Haven’t been able to get this video out of my mind since discovering it last week. Such a moving example of the power of visual storytelling, as the video doesn’t actually match the lyrics to the song, except for a pretty brilliant bit of overlap at the climax:
Trying to explain why I like Pup so much — in a nutshell, because listening to them makes me want to *play* music like this! — has got me thinking about the very complicated Venn diagram that might illustrate the various ways that music affects me.
There would need to be circles to represent:
- Music I could listen to over and over again;
- Resonance with and/or the inspiration of certain moods (there’d probably be several of these, eg heartbreak, dancing, focusing on writing, getting it on, dinner prep, etc);
- Composers / bands / musicians / pieces / genres that I appreciate for their brilliance (whether or not I actually like the results);
- Strong lyrics or really good storytelling;
- Music featuring cool sounds or effects or voices that I like for particular reasons;
- Music that reminds me of people, places, and/or times of my life;
- Music created by people I know and love;
- Lyrics that take an important stand politically (I’m using a very broad interpretation of that word);
- Artists and bands I want to see or enjoy seeing live;
- Songs or bands that make me to want to *play* something along their lines;
…and probably dozens of others that I will probably come up with as soon as I hit the Publish button. (Note: I tend to separate music videos from music and lump them into art because… you gotta draw the lines somewhere?)
One of these days maybe I’ll dig into Scott’s stack of books covering the science and psychology of music and possibly learn a better language for describing these hard-to-describe things. For now, I’ll take comfort in the fact that the only people who might actually care to hear why I appreciate something are also kind enough to make do with the limited words that we have to discuss these most important topics.
Elizabeth Ü 