Chicks Dig the Lyrics, Guys Dig the Beats
By rockman858 on Jun 14, 2010 in Features
There is a reason why Heavy Metal attracts more guys than girls. Why? Because you can barely understand the lyrics. Metal is surrounded by a crazy drummer playing heavy double bass beats accompanied by a couple of guitarists playing the fattest riffs as loud as possible. Truly head-banging music. Girls, in general, do not recognize with this. The tone and topics of the lyrics tend to push them away. Guys could care less, they just think that the guitar riffs or drums are bad ass.
Guys: have you ever been playing one of your favorite songs, rocking out in the car, and looked over at your girlfriend sitting there with a funny look on her face? That’s because she’s thinking, “I can’t understand what that singer is saying”. Thats ok. It goes both ways. What about when that one song comes on the radio and your girlfriend gets all excited and starts singing… “She’s just a small town girl…. Living in a lonely worlddd”. The guy thinks to himself, “I’m kinda sick of this song”. That is the way the world turns.
Guys tend to like the flow of the song. They like the energy and passion into the music. They tend to look at complexity of melodies and rhythms. Girls look for the energy and passion behind the vocals. Girls like to talk; they like to listen. Guys like to get their blood flowing. Of course, there are exceptions, However.
I recently heard a band debating what songs to put on their new EP coming out. They were deciding over two songs. One song was a more radio friendly song and a little easier on the ears, but the other song was by far more impressive musically speaking. They could not decide which one they wanted to release on the EP. The guitarist looked over at the bassist and drummer and said, “Well guys, it comes down to this: Chicks or Dicks?” He was talking about whether to release the song more pleasing to the females because of the catchier vocals, or to showcase their musical abilities.
I’ll let you know what their decision was when the CD comes out.
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I know what you mean.
But I I think that when people say “lyrics” they really mean the lyrics and the melody (and of course the quality of the singer’s voice.) The melody of course is a musical part of a song, many would say it’s THE musical part of a song.
And even music without a melody in the vocal – I’m thinking about hip-hop – has some musical qualities to the lyric delivery (the rhythm, of course.)
All that said, I agree that there are definitely people (often males) who listen more deeply to music as a whole, while there are also people (often females) who listen primarily to the vocals.
Maybe I’m sexist for thinking that the former implies greater intelligence? … But really, I know of quite a few examples of women who “get” music at a deeper level than just listening to the vocals.
There are, after all, women who play instrumental music.
Marvin Marks | Jun 15, 2010 | Reply
This seems like a ridiculous idea to me. I’ve never noticed a pattern of women preferring lyric-centric or less “deep” music than men. Perhaps if you were able to cite any sort of survey or study which suggests that, then a much more convincing argument could be made.
Also, I have to disagree with your choice of “Don’t Stop Believing” as a lyric- or melody-centric song. In my experience, it is a song with vast appeal for both sexes, and speaking as someone with even a modicum of musical knowledge, it obviously has very rockin’ parts which would also appeal to what you consider a masculine musical sensibility.
Let’s not come to antifeministic conclusions based on what we’ve noticed in our friends, please.
Katy | Jun 15, 2010 | Reply
let’s not pull the anti-fem card on this one. by no means am i sexist. i am sorry that i did not use a suitable example for yourself. more so, let me know exactly how many of your girlfriends would love to here a 10 minute musical jam over a typical 3 minute radio song in traditional song format. do the research yourself. if you prove me wrong, i will shake your hand.
ps: lyric-centric does not necessarily mean less deep. marvin raises a good point on this one. All i’m saying is that girls care more to what a singer has to say than guys do. Heavy metal would not be nearly as popular if this wasn’t the case.
rockman858 | Jun 15, 2010 | Reply
Hmmm, I know what you mean but I promise you that there is a lot of girls who doesn’t listen to the lyrics at all, I’m one of them=)
Erika | Jun 17, 2010 | Reply
Excellent analysis, Rockman. I think that if I DID choose my music based on lyrics rather than the instrumental performance, I would probably have never been a big fan of Van Halen. But if you don’t care about stupid lyrics and you think Eddie Van Halen was among the best guitarists in the history of recorded music then, well, you probably end up liking them quite a bit. It is interesting to note how men turn out to be more on the latter half. Although, like with all generalizations, there are some exceptions. I have a coworker who, indeed, is a big time fan of American Idol and music that sounds like that (and, yes, he is straight).
Dairenn | Jun 21, 2010 | Reply