by Green Day).  Then one day my sister came home with a 4-track tape recorder that I put to use immediately.  This was when the real fun started and I began discovering the joys of songwriting.  The songs I wrote at this time were pretty nonsensical- about knights and kings in Camelot, young love, being outcast by peers, etc.  But to me the lyrics weren't the focus of the song; it was the melody and catchiness I was looking for.  So if the vocal sounds produced by saying "ain't gonna let you down" sounded better than saying something less cliche and grammatically correct, I would sacrifice my English boner for the greater good of the song.  It was sometimes hard for me, being that I've always loved English and even went to a writer's camp for four years, but this was Rock 'n Roll, baby- clichés are practically a mandate for the genre ("livin on the edge of a knife", "walkin' the line", "heart torn in two").

The formula was pretty straight forward to me- come up with a catchy riff, make a melody that's easy to sing along to and gets stuck in your head, guitar solo, relatively simple drum beat that keeps the song moving along.  I thought I had it all set in stone and was ready to pack my bags and fly to L.A.  Then I started letting my friends listen to it.  Now here is a lesson for all of you who are friends with musicians, significant other of musicians, or family member of musicians- honesty is the answer we're ultimately looking for.  If you like the song, say what specific parts you like of it.  If you don't like it, say why you don't. 

Most of my friends were just mainly impressed with the fact that I played all the instruments on the tracks and sang (as I still to today) so they thought it was great.  However, being "great" means you've reached the pinnacle of your career- how could I be 13 and have come to that apex?  Luckily, there were the types of people who listen for other things in a song, besides the people like me.  At the time I didn't really understand this- I thought everyone just liked a song based soley on if it was catchy and well-arranged.  This was why I could never understand why people liked Hendrix, Floyd, U2, etc- it all just sounded extremely disorganized nonmelodic- a musical dog shit on the sidewalk.  I was waiting for the producer to come along and pick it up and apologize for his dog.  But what my friends began to tell me was that they couldn't understand the lyrics. I interpreted this to mean one of two things: 1. that my equipment was in need of an upgrade to raise the quality of my vocals 2. that I needed to get better at singing.  Then one girl told me my singing sucked, so that definitely set me on the right path (after being devestated at first, of course).  It wasn't until recently however, that I considered the third possibility- that my lyrics didn't make sense.  Once I realized this and looking back at songs and literally not remembering who/what I wrote them about, I knew it was time to make a change.

This is kind of a lengthy leadup, but I wanted to illustrate the perspective of how I judge a song when I hear it.  I kind of go through a rigorous mental checklist:

VOCALS
1. Is the singer screaming/whining, generally pleasant to listen to?  If no, fuck this song.  If yes, proceed to question 2.
2. Is the singer singing a clear, catchy melody, and are 85%+ of the words ennunciated? If no, fuck this song.  If yes, proceed to question 3.
3. Does the melody contain more than three notes and offer phrasing changes?  If no, fuck this song.  If yes, proceed to question 4.
4. Is the song meant to be funny? If so, does it succeed in being uniquely funny?  If no, fuck this song.  If yes, proceed to question 5.
5. (The new addition to the list, as of maybe a year or so ago) Was there clear effort put into the lyrics?  If no, fuck this song.  If yes, proceed to INSTRUMENTS section

INSTRUMENTS
1. Are you in a chill mood, or energetic mood?  If chill, proceed to CHILL INSTRUMENTS.  If energetic, continue in current section.
2. Is the chords progression something that has been overused like a Blink 182 chord progression, or Johnny Cash?  If yes, fuck this song.  If no, proceed to question 3.
3. Do the verse and chorus have the same chord progression?  If yes, fuck this song.  If no, continue to question 4.
4. Is it the Foo Fighters?  If yes, fuck this song.  If no. continue to question 5.
5. (Bonus) Is there a riff in the song? Is it skilled and/or catchy? If yes +1 to 2 points.
6. (Bonus) Is there an instrumental solo of some sort? Is it skilled and/or catchy?  If yes, +1 to 2 points.

