Welcome to Gaia! ::

You guys seem to place a lot of emphasis on the lyrics. In my opinion they lyrics are useless unless the musicians can make good use of their instruments.
For me a couple of guitars and a set of drums dosn't cut it, you can make excellent music with just these things but the music that I really love makes use of a wider variety of instruments.
Take for example classic rockers who incorperated the sax into the music, or the rock/folk musicians who do amazing things with violins/fiddles or banjos.

The intro to the song has a HUGE part for me on whether or not it is a 'good' song... if the music of the song plays with the vocals (if there are any), or if there's great expression within the melody / accompaniment, it helps... Ultimately, the genre, message, and intended audience determine whether a song is 'good' or not...

For example, you probably won't hear a lot of 'good' songs that have a Jazz / Easy Listening rhythm with Opera vocals, but each in their own genre could be very good songs in their own right.

Take 'Gollum's Song' from the LOTR: The Two Towers OST ... I think this is a good song, as it has lyrics that tell a story, as well as a musical accompaniment that helps illustrate the picture the lyrics portray along with feeling and flow. Both could be taken apart from each other and be both understandable and entertaining, but also work very well and reinforce the other when put together. Furthermore, the overall attitude of the song reflects the namesake fairly accurately to boot.

If I had to generalize, I'd probably hold the following priorities:

1 - Lyrics (the message being conveyed) *if included*
2 - Melody / counter melody and message that conveys
3 - Message(s) conveyed can be attributed to an aspect of my life I can recognize, or make me reflect on things in life in general (preferably multiple times throughout the song)
4 - Significant changes in expression *when vocals are absent*
5 - Matching messages between vocals and musical accompaniment *if applicable*
6 - A rhythm that is both traceable / consistent, but not too repetitive ( the beat may stay the same, but the expression in how it is implemented changes throughout the song)
7 - Simplicity / complexity of the musical accompaniment without being too restrictive or overly chaotic

Also... charts mean nothing to me... there are plenty of 'popular' songs that don't qualify as 'good' songs imo

To me there are no "new" songs, every chord has been thought out a limited number of sequences to put them in, you can try and innovate music, but more than likely it's been done before.

Therefore lyrics are more important to me, they tell the story alongside the melody, you can create a melody and any lyrics can go with them, but if the lyrics tell a story then their gold, I mean just look at the songs that have lasted throughout the ages, "Somewhere over the Rainbow" "Unchained melody." All of these songs can really be sniffed at when it comes to creative music, but the lyrics is what makes them stand out.

i don't really see why "meaning" and lyrics are so important, it's all relative, you take away whatever you want from it. I mean the lyrics to this song are, quite literally, meaningless. It's still a fantastic song though. That's not to say that I don't like lyrics or anything, I just don't put as much importance on them as people around here, i guess sweatdrop

i find the only time lyrics are important is when i'm listening to hip hop because it's pretty much all lyrical


I don't know what makes a good song, all I know is that if I listen to it and I like it, then i'm happy

This, though I believe that if the band is musically talented enough, they can get away with writing about chickens running around with their heads cut off and still make it into a catchy song.