Sad Songs

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Sterling asks:

"is "sad" music necessarily part of a well-balanced diet anyway, or is it like candy -- something we indulge in but are better off without?"

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 9 September 2002 09:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I think this is an important question, as I've come to think sometimes that listening to 'sad' music (music that plays off and indulges my own feelings of sadness) is a symptom of something unhealthy and wrong and needing-sorting-out in my life. i.e. while music can act as an anaesthetic you do still need to operate.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 9 September 2002 09:28 (twenty-three years ago)

I think it's something we are better off without. I believe ppl who listen to just 'sad' music can dig a blackhole for themselves and that is not good.

There is a lot of music that is just music, neither happy nor sad and if we realize this then that can be the way out.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 9 September 2002 09:40 (twenty-three years ago)

Neither. Sad music is essential. A lot of the music I like is sad, eg Nick Drake, Red House Painters, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young etc. Sad music helps me overcome depressions and is like a medicine. This may sound pathetic but for me it is like a good friend I can listen to when I am down and it gives me consolation and comfort. There is this feeling of not being alone when I listen to sad music.

But maybe we should define more clearly what sad means. Almost all music I love is melancholic but I wouldn't call it sad. Take The Smiths for example.

I find the equation sad=unhealthy extremely annoying, Tom. To my ears that almost sounds like entartete Musik, you know that was what the Nazis called Jazz...

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Monday, 9 September 2002 09:59 (twenty-three years ago)

but sad songs say so much!

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 9 September 2002 10:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I think sadness can be listened to if the music is good (joy division) or if the lyrics don't wallow in sadness only...they have something else like a sense of humour (Smiths).

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 9 September 2002 10:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Sad music helps me overcome depressions and is like a medicine. This may sound pathetic but for me it is like a good friend I can listen to when I am down and it gives me consolation and comfort. There is this feeling of not being alone when I listen to sad music.

Alex it doesn't sound pathetic to me AT ALL - in fact I used to feel exactly the same way, still do sometimes but I also started wondering if the sad music was a way of justifying or avoiding my depression/situation rather than its helping me deal with it.

Of course you're right to point out that most melancholy music actually is a lot of other things as well.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 9 September 2002 10:06 (twenty-three years ago)

Julio hits the nail on the head, often you find people who only listen to sad music create such massive meaning and value for it that other forms of music are forever inferior to them, I don't think it's a good idea really to listen to just music which depresses them. Julio's last sentence is spot on.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 9 September 2002 10:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Everyone, without fucking fail, would refer to anything I put on the stereo at school as being 'depressing'. No matter what it was, they didn't fucking recognise it, 'DEPRESSING!!!' One favourite episode of mine was when I put volume three of 69 Love Songs on - about a minute in, it gets ripped out and they put Capital on, then shoved the speakers against my ears whilst yelling the lyrics to 'Don't Stop Moving' in ten-inch-thick Essex accents.

The thing is, with me, most of the stuff people classify as 'happy' music just really pisses me off. S Club 7 just seems like the nadir of this, the myowling about DJ's - what the fuck you know about DJ's? Dr fucking Fox, that what you're saying? The whole contrived nature of it (and I KNOW there's about seven billion ways you could construe something as being contrived, and I KNOW that includes Belle and Sebastian, I DO NOT CARE), 'Look! Look! We're having a good time - why aren't you? Here's why - you're WEIRD!' I hate it when music does that, the whole 'excluding' thing, and 'happy' songs do this much more than 'sad' ones - at least, they might do in principle. Every single Starsailor song that I have heard appears to contain lines that could be followed by the words 'unlike me, cos I'm ace', for instance.

I would much rather listen to my 'depressing' albums than that. I'm with alex, I do believe, in that the 'sad' stuff often puts me in a better mood. Calms me down, which, more often than not, I do rather need. And I can sing along to it one fuck of a lot better too. I do that with 'happy' songs as well, but the 'sad' songs I just find I can identify with better. For some reason.

And you can dance to it, too, on occasion. Witness my 'air flailing' to Thirteen Gliding Principles. (I'd love for someone to notify the indie DJ's that dancing to How Soon Is Now? is never a good idea, though...)

― Mr Swygart (mrswygart), Monday, 9 September 2002 11:16 (twenty-three years ago)

''Dr fucking Fox''

heh, before reading Swygart's post this caught and I thought: why does he talk abt Pinefox in this way. But of course, it's the capital radio DJ.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 9 September 2002 13:52 (twenty-three years ago)

is it true that pinefox was playing beanie sigel in the run up to the local weather this afternoon? or wsa it memphis bleek?

― gareth (gareth), Monday, 9 September 2002 15:19 (twenty-three years ago)

(ha gareth, today for my own amusement i photoshopped "i <3 beanie sigel" onto the pf's purple jumper.)

― mitch lastnamewithheld, Monday, 9 September 2002 16:56 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the musical signifiers of "sad" music. Slower tempos, minor keys, slight dissonance, etc. Lyrical content could be about rainbows and bunnies, I don't care. I just like the pure sound of sad music.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Monday, 9 September 2002 20:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Sad music, like any other music, is best enjoyed when it contains either a good hook/riff (e.g. Joy Division), melody (e.g. Lou Reed's Sad Song from "Berlin", with that gorgeous violin bit) or beat (e.g. DJ Shadow) that almost conceils the intrinsic sadness of the music and, thus, makes you feel ok/up. At least you feel good because the music gives you that feeling.

When I'm sad and I listen to music, it doesn't matter if the music's sad or not, as long as it makes me feel good, it works.

(am I making any sense to you all?)

― willem, Tuesday, 10 September 2002 07:34 (twenty-three years ago)

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