Lyrix

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I've always thought of the Kinks as being founding fathers of a lyrical strain in British pop - wit, "character songs", satire gentle and vicious, etc etc.

I wonder if this is just received wisdom though - not that the Kinks didn't do it and weren't good at it but their peers often did it too, so maybe it's the way they delivered the lyrics vocally or the melodies they set them to that give me that impression.

Anyway, I'd like to know what you think about lyrics - when you notice them, how highly you value them, and so on.

Or actually, let's make this more concrete: what recent records do you think have good lyrics?

Comments

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Definitely a lyrics person and I have been thinking perhaps a bit too much about lyrics recently. Of course, dammit, somebody has to go and make a post like this and then they all fly out of my head! Grr! Except for lots of goff ones which are of no real relevance or, probably, interest to poptimists.

Mind you, I seem to have had "Some Girls" stuck in my head recently and I'm sure the lyrics are mostly to blame.

Bad lyrics really can put me off. Dumb is not so much of a problem, it's more stuff which is unamusingly unpleasant or self-aggrandizing without much irony.