. . .
Lyrics matter. I shouldn’t even have to say this. But I’ve had this chip on my shoulder for a while. It gets heavier every time I get a promo without lyrics – which is 99% of the time now. It gets heavier every time I hear someone say, “Lyrics don’t matter in metal”. This chip has become very heavy. It’s time to cast it off, at least for today.
First, lyrics aren’t everything. They aren’t even the majority of what’s important in music. They’re just part of the total package. I hate record reviews that begin with something like, “‘You’re all I ever had / You’re no better than bad’, sings Indie Rock Singer on Indie Rock Album“. The popular press actually places undue importance on lyrics, probably because the music it covers is often musically uninteresting. Also, few music critics actually know the nuts and bolts of music and can grapple with it on that level. So they focus instead on something they can understand: words. The problem is, most lyricists are not poets. Their lyrics are usually (a) meant to work in a musical context, and (b) bad. Latching onto lyrics in isolation is short-sighted and incomplete.
But lyrics matter. They do so in two ways.
The first is aesthetic completeness. Just like you shouldn’t watch a foreign film without subtitles, you shouldn’t listen to music with words without knowing what they are. Of course, this is crucial for critics – one should not pass judgment on something without perceiving it in its entirety. But since everyone’s a critic now, and reading music critics is a great way not to enjoy music, this priority is just as important for listeners. If a band presents extra-musical information along with its music, like artwork and lyrics, those things inextricably become part of the package. I know Kill ‘Em All not as a pile of MP3s, but as sounds branded with a powerful album cover and lyrics of which the printed font is seared into my consciousness. Anything less, and I can’t claim to understand Kill ‘Em All.
In metal, I often hear these counter-arguments: “the vocals are just another instrument or texture” or “the music is really what’s important”. Well, vocals are always another instrument and texture. Lyrics, when presented in a rhythmic and sometimes melodic manner, are part of the music. If you’re a metal band with a singer, you can’t say that the guy you drag along on tour and put in the center of the stage doesn’t matter. He’s the center of attention – so what comes out of his mouth is important. It’s not enough just to sound good. Let’s say that you go on a date, and the other person is dressed to the nines. That may seem attractive until you find out that the mind isn’t as sharp as the looks. You shouldn’t date dumb people, and you shouldn’t listen to dumb bands.
Dumb lyrics often get a free pass because of the underlying music. Ideally, both parts are good. Hip-hop faces this problem often. The radio is riddled with “great beats, awful MC” (hello, Fabolous). And, to be honest, I can put up with that more than “awful beats, great MC” (hello, Nas). But the pleasures of “great beats, awful MC” are temporary. What lasts longest and means the most is “great beats, great MC”. This applies to all music with vocals. The best things in life are great total packages – and the best things in life should be the only things we seek.
The second way in which lyrics matter is political, strange as that may sound. We live in an age of overload of both information and disinformation. We are told more things than ever, and they mean less than ever. When we watch TV adverts, and some rapid-fire voice machine-guns out a legal disclaimer at the end, we hear the letter but not the spirit of laws that are meant to protect consumers. Every time we see a news story, other stories could have been presented. Omission is an editorial and political act. It happens every second. Interests big and small use omission to keep people from knowing everything – and knowledge is power.
So we should not volunteer to be ignorant in music, which, if you’re reading this, is probably important to you. Music feeds the soul. It saves lives. It is a source of power. It should be the last place where people don’t have the full picture. Listening to music without knowing the lyrics is like eating food without knowing its ingredients. It’s irresponsible. If music is important to you, take the time to embrace it fully. Know what that guy screaming at you is saying. In real life, you would damn well make sure to know.
. . .
I totally disagree. Lyrics DON’T matter in a lot of metal. If they did, the vocalists would make a serious attempt to project them, rather than using “extreme” vocal techniques or production tricks (whether filtering and distorting them, or just burying them in the mix) that make them totally indecipherable. I feel no obligation, as a critic or a listener, to suss out what some brutal death metal dude (or Xasthur, for that matter) is pig-squealing about.
As a critic and a writer, I am so frequently offended by bad lyrics when I can figure them out that I honestly welcome metal’s attempts to make the words opaque. I hardly ever mention lyrics in reviews anyway, but when the band makes the decision easy for me in this way, it allows me to focus on the things I like best about metal – the instrumental performances and the overall sound. (And yet I’m usually bored by instrumental metal.) I view lyrics in extreme metal as exactly the same as lyrics in languages I don’t understand (something I encounter a lot, listening to music from Africa, the Middle East or Japan…or Rammstein). I like the sound of death metal growls a lot of the time. But figuring out what those growls actually translate to in words is a waste of my time.
