Part of what is wrong with so much of the music being played on the
radio today, is that it sounds great.

Seriously.

I hear this all the time. I ask someone what they think of a song
that is playing on the radio. They listen for a second and say "It
sounds good".

"But do you think it's a good song"? I ask.

They don't answer "Yeah, I love that song" or "Yeah this song kicks
ass"! Instead they pause for a bit, maybe listen for a few seconds
more, and then say something like "I don't know......It sounds good
though".

A great song is a great song. No matter how well it is, or isn't
recorded. The Beatles recorded most of their albums on 4 track tape
machines. They used technology that is considered prehistoric
compared to recordings made in today's slick digital audio world of
60 + tracks and up.

Yet when you hear a song like Yesterday, it doesn't matter that the
technology used to record it was vastly inferior to today's
technology, because in the end, a great song (and an equally great
performance) shines through all of that. No one has any trouble
hearing a great song.

But we live in a world where audio technology can make the mediocre
sound great. In today's music world it's about the production. And we
can do this in spades. But this doesn't make it a great song. It just
makes it "sound" great. Sound being the operative word here.

Back in the day, it was about the song. You didn't have the
technology to hide behind. The song had to be good. This didn't stop
bad songs from being recorded, but I think the lack of technology
made it easier for the casual listener to discern the mediocre from
the good.

A good analogy to this is movies. With today's technology you can
create great special effects undreament of 10 years ago. You can
color correct your movie to make the cinematography look beautiful.
But without a good story it's just empty eye candy. But if you don't
look at it with too critical a mind you might be fooled into thinking
it was a good movie, when in actuality it was just a good looking
movie.

The same holds true for music. Today's production values will make a
mediocre song sound good. And if you don't think about it, you might
be fooled into thinking it is a good song. But a good song stays with
you. You can remember the melody. A good song can move you across the
dance floor but it can also move your soul. For many, music is
background noise and you can use good songs for this too, but a good
song can also stop you in your tracks. It can stop your train of
thought, and make you want to follow that songs musical path/journey
from beginning to end.

Admit it; it's hard to start "American Pie" by Don Mclean and then
turn it off half way through. You have to finish it.

So the next time you listen casually the latest flavor of the month,
ask yourself: Is this really a good song, or does it just sound good?

Does the melody really stay with you?

And when you hear it again does it groove and excite you enough that
you want to hear it from start to finish?