Surprise!

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Something that has always struck me as paramount to whether or not a song can reel me in is its predictability, or lack thereof. I am most engaged when a piece doesn't feed my expectations. Rather, when music stumbles on unfamiliar territory and manages to keep me tuned in - that's what interests me.

I know this isn't the case with most pop music, at least American pop. Mostly on US radio, surprise fuels a melody to the same degree that it is written by its singer. But how important is the element of surprise to music at large? Does a song have to take us places we would never have expected to be good?

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 5 November 2006 17:47 (eighteen years ago)

I agree with you most of the time, but there are instances were the sheer inevitability of a particular chorus, middle eight or what have you can be very satisfying. Can't think of any examples right now, too hungover.

― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Sunday, 5 November 2006 17:54 (eighteen years ago)

so true. i mean, sometimes it's almost like a gut reaction - like if you stray too much from what it seems like should happen, it just wouldn't feel right. like...

i don't know, i'm too foggy to come up with something too!

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 5 November 2006 17:56 (eighteen years ago)

I'm glad you asked this question. Bands with an active imagination, who aren't content to stay within one well-worn progression of method, but will strive to create original, thought-provoking music, are by definition bound to surprise their audience. The more 'good surprises' a band can successfully stun a listener with in the space of a gig/album/song, the better, in my opinion, and generally, this sort of music is my preference. (FUCK roots music, for instance. FUCK IT HARD.)

There are exceptions, and these are generally where the mood of the song so overwhelms the listener's imagination that pulling out and 'surprising' them with something else would actually be to the detriment of the experience.

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Sunday, 5 November 2006 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

right... the hard part is coming up with an example of one of those songs. you know, like a song whose chorus just had to be exactly the way it is.

Something by Depeche Mode, I feel... something like Blasphemous Rumors

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 5 November 2006 18:08 (eighteen years ago)

Or Enjoy the Silence.

― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Sunday, 5 November 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

exACTLY i was thinkin that

― Ramzi Awn (rra123), Sunday, 5 November 2006 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

i think inevitability is the reason instrumental choruses work so well. it's all about control of emotion. you cut off the linguistic and semantic input to the listener, along with the flow of discrete, well-defined semiotic flow and while the instruments wail it's pretty much free association for the listener. though the instrumental can make certain associations. there's a certain release at that boundary that is can be really intense.

back to the point, what's going on there is that you're forcing images on the listener and when you let go there's an inevitability, i'd say, of processing the listener will do about what was just said and where their own experiences can fit into it all.

my favorite example is weezer's "tired of sex".

― killa bee (killabee), Sunday, 5 November 2006 18:30 (eighteen years ago)

fuck being clever, hard -this thread is a good example of that.

― blunt (blunt), Sunday, 5 November 2006 22:31 (eighteen years ago)

I am a big fan of cleverness in service of a good idea (not that my addled posts often attest to this).

― chap who would dare to welcome our new stingray masters (chap), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:01 (eighteen years ago)

I actually meant 'trying to be clever'

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:12 (eighteen years ago)

Trying to be clever != giving one's own personal opinion.

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:19 (eighteen years ago)

One's own personal? So it's really, really yours. But I disagree anyway.

And how come improvised music isn't often surprising?

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:28 (eighteen years ago)

Picking up on trivial drunken tautology as a means to crush an opponent = laughable

Improvised music = not often surprising because they have to work to a groove, which can't shift on a sixpence for fear of the instrumentalists falling out of synch and winding up in a (depressingly predictable) mess of awful noise.

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:34 (eighteen years ago)

Do you listen to any? Sorry I'm busy crushing opponents but I'll find time to reply.

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:35 (eighteen years ago)

Also, improvised music generally requires the instrumentalists sticking to one style on one instrument throughout, whereas a studio recording has the possibility of overdubs, production effects, different instruments, style changes, etcetera.

YES I've heard some improv. I've PLAYED some improv recently, in fact, a dialogue between my mate on sax and me on, erm, tooth-drum. :-)

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:39 (eighteen years ago)

In trivially drunken manner no doubt.

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

You are displaying all the characteristics of someone who's just lost an argument. :P

Before your inevitable retort, however, I shall take my (trivial and drunken, fnar) leave. Good-night!

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:44 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.sundayherald.com/img2328

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:45 (eighteen years ago)

*returns from sleep to acknowledge that there might have been extremely talented EXCEPTIONS to his statement. isolated ones, though.*

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 6 November 2006 00:50 (eighteen years ago)

i think really good songs have the best of both worlds, predictable and unpredictable. the predictable gives you good solid ground from which to explore the unpredictable. i think the best example of this is pere ubu, who write great hooks and repeat them in between tracts of ridiculous abstract noise. they're like little safe havens in what would otherwise be an uninviting and uninteresting mess.

― adam j (In Place of Something Clever), Monday, 6 November 2006 01:11 (eighteen years ago)

Ban Louis Jagger.

― struttin' with some barbecue (jimnaseum), Monday, 6 November 2006 02:09 (eighteen years ago)

ban him hard

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 6 November 2006 02:37 (eighteen years ago)

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