Singing versus Music

Lana and I had an interesting discussion yesterday about our musical tastes. Hers are much more eclectic than mine. She likes Metallica and Frank Sinatra, Barry Manilow and Motley Crue. I hesitate to say it, but she also likes some….disco. Me? I like hard rock and heavy metal. And that’s pretty much it.

In our discussion yesterday, I had a bit of an epiphany about my own musical tastes. That is, I like music that is heavy on the music, and I don’t care about the singing. Lana appreciates both aspects of music, but—for me—the singing is simply…meh. I won’t listen to music just for the sound of the singer’s voice. The music itself has to be catchy and, generally, full of energy and intensity.

I’m going to link to some examples to illustrate my points. First up is “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele. I’ve listened to this song several times with Lana and apparently I always say I like it. However, I never seem to remember it next time Lana mentions it, as she did yesterday. So I went and listened to it with my new thoughts on the subject. It’s a good illustration of my point. First let me say, I really like the singer’s voice modulation in this song. However, “Rolling in the Deep” is about the singing, not the music. In fact, to me, the music is virtually non-existent, and is not really important to the effect of the song. It’s all about the voice. 

In contrast, after watching the Adele video, I felt a need for some heavier stuff. I called up “Albatross” by Corrosion of Conformity. Instantly, a surge of energy swept through me. I became aware of my heartbeat, of the taste in my mouth, of the way my eyes moved in their sockets. My fingers started to drum. Other than the word “albatross,” I scarcely know what the singer is saying in this song. Nor do I care. This song is about the music. The voice is a compliment at best. 

I decided to give another work a listen, and chose “Angel” by Sepultura, which is a remake of a Massive Attack song. The music here starts out very slow. It’s almost non-existent, much like in the Adele song. First there are just the words of the singer. But then the music starts to build, it starts to hammer, it starts to scream. My scalp tingles. My body flushes hot and cold. I didn’t see them but I know my pupils dilated. The voice of the singer is mostly just a shriek now. There’s no Adele level modulation of the voice. In fact, half the time he isn’t singing real words. I don’t care. This is what I listen to music for—the power and the glory. 

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Musical Influences

Does music influence your writing? How so? Do you listen to music while you write? And, if so, what kind of music? What groups?

To answer these questions for myself, I never listen to music while actually writing fiction, although I do sometimes while writing non-fiction or miscellania like emails and reports. The reason is that fictional prose has its own music to me, and listening to outside music interferes with the inner music that I need to feel to get into the proper rhythm. Non-fiction is more about the facts than about the music, and hearing outside music doesn't bother me as much.

However, music has definetely influenced me. Listening to powerful music often makes me want to write, and sometimes whole visual scenes will pop into my head from hearing a snatch of song or a particular lyric. I've identified at least two cases in my writing where particular lyrics had influence on a title or the very phrasing of a sentence or paragraph (they're are probably many more), and for years I've been trying to write poetry that would have the power of U2's lyrics for "Bullet the Blue Sky."

As for the type of music that influences me, well there's classical, such as Holst's "The Planets" or much of Bach, there's hard rock, such as Z. Z. Top, and AC DC, and there's metal, such as Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, White Zombie. Metal has been by far the biggest influence. It was the metal bands who really began to sing about things other than girls and sex and drugs. And much of it was very dark and surreal. And the heavy lyrics were accompanied by a driving musical thunder that opened your very chest to the power.

At the moment, my band of choice is Rammstein, a German heavy metal band that only rarely sings in English. Last night, on the recommendation of several folks, I bought the Wolfmother CD, which is a band out of Australia. Wolfmother is pretty interesting because their songs are so filled with clearly identifiable musical influences, most of which, fortunately, I like. The primary sound of Wolfmother is a combination of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, but I picked up clear elements of Styx, Led Zepplin, The Yardbirds, and The Doors. I even heard some Jethro Tull and a fragment of the Clash. Fascinating, and they have a site on Myspace where you can go and listen to a few of their songs if you're considering them.