The Measure of a Good Song

What makes a song great?  What differentiates a merely good song from one that proves to be transcendent?  Certainly the answer is subjective, as what one individual believes to be a well-constructed song might come across as trite and formulaic to another.  A certain dissonance, a jangly thumb in the eye of the pop formula, might strike you as a master stroke of musical deconstruction and leave me clammy.

I have many criteria for evaluating a song, from its lyrics and its instrumentation to the use of vocal harmonies to convey subtext to the lyrics.  A happy song is one that makes me want to stand up and dance, no matter where I am – at home, in a club, on a Metro platform.  I often joke that the best songs make me want to dance like I’m a character in a Peanuts cartoon.

Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (Within Me a Madman Sings), the second track on the new Sigur Rós album, is just such a song.  If a song can capture the joy of skydiving, of hurtling through the air at 10,000 feet at speeds in excess of 100mph, this song does.  A radical sonic departure from their previous work, which in all honesty often sounded like the soundtrack to cosmic dolphin pornography, Inní mér is robustly instrumented.  Just when the song has settled into a comfortable sonic spot in your brain, around 2:10, a jaunty gypsy rhythm kicks in that punctuates the remainder of the song.  This song is the sound of unqualified joy, and not coincidentally now the name of my blog category devoted to music.

I haven’t the foggiest idea what Jónsi is singing.  He could be lampooning the gullibility of American consumers in his native Icelandic (or his equally native, imaginary “Hopelandic”), but I have a feeling that understanding the words would only enhance the joy one achieves from listening to the song.

I’ve already featured the beautiful (and decidedly work-unsafe) video for Gobbledigook, the opening track on Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust (With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly).  Working with the master record producer Flood, the band achieves a visceral quality to their music that matches the unbridled sensuality of their video.

Although these two tracks aren’t indicative of the tempo of the entire album, they serve as a demarcation point of sorts.  Even mid- and down-tempo numbers like Við spilum endalaust and Með suð í eyrum (collectively, the two halves of the album title) are imbued with a new vitality.  The album is also the first to feature a track, All Alright, sung in English.

I’m not suggesting you go out and buy or sit there in your PJs and download the album (from your friendly Intertubes music store).  I’m merely saying that your day won’t be as joyful if you don’t.