Ia totally agree. Case in point: Anyone remember a while back Bloodbath put out a shirt for the mock the cross? The shirt was a cartoon of demons barfing on a crucified christ… hilarious, no? Apparently not because the backlash was swift, i remember reading on one message board that a longtime ‘fan’ would never listen to Bloodbath again, due to this uncompromising blasphemy of god. Apparently its fine to write angry blasphemous lyrics as long as no one actually figures out what they are. Is hould also state that this appeared to be a widespread sentiment at the time. And I remember also hearing that the printers halted production on the shirt.
But i mean honestly, how more obvious could ‘mock the cross’ be as a song-title? Death metal has at least always let you know what the major content of a song through title…
I always read liners and lyrics, its fun and sometimes educational in the case of Nile.
Cosmo I’m with you. Read your lyrics folks you might learn something, like how shitty that weedly woodly tech death band actually is.
I’m entirely with pdf. Just over a year ago I review Fear Factory’s Mechanize, and I laid out my lyrical preferences: “As a side note, I’d like to tell everyone my philosophy on lyrics: I’d rather not be able to understand them. Ideally, a vocalist will sing in a dead language like Middle English, Old Norse, Latin, or Ancient Greek. Second best is a living language I can’t understand. If neither of those works, vocals in an incomprehensible style are fine as well. Fourth best are lyrics which are so vague or abstract they don’t make any sense, fifth best are lyrics I can agree with, and sixth best are lyrics I don’t agree with but aren’t stupid. In dead last place are stupid, comprehensible lyrics in the English language . . . .”
Ugh…i rarely pay attention to lyrics anymore, at least not until i’ve heard the song many times already. I find that the sounds of the words, how the flow together, the singer’s voice, and a myriad of other aspects have a much greater impact on my mind. Its not something I thought about, it just evolved that way, as I used to be a stickler for lyrics growing up.
I especially like when a lyricist intentionally writes nonsense, or at least fills in the gaps with nonsense (i.e., Patton), or fills the lyrical space with something vague that maybe hints at some kind of meaning without directly stating it.
On top of that, i WOULD watch a foreign flick without the subtitles…there are countless ways that the film communicates to you once dialogue isnt dominating your attnetion. Thats definitely not to say you’re going to get the intended meaning, its just an alternate way to enjoy something.
Killing Joke, Tool, and many of Pattons FNM lyrics are the only ones i find enjoying continually. But like I said, even if they are good, I’d rather not know them.
I would agree that lyrics are important. At the same time, I don’t think they are make or break. I prefer to know what a vocalist is screaming about, and I do think it enhances my overall grasp of what the band or album is all about as whole. But like Cosmo, 99% of what I get to review does not include lyrics and are so new that said lyrics haven’t hit the internet yet, so I’ve kind of learned to live without them. I just focus on other aspects of the music. I’d like to think
that this doesn’t make what I have to say about a band/album any less insightful than if I had the printed lyrics in front of me.
I agree 110%. Great article.
I remember reading (maybe it was Metal Maniacs) that most metal fans listen to the guitar OR drums before listening to anything else in a mix to see if it “catches” their ear (either subconsciously or on purpose). Vocals are dead last but it’s sort of an evolution from I’d say Obituary, who were the first band i remember stating they didn’t have lyrics, it was just vocal sounds and tongues.
And in the end, I agree that’s pretty much what it is about (hey I’ve listened to Eyehategod for 20 years + now and still don’t know ANY lyrics except “Burn Her” and “Zero Nine”). The tongues and melody’s that gel in, and reach someone on a more primal level are what hit most, lyrics or not.
BUT, it’s 100x more satisfying to me when i find out there’s actual words there. And 1000x times more satisfying when i find out I’m behind the words in emotion.
And of course, completely disheartening -10,000 points if/when you find out a NEW band you dig is full of right wing or racist bullshit when researching their lyrics…another reason it’s convenient for people to “hide” lyrics…
I agree with this in an aspirational way, I suppose, but like many of the above comments, I don’t always pay a lot of attention to metal lyrics. As far as bands not including lyrics with press packs, I’m totally on board, because I think the critic (and especially the listener who purchases the “real” product – I have little patience for bands who refuse to print their lyrics because they are ostensibly “too personal” or because they want to let them “speak for themselves,” which is the most ridiculous argument ever) should at least be able to take in the lyrics if she wants to.
On a more pragmatic level, in a lot of the metal I love, I don’t want to force myself to read the lyrics because they necessarily bring me down with their terrible ideas or poor expression. And here, I think we get into the dangerous territory of intellectual elitism, by which I mean, I’m only really interested in lyrics by people who have a gift for words – you can listen to a shitload of folk music, but it’s only ever so often you’ll find a Dylan or a Cohen – but that’s not at all the way we should listen to the music itself. I agree that the very best music comes across as a total package, but in metal (and in all musical forms, I’d reckon), the number of people with a gift for inspired musical composition and technical prowess vastly outstrips the number of people who have anything I’d care to hear them say.
