Another Ben's Philosophy Of Popular Music

I suppose if you're trying to write a philosophy of popular music the first question you should address is why people are involved (in writing) in the first place. Now I know you can't give a reason for everything that everyone has ever written because it's all too grey - writing is totally subjective - but here's some ideas as to what people might be trying to achieve. I'll start on a totally personal level.
i. money/success - it's a great cliche “All I ever cared about was making music”. Bollocks. If all you ever cared about was making music you would have sat at home in your bedroom and played by yourself, okay maybe you would have shared with friends, but you wouldn't have tried to have as many people as possible hear your music, there has to be some other reason for this.
ii. recognition - who believes in the romantic notion of the artist? I guess this opens up the whole `what is art' bag of worms, but let's say the ultimate goal of any artist in any medium is to gain recognition for his or her work. This is certainly applicable to popular music, and can work on many levels. A musician can want recognition of their talents, they can want recognition of all the beautiful possibilities that music holds, they can pour all their hopes and fears, ideas and truths into their work, hoping that they will be accepted, that people might make them feel okay. The list goes on. Feel free to add your own reasons.
iii. passion/delerium. People, for whatever reason, love music. We simply get caught up in it. What better reason for making music to share with the world, than simply that you can, that you know what you're doing is right.

The mechanics of music

We all know what differentiates music from noise - the qualities of rhythm and note are the framework around which all forms are written. We also know how to classify types of music such as classical, jazz, rock & dance. But it is possible to sort songs into the spirit they were written in? Here are some basic ideas.
In painting, critics place works into two categories. Romanticism (Idealism) and Expressionism (also Impressionism). It may be possible to evaluate songs similarly.
The goal of the romantic song is to fulfill a common idealistic notion, be it love, hate, fear, bliss or any other feeling (or situation). Its devices are accessible, non-specific lyrics and predetermined subject matter which will appeal to the lowest common denominator and often (probably almost always) remain consistent throughout the piece.
As the listener need not have experienced the notions contained within the work, the author/performer need not necessarily have experience themselves.
With expressionist work the author will more often than not, also be the performer, due to the more personal nature of the piece. The lyrics will be more subjective (though they may be specific to the writer, this may not be actually conveyed through the song), and may well repeatedly change throughout. The expressionist would also rely more on inspiration from his/her own experience than from shared views.
The ideas I have taken from modern art criticism may be useful in evaluating songs, but they are probably too deterministic to be applied to all works as they view lyrics as the most important feature.
I'd like to finish in contradiction, with the idea of lyrics as an extention of music. There isn't really a right or a wrong idea when it comes to writing songs, but some work has stronger quality to it than others. This idea suggests that music can validate itself - once a basic melody has been written, then the layers which are added (bass, lead guitar, samples, etc.) can only be judged by that original melody. And the lyrics are no more or less important a feature. If the tune is happy, so should be the lyrics, again if the tune is spooky, angry, lazy or stark, the same for the words, they are neither idealistic or impressionistic merely existing as part of the whole.

by Ben Holliday.