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

[celentari.livejournal.com]

I'd rather listen to something uninteresting musically with great lyrics than the other way around. I'd rather dance to the opposite.

Best of all are acts like Fiery Furnaces and Luke Haines, who have tunes which score high on both sides.

Some rap etc which has really misogynistic lyrics requiring that I grind/take/off clothes/etc etc i can't dance to even if the tune is good, because it would feel like an endorsement of the sentiment.

Let me start this off with one to make you all groan

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Part of the reason I liked Snow Patrol's Final Straw was that I really liked some of the lyrics (combined, of course, with the music - I am most decidedly not a "lyric person").

Stains On My T-Shirt

[koganbot]

Ashlee Simpson. So much to say, don't know where to start, and I need to go out now. Said over in my own livejournal that no matter what's going on in the song there will be these sudden moments of eloquence, words that suddenly open everything up into the richness of a human being. None of the people involved (Ashlee, Kara, et al.) seem to be analytically piercing thinkers, yet somehow Ashlee's words give you a much deeper picture of a complexity of an actual relationship than you ever get from Ray Davies or even Mick Jagger (the latter being the man who takes my vote as best lyricist ever). And there are fewer such moments on Ashlee's second album than her first (not to mention certifiably ordinary moments, of course), so I wouldn't say that this woman knows what she's doing; but she did something: created a woman, got her on record.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I like the lyrics to recent records by Hold Steady, Neko Case, Spoon, and Of Montreal. All for different reasons - on the Spoon records there aren't that many words, and they're suggestive rather than allusive, but kind of percussive and have a kind of restrained violence, like the music; for Neko Case they're allusive story fragments ('I leave the party / At 3am / Alone thank God') which work really well with the mood of the record as a whole; Hold Steady is very obvious and quite didactic / pedantic story-telling which fails to work as often as it works, but works so well when it does work as to be really quite powerful; and on Hissing Fauna, the Of Montreal guy just weaves this amazing kind of quest romance story (e.g. his mind has become 'vile to its creator' posing the problem is he his mind's creator, or is God, or nature etc...) into the more usual self-dissection of indie-ness (this is how I overcame my objection to the album as indie-pop -- I realised it was indie-pop as self-critique.)

[koganbot]

Lil Wayne is in some kind of zone; I've never really paid his lyrics the attention needed to figure them out - figuring them out may be not the point, however.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Just downloaded a bunch of Lil' Wayne in the past few days and vote for him. "To the kids, drugs kill, I'm acknowledging that/ But when I'm on the drugs I don't have a problem with that."

I also think one of the features of the hyphy I like that sells me is the lyrics, weirdly enough, because there's a real ear for novelty in the production AND the lyrics. Great introduction of new slang, all the songs sort of talk to each other.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I ignore lyrics 90% of the time. But when an artist's lyrics do attract my attention, I really pay attention.

When I finally get round to posting to LJ my "hagiography" of the new Aly & AJ album, I suspect I'll be mentioning the lyrics a lot and even quoting a few.

Mix Your Milk With My Cocoa Puff, Milky Milky Riiiiight

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

An obvious recent one - 'Umbrella'. Sweet and soppy, but not gushing. Practical, even!

At the other end of the respectability scale you have Fergie/Black Eyed Peas (not just 'My Humps', but 'Fergalicious', 'Big Girls Don't Cry' and , where the lyrics are so astonishing/jaw-droppingly mental that one suddenly realises they are utter genius and transform mediocre beats into a thing of wonder and joy.

Even Rihanna jumps on the catchy nonsense bandwagon with her 'ella-ella-eh-eh-eh' - although the song would have probably worked without it, you can't deny it adds that extra woomph to the song.

I'm not a massive fan of non-Anglophone lyrics, but I do love stilted translations. Sentences that make perfect grammatical sense (or not) but that no native English speaker would dream of constructing. See Infernal, Cansei etc.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't have thought I'd have said this this time last year (at ALL) but uh, Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana actually has really interesting lyrics. She's progressively taken on a teen-scorned angst approach, and the results are interesting, because she's fundamnetally cheerful but saying some fairly nasty things to the guys in her songs...

