What Makes a Song Good to You?

[Shikari-Fox]

I've been pondering about this for a while, for me it's fairly simple;

1. A nice, steady pace with some progression along the course of the song.
Example: Five Finger Death Punch's The Bleeding with a guitar duet instigating the song, then there's the introduction of the bass followed by the drums, rhythm guitar and lastly lead guitar before getting into the main part of the song.
2. Live drums as they just sound better and give songs a raw sound that you just don't get with electronic drums.
Example: the first snares 1:27 into Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends.
3. Meaningful lyrics that convey a message to make you feel something or coax an emotional shift.
Example: Again being Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends, the story of Billie Joe's father dying of cancer and the first words Billie Joe said on the day of his father's funeral as he stormed to his room.
4. Choruses that aren't the same or as frequent, 3 is all that's needed in a song at maximum.
Example: Linkin Park's Breaking the Habit, two being the same is moderately fine but it's the change in the final chorus that gives a nice feel to the end with Chester's habit being understood leading to him breaking it.

What about you?

 

[Rich]

I suppose it would be fairly similar reasons to you pal. My main focus is usually on the melody, as long as the melody is good or catchy then it's on to a winner, it could be literally any genre, just as long as the melody is there, vocals do help a lot too
My main example would probably be Mr Brightside. Everything seems to be on point, the synths, the guitars, the drums, even the vocals! I feel the fact it feels like the song is constantly moving helps it, the only break point is the interlude between the chorus and the verse, but this is short.
Jacques Lu Cont's remix helps emphasise the great melodies the original has, as it builds the whole remix around the synths melody from the original.
Feel i might have gotten side tracked there, but yeah melodys is a main for me!

Feel the need to add this in too, I feel that your list above is where music trends are currently failing. The UK top 40 is literally a shambles, I’ve slightly given up looking at it as it’s full of unimaginative mumble rap with nothing in it but a person’s name. I look forward to the Christmas charts because music with character and life creeps back into the chart. I don’t really have anything against rap music, all music is good, but the current trending rap music is ass, complete ass. I feel this is the reason popular catchy songs stay at the top for so long now, because there isn’t any genuine competition ( streaming may also have an affect), just a guy with ‘lil’ in his name talking about how he use to ‘coochi up his moochi’ or some random poop.