What is good music? Why should you care? Why should you spend your (sic: parent’s) hard-earned money on a good single off of iTunes when you can get absolute drivel that nobody will remember except when it turns up ironically at a decade-themed dance party (sorry Duncan Sheik)?
A few years ago, I found a piece of music that was utterly baffling: “The Most Unwanted Song” it was called, scientifically manufactured by a man named David Soldier, inspired by Vitaly Komar & Alex Melamid’s survey on the most wanted painting.
He then composed two pieces of music based on the survey results composited by around 500 people. Thus came the most wanted and unwanted songs, according to those polled.
Ironically enough, I found “Most Unwanted Song” better than “Most Wanted Song.” First, though, let’s get to the actual substance of both.
The “Most Wanted Song,” apparently, is six minutes long (which is interesting, considering mainstream radio’s affinity for three to four minute songs; six minutes gives average music consumers a headache, and gives those with A.D.D. the pleasure of discovering new things in a song after hearing it 40 times over).
In these six minutes are lyrics mostly about love and working the night shift (Bruce Springsteen much?), plenty of keyboards, saxophones, boy-girl harmonies, and power chords to, according to this survey, produce a satisfied listener.
The most unwanted song, on the other hand, is a claptrap of so many things gone wrong, a multi-piece, 23-minute suite dedicated to (among other things) philosophy, holidays, shopping (at Wal-Mart), and. George Stephanopolous.
In terms of timbre, it’s a cluster of things that don’t belong in the real world, let alone in something even deemed as the most unwanted song. Operatic rap (yes, you read that correctly), children singing and shouting, harp glissandos, bagpipes and tubas that were kidnapped from a pseudo-Oktoberfest celebration.
This and more for 23 minutes, and yet it’s the better song.
Chances are, you’re scratching your head (figuratively, at least). The fact is, despite its length and sheer annoyance factor, the “Most Unwanted Song Ever” written is, contrary to common wisdom, more listenable than the “Most Wanted Song.”
For one thing, the “Most Unwanted Song,” if you understand the songwriting process in any way, is hysterically genius. Besides being laugh-out-loud funny for much of its duration, however, you have to imagine the patience and skill it takes to write a song that is engineered solely to be bad. While Mr. Soldier is right for crediting it as unwanted, credit is certainly due: he wrote a masterfully bad song.
Perhaps that’s where it comes in as to what a good song is? The first band that came to mind to me while writing this was Sonic Youth, not because they are bad (I would say arguably one of the best bands from the 1980s that your parents didn’t listen to), but because they are notoriously dissonant and atonal.
Yet their longevity is still there, and they’ve had a remarkable shelf life as one of the most difficult bands ever.
They released arguably their best album, “Daydream Nation,” in 1988. Billboard’s top singles for that year were performed by the likes of George Michael, INXS, Rick Astley (the one you encountered on the Internet so many times a few years ago) and Guns ‘n’ Roses.
Considering who’s reading this, these bands are unheard of, unless they got onto reality television to search for a new singer, kitsch, and had only one good album.
Yet one of the most discordant bands in rock history lives on better than most of those who bested them in sales and popularity at the time (not to mention that year saw solid releases from R.E.M., Metallica, Jane’s Addiction and the Pixies).
What is good music? It’s total trash, and it’s a natural fact that it’s not James Blunt.
John Wood is a fourth year student majoring in communication studies. He can be reached at JW632840@wcupa.edu.