Quote:
Originally Posted by artcika
Hapiness, however, is happiness. It always comes off as, well, happiness. Maybe that's why it's not so interesting.
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This. Andrenekoi, it's not personal taste alone, though that does enter into it. There's a difference between music as "art" and music as "entertainment." Entertainment is to be enjoyed; art is to be examined. Which one is which is up to the beholder, but I think it's safe to say that music that comes from negative feelings is far more likely to be art - subtle, nuanced, complex, and to me, more interesting. Music that comes from a happy place is gonna be more entertaining - simple, fun, most likely very solidly crafted and well-manufactured for consumption and enjoyment by most people (myself included, I DO like happy music a good deal of the time, it's just not my preference).
For those who listen to music as a form of escapist entertainment, a simple, content song is certainly preferable to musical sobfests. But for people who listen to music because they like hearing that someone understands how they feel, because they like having a sort of one-sided conversation with the musician, because they enjoy hearing how complex emotions are expressed musically, then music with at least some negativity to it is just plain more interesting.
I listen to too much music; when too much of it is simple, it's really dull and it all blends together. So I prefer sad music to happy music, like, 80-85% of the time.
There's already only a few different kinds of happiness. Luckily for my music taste, most of them at least have a negative counterpart to them - there's relief, for instance, after a long period of hardship or after a nerve-wracking experience. And there's also excitement, which by definition has a negative counterpart that you need to refer to for context. (for instance, "my work week sucked, so I'm excited about this weekend!")
If you're happy in a more profound, lasting sense - if you're content rather than excited or relieved - it's REALLY hard to write anything with any gravity to it. It's easy to just write "Everything's good, everything's fine, nothing's wrong - I got my house and my lover and my pets and my mom and some awesome co-workers & friends. How about you?" but is that gonna resonate with anyone? Not bloody likely. More likely it'll just piss them off because their lives aren't that dialed in.
I mean, think about it - when someone asks you how you're doing, the polite response is something like "Oh, just fine!" because no one wants to hear any more detail than that. And if you're fine, there's no detail to give! There's no story to tell without some kind of pain that you're growing from; there's no heroic tale without evil to vanquish.
Now, on the other hand, there are a TON of different negative feelings to write about - anger, mourning, fear, anxiety, doubt, low self-esteem, rejection, general malaise, embarrassment, and any combination of those since so many of those can lead to one or more of the others. And the specific situations that cause those things are manifold as well, and when you hear a song that sounds like it's totally about you, like it's about something you went through, the feeling of relief and calm and solidarity is immeasurably important to some of us.
I know, Andrenekoi, that you absolutely hate that I prefer when Ayu expresses negative feelings in her work, but I feel like her talent for nuance is wasted on joy. I think conveying complex emotions IS what she's best at, it's what MANY of her listeners prefer, not just me (and it's certainly what got her popular in the first place).
Besides, so few artists feel any need to express themselves when they're content. Contentment isn't a feeling you want to get out, it's something you wanna keep snuggled up inside you forever, you know? It's a struggle to get happiness out of our hearts and onto a piece of paper. Or a note on our phones.
For a very long time, the reason Ayu was able to write as much as she did (and as well as she did for her age) was because of the sorrow she felt, and her desire to treat negativity as something that wasn't necessarily bad. Because it's NOT! The human condition is about finding a balance between them - if you acknowledge the sadness within you, it can't sneak up on you and take you by surprise. If you address the things that cause you pain, that pain can heal better. Science has proven, for instance, that poking a bruise actually accelerates healing. Same goes for the pain in our minds & hearts - catharsis doesn't work, no, but you have to examine and diagnose problems in order for them to be fixed. You have to nurture both the dark and light parts of yourself, and Ayu has always known that. Her happy songs, at their best, are statements of relief or excitement - when she writes about happiness, it's always better if she does so with the sadness there as a contrast.
If "Dearest" was when she started truly liking her job, I can understand that - that's one of her best "happy" songs because it's so multifaceted. It's about "things suck sometimes, but you're there and you make it go away." It's about "I wasn't any good at this romance stuff at first, but we're together now and that's fantastic." It's not just "Yay! happy! Everything's great!" like many happy pop songs are.
When Ayu writes in a more 100% content way we get songs like "Hello new me" which isn't TOTAL drivel - it has some touches that elevate it above that - but it's pretty damn close.