From "Eastnorthumberland High": "Your my type of guy, I guess/ If I was stuck in East Northumberland High for the rest of my life/ but people change/ thank God I did."

From "I Got Nerve": "I know what you like/ I know what you think/ Not afraid to stare you down until you blink" [sounds like "bleed"!]

From "Start All Over": "Out of the fire and into the fire again/ You make me want to forget/ And start all over" -- that was co-written by Fefe Dobson and it shows. Fefe's a great lyricist herself, very funny and hits hard with the spite: "I've been livin' lately like I'm dying all the time/ Might do something crazy like jumping off the Hollywood sign/ 'Cuz boy you make me feel like I could fly"

Miley's best lyrics -- the ones I actually believe she might have written herself -- are from "See You Again": "The last time I freaked out/ I just kept lookin' down/ I st-st-stuttered when you asked me what I'm thinkin' bout/ Felt like I couldn't breathe/ You asked what's wrong with me/ My best friend Leslie said 'Oh she's just bein' Miley'/ the next time we hang out/ I will redeem myself/ I can't wait to see you again"

Yo, I'm 13 again and I've got a crush on that girl in my science class! Except she's crushin' on the jerk that ends up calling Miley at the end of the song (what kind of idiot asks a girl he likes WHAT'S WRONG WITH HER??).

My Favourite Tracks This Year - Do They Have Good Lyrics Or Not?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

(not a definitive list of fav trax - just what sprang to mind)

Groove Armada - "Song 4 Mutya" - GOOD: the muttered "Don't panic panic Mutya" bit never fails to raise a smile. Only annoyance is not changing "don't drive erratic" to fit the scenario in the 2nd verse.

"Umbrella" - OK: Lex really likes the lyrics - I think they're fine, they do the job, nothing annoys me.

MIA - "Bird Flu": GOOD: Mix of imagistic stuff and show-off bait-the-hataz stuff, combines on the standout line "Credentials are boring - burnt them at the burial ground". Lyrics not the draw though.

Good Charlotte - "Keep Your Hands Off My Girl": OK: Excellent delivery of lyrics which could be embarassing if done badly.

McFly - "Transylvania": POOR: Trying to be 'trippy' or imagist, just fall into gibberish - though the gusto of the songwriting and delivery saves them.

Gwen Stefani - "Early Winter": OK: There's one attempted effect that doesn't work - the hesitant 'always was one'/'never was one' bits - and one that does - when the song stops for Gwen to suddenly lose patience and go "Why do you act so stupid? You know that I'm always right!"

[strange-powers.livejournal.com]

I love that bit in Timbaland's The Way I Are where that D.O.E. goes, "Your body ain't Pamela Anderson, it's a struggle just to get you in the caravan" It conjures up bizzare visions of r'n'b luminaries on crappy UK holidays.

[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.

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

i hope you got last year's smog record, tom.

(but this year's 'bill callahan' record i haven't heard yet, after a disappointing few listens to a lead single (?).)

If you think this post isn't for real, then you don't know me.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

I'm conflicted about lyrics.

Yes, sometimes I like clever lyrics, but often I like trite, silly and uplifting stuff more. If I think the music is lame, as is the case with some of the bands mentioned thus far, then I won't even notice their lyrics.

My favourite lyric writers are, probably, J Mascis, Bob Pollard, Jeff Mangum, Bret Michaels, Alice Cooper, Jon Bon Jovi, Avril Lavigne...

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Marit Larsen of course gets my vote - some of her best are devastating. There are some great Robyn lyrics too. Umbrella is wonderful. In hip hop I like Killer Mike at times, and Lyfe Jennings in modern soul or whatever we call it. Tom Waits is still going well, and he's one of my four or five favourite lyricists ever (um, Dylan, Hank Williams, Jarvis Cocker...).