What Makes Music Good?

What is the criteria? Are there different kinds of good?

IMO all music taste is subjective. There are, however, some factors that actively condition us into liking music, but at this point i'm only generalizing and inventing as I go on, without any data to back my assertion, so take it with a grain of salt.

IMO, some of the factors that condition us to like a song:

-we can relate to it in the sense that it describes an event that has happened to us, whether that event is pleasant or unpleasant (ie: feeling in love/breaking up)
-we heard it when we were young and its been stuck in our head ever since (nostalgia)
-it describes a complex sentence/feeling in simple terms through analogies
-it is catchy (ie: it relies on simplicity, focusing almost exclusively on the melody line, which is part of the reason why many of us remmember 8-bit era videogame music)

Some personal examples follow (take notice these are only relevant to me)





The first (description of an event):

the second (nostalgic music):

Being born in spain, i like many pop musics from that time simply because my mother kept playing them in the  car cd player. In many cases I dont even like the lyrics, but the tune itself makes me associate the sound with those memories. This one i both like and find nostalgic

the third (describing complex situations/feelings in simpler terms through analogies):



the forth (its catchy):

a dubstep track with not much into it, except the sound makes you keep humming it long after listening. Years pass and you still remmember it.

I personally take that stance that "there is such a thing as good music and bad music". I also take the stance that there is an objective definition of music that we should use. Take this woman for example:

I do think there is such a thing as bad music, but that is up to my subjective tastes. The reason why when we listen to nature and the world (and that woman) and we dont think of it as music, is probably because the sound isn't repeating itself. There is no pattern we can recognize. And human beings are notoriously known for finding patterns everywhere.

So if a sound doesnt have a pattern of some sort, there might be an objective argument that it isnt music.

A trend ive noticed in my humble study of music history is that new genres are becoming more "fragmented" in their use of sounds, pushing the limits of what we consider to be music. example:

Listen to at least 40 seconds in so you get an idea of the drums he is using. Even though it sounds completely random, there is actually a pattern there. Its just so fragmented that at first sound you might not be able to recognize it.

In this case, there is a discernible 4/4 time, but very few people would enjoy this sort of music, or even accept that it was music.

In conclusion, music definition CAN BE objective, but music taste is not. And even within music taste, there MAY be objective factors (those 4 i included in the beginning of this post).