Plus, there’s really nothing worse than faux-intellectual let’s-write-some-deep-lyrics-by-burying-ourselves-in-a-second-rate-introduction-to-philosophy-textbook-and-a-sorely-abused-thesaurus.
Wait, I’m confused… Which part of the piece are these Metallica lyrics in the pic supposed to illustrate? The “don’t listen to dumb bands” part or the “music that saves lifes” one?
Respectfully disagree, Cosmo. You make a good point about the front man that we stare at when a band plays live, and this is central to my argument that lyrics don’t matter in MODERN (past is a different story) metal: the front man is basically the metal equivalent of the “hype man” in hip-hop. He’s up there to entertain the simpletons in the audience who don’t possess the musical knowledge to appreciate the actual music. For that matter, he’s just up there to entertain EVERYONE — I fall into this trap too, because after all seeing guys jump around to music is fun. But I think we would all be better off if there was no frontman, no ridiculous showmanship… just music, leaving our brains on their own to interpret it. I increasingly find myself listening to more and more instrumental metal these days; vocalist just get in the way. In a live setting you can never hear the fucking words anyway.
-VN
I find myself knowing all the words to many songs without actually computing any meaning…for instance, in 4th grade listening to ‘And Justice For All,’ i had no idea what half those words meant…’Twisting under schizophrenia, falling deep into dimensia…’ i just knew how to sing them.
Even today, I’ll be able to sing along live, without even knowing what I’m saying. Most of the time its for the better.
I agree with this piece. I love metal lyrics, and it drives me crazy when people ignore them. The best bands are the ones who make their lyrics and music work together in perfect unison. For example, if you’re a Portal fan, and you don’t read their lyrics, you are missing out on a huge chunk of what makes that band brilliant. Their lyrics match their music perfectly; just look at this refrain from “Writhen” on the album Swarth:
“En masse thee enclave ensorcelle
Immure thee impurity
Thee lowly cadre
Be as our gruel”
Be as our gruel? Let me tell you, that is more fucked up and badass than anything Cannibal Corpse has ever growled about disemboweling someone or whatever. When you have the singer from Portal breathily growling that at you, you feel as though he could, in fact, consume you as the pitiful, insignificant insect that you are.
I thought that was a good example, anyway, although if you just read those without having heard that song or being able to place those lyrics, you’re probably thinking “what the fuck?”
I’m not saying that all bands I listen to have brilliant lyrics, of course. But they are important, and actually, lyrics are one of the main things that attract me to the types of metal that I like.
The written text is not really the lyric. Poetry is meant to be read aloud, and a similar logic applies to metal lyrics. Hence the lyrical genius of Dio. So much of our heavy metal world comes from this guy’s instinctive trust in tradition, a part of which is the power of the living word. To an extent, most of Dio’s lyrics don’t matter because they “mean” nothing as coherent text. You can’t scour the texts for pertinent information. Yet they provide a structure for his thoughts that engages his feelings (then ours). Drawing from lore absorbed in formative memories, they provide words that his speech apparatus is predisposed to form. They empower the voice of heavy metal.
Lyrics are super important. It’s pretty sad to see all these underground bands abdicating responsibility from the power of the word in favor of obscurantism. Yeah, you don’t need words. And you don’t need a cell phone either! But in fact you do…
The “lyrics don’t matter” comments make me sad… I’m an old fart and when I was a lonely alienated teenager the lyrics of bands like Maiden gave me an escape that required me to use my imagination to create images in my head about the songs. Of course there were not other easy distractions in those ancient times like The Internet to turn to.. I had books and METAL to escape into until I found like-minded friends. This isn’t a slam on “today’s kidz”; times are just different now. It should be noted that Hetfield was 17 or 18 years old when he wrote ‘Motorbreath’..
I feel like agreeing by disagreeing. Lyrics are important, but they’re clearly not important to an increasingly large number of metal bands. We have a lot of canned Satanism and religion is bad. We’ve heard that for going on almost 3 decades now. Nothing new is being added to the conversation there.
I have to vehemently disagree with political lyrics. Political music is the most pedantic, sophomoric, masturbatory exercise in music today. Seriously, it’s an exercise in self indulgence that knows no equal. Militant far right or left groups singing about completely discredited ideas to a small number of people who feel they’re “making a difference” by going to a show.
Cosmo, you once mentioned having a period of disinterest in metal, I am feeling that a lot myself lately, the quality of the lyrical content is a major contributor.
I understand your point but it really depends on the source of the lyrics as to whether I’m going to put any importance on them.
Leonard Cohen singing about heartache and betrayal is going to get my attention a lot more than a band of 17 year olds screaming about testicle torture or blood orgies.
Strange thing is, I listen to a lot of Indian music and in that case while the vocals totally act as a part of the melody and texture, I still have no idea what they are saying. It doesn’t ruin my enjoyment of it though.