CHILL INSTRUMENTS
1. Is the chords progression something that has been overused like a Blink 182 chord progression, or Johnny Cash?  If yes, fuck this song.  If no, proceed to question 2.
2. Do the verse and chorus have the same chord progression?  If yes, fuck this song.  If no, continue to question 3.
3. Does the song sound overly sensitive, a la Plain White T's, anything that could be on a Mac commercial?  If yes, fuck this song.  If no, proceed to question 4.
4. Is it Damien Rice? If yes, fuck this song.  If no, proceed to question 5.
5. (Bonus) Is there a riff in the song? Is it skilled and/or catchy? If yes +1 to 2 points.
6. (Bonus) Is there an instrumental solo of some sort? Is it skilled and/or catchy?  If yes, +1 to 2 points.

There you have it- essentially a way to rate every single song you hear.  Now for me, songs are all contingent upon their prior question.  So for instance, if a song has a good guitar part but a crappy voice, the song was already disqualified as soon as the singer opened his mouth.  This is what many of my friends can't understand, is how there are these screaming metal songs that have "sick guitar" and "killer drums", but the dude sounds like he's been smoking Marlbaros for 36 years and waiting for his surgeon to finish his vocal cord surgery...so I stand idle waiting for the producer to come by with his pooper scooper and apologize for his foolish production.

But after all these years, finally several things have been putting an end to my solipsism.  One of which is my guitar player friend who basically listens just to the guitar.  Of course, he is partial towards metal of various nature, but he began to show me that some people don't put so much emphasis on overall song composition and vocals.  Rather their priority lies first with the mechanical skill of the musician(s).   I was raised with such a heavy influence from oldies and classic rock, which focused primarily on having catchy melodies that everyone could sing along to (listen to some Monkees or Mamas and the Papas, circa late 60s).  Their musical ability was nothing to write about necessarily, usually not even worth mentioning, but their songwriting ability was inspiring.

The opposite end of the spectrum came about a month ago for me when I joined a local songwriter's circle.  The majority of folks seem to write varying styles of acoustic, with a few exceptions.  However, I befriended the leader of the organization and she has a very different approach to how she judges music.  Her emphasis is placed more on the song's subject matter, and often times the congruency between the subject and the "sound" of the song.  At times, it can be artistically acceptable to have incongruency between the song and the lyrics (have a happy sounding song that's really about teen suicide, or like Dynamite Hack's cover of Boys in the Hood), but if overdone it can become too gimmicky.  

So now with her input, I had a whole other type of audience to consider- women.  It may sound overtly judgemental but it really isn't.  It seems that the vast majority of females listen first to the songs contents, and then for the rest of the music.  This became obvious when I was in the car with one of my friends playing Watch Over You by Alter Bridge for her.  The dialog went something like this,
"Oh this song's so pretty."
"Yeah, I love the melody's so catchy and his voice is awesome." I say.
"It's about how he will always wants to be there to look out for her.

Now of course I know all the words to the song, but I never really thought too much about what he was actually saying.  Hell, if someone would have asked me before that what the song was about, I'd have to recite the words in my head and create a brief summary like a late homework assignment.  Then to her, I could tell from my comment after she told me her opinion she went back in her mind to listen to it and decided it did sound pretty catchy. 

The answer society would probably say for this is because women are more in tune with their emotions than guys, and guys are more concerned about face value of things (the whole "visually stimulated" deal).  This is the face society always wants to put on the face of the female- the emotional, sensitive, mom-knows-best type.  But in actuality, I think it's much simpler than that.  I think it just deals with how we were raised and what music we listened to when we were younger.  This explains why kids in the projects will traditionally listen to the same type of music most of their lives, or why Tommy with Alpha Male dad follows in daddy's footsteps with music about drugs and degrading women.

Lastly, there's the "image" of the band which seems much more attune with women than men.  Girls will be attracted to sexy musicians all the time- think of Elvis, the Beatles, Third Eye Blind, Jack Johnson.  As long as they have a consistent image, they will have a fan base of 12 year old-120 year old women adoring them.  When was the last time you saw a guy going out to buy a Beyonce album to listen to on his own and not just for a party?  I rest my case.

I could analyze this all day, as it really ties my two hugest passions together in one topic- psychology and music.  But I'll leave it at this- musicians need your honest to God input when they bring you something to listen to, so don't be afraid to tell them what it is you listen for in a song.

How do you guys judge a song when you listen to it?