What Makes Truly Great Music?

You'll know when you hear music that you would classify as 'great'. Whether it has a beat to it that makes you want to get up and go or sing your heart out, you'll know it. Over the years there have been many theories as to why humans have such a deep connection with rhythmic sounds. One in particular, which makes sense to me, is that we are subconsciously constantly looking for safety and security and crave a predictable regular rhythm. Certainly this would explain why music sometimes takes time before you start liking it.

For me, for music to be worthy of that 'great' status, it has to be able to change or enhance my mood for a sustained amount of time. Take listening to Your Latest Trick by Dire Straits. Listening to that on the train coming back from work enhanced my feeling and relaxed me, all be it almost to much so as I nearly fell asleep. In contrast, when listening to The Catalyst by Linkin Park makes me want to sing along and even do a bit of dancing. It makes me feel good about myself and gives me confidence...which is then shattered by people laughing at my dancing. Well OK that's a lie, if you can't laugh at yourself then what can you laugh at? The point is, great music works its way into your mind and completely absorbs you into it and heightens your emotions.

So now that we've defined what great music is, what about 'great' albums? Well when I get a new album I'll put it on in the background and forget about it. If I find myself trying to sing along to words I don't know or connecting with it all the way through then it is exactly that. But there's more to it than that. There has to be some sort of moral or story that progressively advances through each song and, if its very good, contain different themes throughout. Most notable for that for me would be Pink Floyd's The Wall album, if you don't know it then look it up! You won't be disappointed. The latest great album I would say would be Linkin Park's A Thousand Suns album because it flows extremely well even though I don't like the song Blackout. If I run through the album without paying attention them it flows fine. Although on a side note, Blackout has just come on on my media player and talking about it made me notice it which is annoying.

So to sum up, a great song evokes and enhances you emotions and a great album evolves them. What we have here is the triple E criteria. I think it also has to have complimentary contrasting songs which helps the evolution of the story in the music. Even the hardest upbeat artists nearly always put in a slower song. I mean, look at Abba's greatest hits.