I think lyrics are important but I’m fully aware that a lot of metal bands just suck at writing anything interesting or with any kind of craft. Screaming has allowed vocalist to throw a lot of vocal and writing technique out the window and instead write long pointless rants that they spew all over there music without any kind of rhythm. Still I haven’t let this stop me from enjoying different kinds of metal. Lyrics and their meanings come to me over time. I let the songs get stuck in me and I’ll catch a little phrases that makes me curious about the songs meaning.
As singer and lyricist for my own band (don’t worry, I’m a nobody, so there’s no braggado in that statement) I find the vocals and lyrics to be extremely important to my listening pleasure. I’d imagine that playing an instrument alters your focus slightly.
With regards to the comment “Well, vocals are always another instrument and texture. Lyrics, when presented in a rhythmic and sometimes melodic manner, are part of the music.”
I agree entirely and would go further, exploring the idea that as a dedicated lyricist one writes lyrics to get across a message or explore an idea. The compromise comes in however in the delivery – poetic as one’s lyrical ideas may be, there’s only so much time in each song, and choosing to vary your vocal parts, the delivery and cadences used (and often employing different rhyming schemes) mean that you have to cut or alter your lyrical ideas to better serve the song. As such we often get a more generalised lyrical message than was originally intended as to get across the more important and greater concepts some of the lesser and more specific concepts have to be jettisoned. It’s not ideal (nor is it universal) but is often the way things happen. Good lyricists get across the main themes of their philosophy whilst at least attending to some more specific ideas and interpretations.
Speaking of philosophy, the statement above “I have to vehemently disagree with political lyrics. Political music is the most pedantic, sophomoric, masturbatory exercise in music today. Seriously, it’s an exercise in self indulgence that knows no equal” is often true, but mainly for bands who think that their music is changing something. For example I’d cite Misery Index who utilise their lyrics to discuss “political philosophy” rather than pretending to be congressmen with mullets and tattoos.
Did I mention that I love lyrics btw? I devour lyric books over and over, which is one of the main reasons I still love the cd format.
If you’ll permit me to make a relationship analogy: lyrics might not matter when we’re just banging for the night but I won’t stick it out with someone who has nothing to say.
Cosmo, I think your point about lyrics being taken out of context is instructive. Lyrics should interact meaningfully with instrumental accompaniment and are an important tool to contort the emotional content of the music further. Just like it’s weak to have characters in a comic or film merely describing what we’re already seeing, it’s a shame when vocalists miss their opportunity to take the music further, not wanting to get in the way of the riffs.
For a GREAT album with brilliantly integrated lyrical content (that you may have missed because the music is so strong on its own) check out Cryptopsy’s …And Then It Passes. Make sure you read along…
Fuck taking a side on this – the lyrics matter when they matter and don’t when they don’t…
Too many examples to chose from so I’ll go with Fudge Tunnel circa Hate Songs (such a killer album) whereas the liner notes state (I paraphrase, my copy is at home) ‘The lyrics mean nothing so don’t bother trying to work it out’, but then in an interview Newport admits Kitchen Belt is about domestic violence…
It’s complicated.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Some are worth listening to and others… not. Listening to parts of music is a very dynamic process. I usually start with guitars, then vocals, then drums, then lyrics. Comprehending lyrics while listening almost always makes me hear the song differently than I had before. All the texture inherent in modern metal grunting is great and can take one pretty far on the metal journey, but to couple that with meaning can be quite exhilarating (or disappointing).
The first line of Motorbreath reminded me of my single greatest pet peeve: the rhyming of die with cry. If you really start paying attention you’ll discover that nearly every band, EVER, has at some point, rhymed these two words. The really sappy bands like to throw the word “lie” into the mix. The older the song, the more forgiving I am:
“But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die
When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry…”
but if I hear a newer band do that, I say “fuck them” and move onto the next.
WARNING!!! (Really Long F-in comment, scroll if bored)
Saying something that matters, matters. If you don’t have anything to say at all, it’s OK, just please avoid the bad poetry. But saying something that matters to you definitely has value in this world/life.
Take Slough Feg’s Animal Spirits, which I listened to driving home from work last night. What did I hear? I heard “nature vs. nuture”, the concept of the savage, or “Other”, 400 years of colonialism and conquest, and religious oppression. I hear classic romanticism and the struggle to make a voice heard, above the din of human toil. Maybe, Scalzi didn’t write about those things…I never read the lyrics. My subjective interpretation has meaning tho. I agree 100% with Cosmo…Words are, like, really important.
I don’t mean to get so friggin heavy in a metal blog, but if you thinks words and ideas are not important in everything you do in your life, check out this article about Egypt and Tunisia:
“A Tunisian-Egyptian Link That Shook Arab History” – NYTimes, February 14th -David D. Kirkpatrick reported from Cairo, and David E. Sanger from Washington.
