YuriWong.com

Hey ho!
I’m featured in the February Issue of S’Factory’s e-Magazine, check it out here:

Link

I’ve noticed a trend among self-styled ‘music critics’ to lean towards a certain preference in music, namely the ‘indie rocks and pop sucks’ persuasion.

You wanna know what I think?

I think you suck and I rock.
Hahaha.
Don’t wet your pants; I’m just kidding.

What I really think is this: bad music sucks and good music rocks. And pop can be good, while indie can be bad and (naturally) vice versa.

So what are the standards for good or bad music?

There are none. It’s all subject to personal beliefs.
Of course, the ‘MTV-standard’ seems to rule over a fair number of people, but think about it - sticking to the ‘indie-rocks standard’ is just about as single-track-minded (nothing to do with you Alex) as the former. Just because The Mountain Goats’ music sounds like it was recorded with a portable cassette recorder (a lot of it was) doesn’t mean people can’t feel how good the music is. Conversely, just because pop-princess Britney’s music was written by someone else and sung in a gazillion-dollar studio (with pitch correction thrown in, very likely) doesn’t mean it can’t connect to some people.

My personal standards for what constitutes good music are these:

1. Emotion
Or, the efficiency of its transfer. Think of music as an egg which contains not soft-yellowy-cholesterol-rich-substances inside but a certain amount of emotion that the composer put into the song. The efficiency and efficacy of the song to elicit emotion shows how well (or badly) it was written to be able (or not) to do that.

2. Technique
I’m not talking about Steve Vai style. I’m just talking about knowing and having the right techniques for creating what you have in your head. It’s about sounds more than scales, about feelings more than harmony.

3. Prudence
A very important part of songwriting, to me at least, is this: the idea that a song shows some carefully thought-out choices in its creation. An indication that some craft that has been put into creating music. That doesn’t mean that a song like ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ doesn’t have prudence. I think it’s some wisdom (which, of course, has to be cultivated, and takes time) in deciding what to do or where to take a song.

What are yours? Have a think about it