What do you look for in a song?

Depends on the genre of music. For classical stuff I prefer a more moody/somber tone to the song (i.e. Moonlight Sonata Mvt.1&3). Overly upbeat stuff just isn’t my preference for that genre and tends to sound jarring in my opinion. For electronic all I need is a heavy bass, a nice drop buildup, and a high degree of variance between the drop itself and everything else (the song doesn’t sound samey in terms of both chord progression, loudness, etc.). For generic pop garbage all I really care about are vocals that sound decent and a beat that’s easily distinguishable. For stuff like rap, and to a lesser extent rock, I again prefer a more moody/aggressive tone to things. The overly peppy and cheerful styles I think sound horrible. A lot of this stuff varies from genre to genre. I don’t mind a more upbeat tone for say a house track but if that same upbeat tone were carried over to a classical track I would hate it.

If it's loud, the melodies are great (fast and/or heavy) and have great electric guitars, and the vocals are great (that is to say, yelled or growled 99% of the time)

If I'm not listening to heavy metal, then I'm okay with calmer and/or upbeat stuff but everything else still applies except vocals; I haaaate almost all vocals except heavy metal vocals

Creativity above all else. When I'm listening to music I don't want to hear lazy repetition of the same pattern over and over, I'm sure almost everyone in this thread feels the same way. I'd much rather listen to something unique that can portray emotion in a way that no other medium or song could. Because a lot of the music I listen to is instrumental, it's even harder for artists to reach this mark of true perfection. When I listen to music with lyrics I try to hear the words as an instrument to judge them fairly, and because of that 90% of anything I hear on popular stations is just awful in my eyes. I feel the same way about most EDM outside of Newgrounds or the osu! community because it all blends together as bland and uninteresting.

I have to like it...

That's it

Oh and Pianos, nothing can go wrong with pianos

For most songs, I'm mostly just looking for creativity and theme. The lyrics need to have substance in some way – it could tell a story through subtle means, or it could be an angry rant in the form of a rap. Meaningful lyrics should start discussions or allow the listener to contemplate their ideas. A problem with a lot of contemporary pop, R&B, and some recent genres like trap is that they might have a catchy beat or melody, but beyond the surface, they're rather meaningless.

Think about a song like Despacito and you'll realize that it's just another recycled love song that's been used one million times. Or how a rap song (if it could be called rap) like Gucci Gang is literally just some entitled rich brat talking about what drugs and luxury junk he bought. Or how It's Everyday Bro is just a brainless diss track made by an equally mindless person.

I'm personally not the biggest fan of EDM, since there's not much substance to dig into besides a good melody and beat, though some artists are able to do a pretty good job of expressing emotion or themes through their music, even without lyrics, and if you can do that, you're incredible.

what i've learned is a lot of people dislike hip-hop and rap here, but i mostly look for originality, fitting beats, tone of voice, wordplay, rhymes and lyrics

It depends of what I want to listen to basically, sometimes I want good melodies, maybe if I'm sad I need beautiful, grounded and depressing or uplifting lyrics, or rap songs with a great flow, perhaps more of its conscious side or I need a bangin' beat... or how about something centered on experimentation and innovation? You can never tell.




Basically I want something to catch my attention with its quality