“Just a few months later, after a strike in Tunisia, a group of young online organizers followed the same model, setting up what became the Progressive Youth of Tunisia. The organizers in both countries began exchanging their experiences over Facebook. The Tunisians faced a more pervasive police state than the Egyptians, with less latitude for blogging or press freedom, but their trade unions were stronger and more independent. “We shared our experience with strikes and blogging,” Mr. Maher recalled.
For their part, Mr. Maher and his colleagues began reading about nonviolent struggles. They were especially drawn to a Serbian youth movement called Otpor, which had helped topple the dictator Slobodan Milosevic by drawing on the ideas of an American political thinker, Gene Sharp. The hallmark of Mr. Sharp’s work is well-tailored to Mr. Mubark’s Egypt: He argues that nonviolence is a singularly effective way to undermine police states that might cite violent resistance to justify repression in the name of stability.”
Non-violent struggle/revolution through blogging, Facebook, and Twitter?!?!? We live in interesting times folks.
I’m currently listening to Korpiklaani’s new album, which is as always, almost entirely sung in Finnish. Should I stop listening to them because I don’t speak the language? What’s wrong with enjoying the tonal quality of Jonne’s voice without understanding the words?
pdf – But vocalists do make serious attempts to project lyrics – by having them printed! There is, of course, the artistic possibility of “the printed lyrics are just a separate text to peruse because I am screaming only some of them”. Aside from that phenomenon, which I don’t what to make of yet, the printing of lyrics signifies intent on which an unintelligible vocalist fails to deliver. If you’re going to be Obituary and consciously just make sounds, that’s fine. But if you’re going to present a text and then butcher it, you’re failing to deliver. Like me, you do care enough about lyrics to be offended by bad ones. But I don’t want to hang my hat on art for which I have to explain away a portion of it, or for which I must lower my standards even partially.
Full Metal Attorney – A dead language is still a language. Those are still words, and they mean something!
Spinal Tapdance – But one should be brought down by terrible ideas and poor expression. That means that one is getting the whole picture – and is thus better informed to separate the wheat from the chaff. As for the typical Dylan/Cohen example – I see no reason why every lyricist shouldn’t aspire to such heights, especially when they have powerful music backing them.
sickofmotion – Heh. Kill ‘Em All’s lyrics aren’t “great” in the Dylan or Cohen sense. But they absolutely work in my understanding of the record, which is “a big explosion of youthful energy”. Again, context matters.
Vince Neilstein – It’s true, only simpletons need hype men. And it’s true that vocalists often get in the way. But the truly great bands are those in which the vocalists and their lyrics are one with the music.
Fe0 – I agree with (and should have made) the point about responsibility in wielding language.
Jayson – I agree that most political lyrics are bad. My point was that simply knowing what lyrics are is an important political endeavor.
Alee – I think you mean And Then You’ll Beg?
Andy – No, of course not. The voice is an instrument that should be enjoyed like any other. But you’re missing a layer of meaning that’s part of the whole picture.
I wholeheartely agree that lyrics matter a lot as part of the overall package. But not neccessarily in a literal sense (no pun intended), most of the time they form an integral part of the experience in conveying an emotion or atmosphere. DsO’s lyrics are most likely daft and juvenile but the bits I do understand fit perfectly. Amon Amarth’s lyrics are understandable and definitely much more than just another instrument – part and parcel of the whole Viking package.
But there really are only a few lyricists like Morrissey where listening to the actual words is such a pleasure.
Quite a discussion topic, Cosmo! My opinion is, as some other people’s, that lyrics are a very important part of music, specially for some bands who have something interesting to say. The first time Iron Maiden visited Colombia (in 2008)I was looking forward to attending the show. I actually prepared myself for the event, learning the lyrics to songs that I knew would be played live. I have to say that I sang every song they played that night, but I was shocked at how most people were ignorant of the lyrics of their alleged favourite band. Most people at the concert did not even know the songs’ titles! How can you enjoy Iron Maiden’s songs without having a clue about what they are saying? I still can fathom that idea. Even worse: I wrote a review of the show for a local magazine, brought up my thoughts and was completely censored. The editors said that I was being pretentious.
I say it just depends on the band(gore done creatively well: Carcass, gore done redundantly unshocking/boring: 98% of death metal). I like it when I hear bands moving beyond Satanism, gore, and all that endless inner searching mental fucking crap. I can’t really think of any newer bands with good lyrics besides Birth A.D. mentioned on this site before, I thought Immolation’s last album had good lyrics but nothing we’re gonna all be shouting along with like say Motorbreath or a classic DRI song.
Asphyx always has great lyrics and I can understand them easily, I think there’s a lack of bands with original vocalists and good lyrics maybe? Certainly a lack of really memorable vocal performances, I enjoy Mel jumping around screaming as much as anyone else but its no Dio. Maybe music is actually done, we’re just laying sideways running in circles like Curly overobserving and praising every dustbit we come across
@Cosmo – yes! duh.
I would say that lyrics matter in that they are not irrelevant
@Steve57: right on. if i happen to read and like, im all for appreciating their value. if i have no clue what the words are, fuck it.
I agree with your argument that the serious listener should know what is being screamed/spoken/sung/rapped/etc when they listen to music. I understand why someone would argue that the emotion and “feel” of the lyrics/singing supersedes the lyrics themselves, but I don’t agree with it (I more willing to make an exception for singing in a foreign language though). What’s your opinion of bands that refuse to print their lyrics (Gorgoroth, Wolves in the Throne Room, umpteen other BM bands)? I’ve always found it infuriating that a certain group might think their lyrics are so important/chock full of integrity/mysterious/whatever that the listener and consumer isn’t worthy of reading/understanding them.
Her nickname gyro!
A super booty hoe
She put that thang on them niggaz till you lose control.
It’s a ballerate to inadavertigate.
For the sex and the love the niggaz gonna pay.
She gotta a thang about the way she move that body baby!
And she can pop that pussy till the street baby.
Or she just a sexy bitch
She love that hard shit
I put a ten dollar bill in the fuckin’ clip.
But i ain’t mad though
She take it to the floor.
The way she bouncin’ that ass make a nigga know.
Or she a poetist the way she hustle shit.
Or shake that ass baby work for these presidents.
I agree with Alee 100%. There is plenty of extreme music I’ll put on without a care for lyrics if I just want to rage for 10 minutes or so after a long day, but I won’t turn to that music if I want to sit down and enjoy something or recommend it to someone else.
Lyrics have the ability to completely change the entire nature of the music you are listening to. I’m a Steely Dan fan mostly because of their ‘fuck you’ lyrics. If those guys sang basic tepid pop, they would be another Peter Cetera or some other 70s throwaway crap. Lines such as “your everlasting summer, you can see it fading fast, so you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last, you wouldn’t know a diamond if you held it in your hand, the things you think are precious I can’t understand” turn a potentially flaccid tune into a sugarcoated slap in the face. It’s true that lyrics don’t always matter, but most times that lack of effort will be reflected in the lasting impact of that music.
John Tardy admits that he fakes it and throws in funny shit, i.e. “Volleyball, Ice Cream Slowly We Rot”
Buzz Osbourne said once that the sound of the words are more important than the words themselves, Hence:
Los ticka toe rest. Might likea sender doe ree. Your make a doll a ray day sender bright like a penelty.Exi-tease my ray day member half lost a beat away. Purst in like a one way sender war give a heart like a fay. Cuz I can ford a red eed only street a wide a ree land. Die-mond make a mid-evil bike a sake a like a ree caste. Cuz I can ford a red eed only street a wide a ree land. On a ree land. Find a ree land. You sink a my swan. Rolly a get a worst in. Maybe minus way far central poor forty duck a pin. Milk maid dud bean. Master a load a head. Pill pop a dope a well run general hash pump a gonna led.”
Chalk me up to the Lyrics matter side–as a writer and poet.
What matters to people is, however, a really individual experience. If there’s one thing I have learned as a writer it’s that people just connect to different aspects of art in different ways with different priorities. People who don’t care for lyrics do not bother me–I am just not one of them.
The exception is people who wholly misinterpret lyrics. I remember when i saw Gaza in October they made a point to harass anyone in the audience who did not realize that ‘Slutmaker’ is, in their own words “more about treating your woman like your own mother than being a promiscuous jackass.”
I disagree. Apparently you’re going by the assumption that all subgenres of metal use lyrics, and that these lyrics are to be delivered in a comprehensible manner. You just effectively eliminated most of black metal, along with a huge deal of death metal, in which the lyrics are barely understandable. Atmospheric sludge, post-metal, and drone/doom are also right out, since they’re usually instrumental, anyway. Even when mostly instrumental forms of metal utilize vocals, they have the tendency to place them below the guitar and other instruments, so that they are not at the forefront of the music.
This isn’t to say that some forms of metal should have good lyrics; subgenres like thrash and power metal place a lot of importance upon the vocalist, and he or she should definitely be delivering some decent lyrics.
In short, however, you’re wrong about lyrics being important to metal. You advocate a lot of black metal bands, despite black metal burying its vocals or at least rendering them unintelligible. What you should have said is, “certain forms of metal need good lyrics” — those forms of metal in which the lyrics are a) understandable and b) actually matter. For the most part, however, they don’t.
@Rob
I don’t think it’s a case of “they’re unworthy, so we won’t print them.” Not printing lyrics has more to do with letting the listener grasp their own meaning for the lyrics, and define the song on their own terms. Not to say that there aren’t black metal bands who don’t consider themselves above their listeners, of course.
My buddy and I just recently started screwing around and making our own songs. I can’t play any instruments, so I just do the vocals, which, in my case, are mainly screaming/growling, etc.
So then I started writing some lyrics. I’m not the best lyric-writer but it’s sort of fun in a way, I suppose. But as I was writing, I came to a revelation:
Why should I put any effort at all in composing intelligent, well-thought-out lyrics when nobody is going to understand what I’m saying anyway?
Lyrics may not matter to a lot of metal bands, but that’s a choice, and not a requisite one.
I used to be a coxswain on my high school rowing team. My first job was to steer the boat, and my second job was to keep my rowers pounding water as hard as they could just with my voice. It was kind of like freestyle metal, constant growling. And yes, 90% of the time the sounds of those words mattered more than what they meant, but I eventually developed a sense for which specific sounds to employ, depending on how salient I wanted to be in my teammates’ minds, or when I wanted them to key into a specific set of instructions.
I’ll use Converge as a prime (if not entirely metal) example. Jacob’s screeches may be foul and opaque, but after just a couple listens a tortured choke here and a snarled retort there can worm their way into the acclimated listener’s mind. It’s these devices that then bring the listener to the lyrics, whether it’s Norah Jones breathing on her microphone or Brent Hinds squealing like tree rodent in distress. It seems to take just one read-along to permanently associate those sounds with actual coherent thoughts. When they are intelligent thoughts, the effort to uncover them serves only to increase the reward upon subsequent listens.
Of course other times they’re just shit, and yes it’s just about how they sound. Like a Dr. Seuss poem. One giant, brutal fucking Dr. Seuss poem.
P.S. The letterhead in that picture makes me giddy. That recording space still exists, albeit it went through a stint as a bowling alley before being bought by an ex-hippie and turned back into a studio, “Black Dog Media.” I interned there and besides a copy of “Kill ‘em All” on a mantle I had no real visual affirmation of the place’s pedigree.
Agree completely, Cosmo. In fact, I was having a slight debate with someone defending NSBM because “the lyrics don’t really matter, and they’re not in English anyway,” as if willful ignorance somehow absolved them. I even used that same foreign language film example that you did.. ultimately neither of us were moved, though.
Regardless, when it comes to why lyrics are important in metal, I always use the same example: Circle of Dead Children. Many dismiss them as “goregrind” because they have gurgles and breakdowns; because of how they sound, they simply assume the lyrics to be about raping a dead woman’s stillborn fetus (or whatever). Instead they have lyrics about consumerism (Android 120 Ampere Opiate), nuclear fallout and its aftermath (Bring Her a Mushroom Cloud & Avatar of Innocence ), joining the army (Germinate the Reaper Seed), mythical snake vampires (Jaracaca), the folly of short-sighted differences that separate mankind (No Tears Fall Through Hollow Eye Sockets) the 9-to-5 drone (Two Week Notice), and criminals who have been exalted as heroes (Barbarians and Henchmen).
The following Host(age) is about environmental devastation:
“Swell and swallow
Licked by gray tongues of insatiable and greedy wolves
There is no famine, no drought, nor dearth
Many lifetimes away from sincerity, from commitment, from honesty
And yet the wolves still feed and fatten us for abolishment
Covet the seeping fumes as all skull content ferments
Look yourself in the eye and suck it in
Suck it in, suck it in
Spit it out into the green grasses while they still remain that way
Bloodied blemishes in the comatose Earth where your cancer abandoned its host
Rest and ferment, three degrees from a zombie
A trillion thoughts from a solution
All I can seem to do is sleep and dream of a world in technicolor-green
No better than a limbless blind man
More useless than a ball-gagged scream
Indefinite journeys toward a revolution that will char the soils back to tranquility
Until then its hosts will be held hostage”
Musically they are a great band, but because they have great lyrics as well they are elevated to be one my favourite bands. Joe Horvath is a poet who just happens to growl deeper than Frank Mullen.
tl;dr Lyrics are part of the band’s package, whether you care for them or not. But by ignoring the lyrics you could be missing out on some really great ones.
Great lyrics can make a good band great, and in my opinion greatness cannot be achieved with shitty song lyrics.
For good examples of why lyrics matter, see ‘The Four Horsemen’ vs ‘Mechanix’, or ‘FFF’ vs ‘Bullprick.’
When it comes to non-metal, it’s almost all about the lyrics for me. Sure, it helps when there are good arrangements/melodies to serve as vehicles for those words, but I’ll gladly excuse music that isn’t that exciting when the words are worth listening to.
Now to some extent, I can understand the argument that metal can get away with being the exact opposite, as the focus usually seems to be the overall vibe/impact/musical prowess and not necessarily the words, however, I agree with Cosmo that it’s irresponsible to ignore the words entirely. Do you really need to know the lyrics to, say, an Autopsy song in order to enjoy it? Blah blah blah disease, blah blah pain/torture. No – the primal force of the music speaks for itself, but the lyrics are still part of the equation even if you’re not necessarily paying attention to or understanding them. That is, would you still listen to it if the lyrics were delivered with the exact same diction/rhythm/feeling/etc, but instead advocated white power, or something likewise disagreeable? I’m guessing probably not.
For me, the biggest hurdle nowadays with metal lyrics comes from actually memorizing them and associating those feelings/images with the song rather than just treating them as a separate text. I’ll always read them over to see what the song’s about, but there are very few new bands whose lyrics I know through and through in the same way that I do for Metallica/Megadeth/Maiden. A lot of great lyrics (and plenty more retarded ones) are passed over just because the indecipherability/delivery of so many metal vocalists makes it such a chore to become familiar with lyrics. It can be hugely rewarding and really enhances the songs in some cases, it just sometimes requires a substantial time investment.
Great article.
Shame on the vast number of disagreers.
I actually sit with CD’s/albums that have lyrics and read along with the songs if I’m really into the band. I can’t wait to do this with the new Agalloch. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve liked a song and then read the lyrics and it takes it to a whole other level. If the lyrics didn’t matter, why wouldn’t death metal bands just grunt and scream instead of writing lyrics?
I think that’s why hardcore in particular is so popular. Folks can relate and can sing every word along with the band. The lyrics DO matter in that case. Can you imagine hardcore with no singalongs?
I
“I hate record reviews that begin with something like, “‘You’re all I ever had / You’re no better than bad’, sings Indie Rock Singer on Indie Rock Album“.”
Oops! I think I’ve started a few indie rock gig reviews like that.
I’m a lyrics guy. I knew every word to the 90’s alterno rock that I was into as a teen. In metal I have found far fewer memorable lyricists – so I still seek out lyrics in other genres.
An interesting question is why aren’t lyrics better in modern metal?
from a musical standpoint the vocal rhythm is more important than the content of the lyrics imo. at least this is true of extreme metal where the vocals are basically an effect as opposed to being used as a musical instrument.
I happen to enjoy learning lyrics through multiple listens. It brings me the same pleasure as gradually discovering all the nuances of the musical arrangement. Expecting me to read a lyric sheet for your song because that’s the only way to understand what you’re saying is like asking me to pore over your guitar tabs because your album production sucks. If you have ideas you want to communicate, then focus on getting them across without relying on crutches.
If it’s more important to a vocalist to sound like some B-movie demon than to ensure listeners can understand the words to the songs, lyrics obviously aren’t a priority for the band. If I can’t hear the bass guitar because it got buried in the mix, am I supposed to track down sheet music so I can fully appreciate the song? I’m more than willing to devote my full attention to an interesting piece of music for as long as it takes to fully digest it, but if aspects of it remain impenetrable, why should I care what the band thinks they have to say?
Also, the analogy to subtitles on a foreign film is spurious unless you’re talking about a song with intelligible lyrics in a foreign language.
listen to SLAYER!!!
good fucking lyrics… makes the music even better,,, its really nice to sing along at a SLAYER live show.
I gotta say, I happen to like lyrics as well; it is the only bummer about the greatness that is Anaal Nathrakh
Sorry to have sat on this one for so long, but: I think that the importance of lyrics is defined by role they are given by the artist that releases the recording. If your release contains prominent vocals, adequately enunciated and given a key role in the composition, then the lyrics those vocals express are important. Conversely, if your release buries the vocals in the mix, expresses the lyrics unintelligibly, hides them in the last minute of the track or processes them beyond recognition, then the lyrics simply aren’t important to the song, even if you claim they are.
Modern metal clearly tends more to the latter than the former. I am sure some metal lyricists are offended by my unsubtle relegation of their work, but they conspired with me to do it – if the lyrics were really that important, they would have saved them for the acoustic side project release they’ve been considering. It’s great if metal bands write lyrics as well as they are able to, but the format fundamentally means that their importance is constrained.
This is to that guy who thinks that twatter and facecrap invented non-violent resistance (too lazy to scroll back up). Go read Letters From a Birmingham Jail or anything from Ghandi. And another thing, this is for the indie dweeb. Those lyrics from the 90’s were just oh so memorable. Can I listen to more 16 year olds whining about getting dumped. Next time sou plays any of that garbage on their “flashback” segment I’m shooting my radio.
I agree. I remember being an adult, visiting one of the first net places (internet was not that accesible ten years ago) in my hometown and browsing through the DarkLyrics.com constantly. Once, where I come from was not that easy to find certain records I was interested in. However, reading the lyrics of Emperor’s “In the Nightside Eclipse” (for example) I kind of felt the magic of this beautiful album before I even listen to this. In my opinion, half of a record’s value depends totally on the lyrical themes, especially if they’re damn good! How could we ever praise the ink of mr. Holmes (Paradise Lost) if we had never paid attention to his lyrics. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters is another great example also.
**It is, though, true that sometimes we choose to ignore some silly texts and still be able to enjoy the musical content of a band. Ok, we’re talking about music after all, not poetry.
Cheers. Great article.
Hey Cosmo
great article (as always)! The scene needs more minds like yours.
P.s. please get in touch.