Are vocals the most important part of a song?

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How about the great sounds of the Ventures or Dick Dale and his Del-tones.NO voc at all,maybe some purcussive voices here and there or perhaps some choral ooohs and aaaahs. Not at the forefront though.Those bands were pioneers. If your talkin about folk singers,diff story alltogether.I definently dont listen to G.Lightfoots,Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald for the dazzaling solos or intricate song structure.You need good vocals combined w/an epic story to pull that off.How about the Ghetto Boys/Gangsta of love.Without the vocal tracks all you have is a cut up Steve Miller track with no S.Miller vocals.What dose THAT mean?It's more than a one way street,some call ''art'' even.jt
 
sorry,didnt realize this was ''singer songwriter forum''.In this forum Ill say yes, the vocals are very important.
 
In my opinion, which is what youre asking for :p so that was redundant..
but I believe they do.. to an extent...
I think that it just depends on what the listener is listening for, what they can tolerate, and what draws them in or away..
:]
 
Terry Wetzel said:
geco zzed
if lyrics are not important at all,why bother? if lyrics are meant to be like another instrument. use another instrument!
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Because the human voice is a wonderfully expressive device, and there is nothing wrong with hearing the human voice 'played' like another instrument.

The voice is an instrument. It is an instrument that has the happy knack of being able to also convey meaning through language, but that is not its only role in the creation of music.
 
Like others said, it depends on the song (and the person listening to it) and what each person likes.

My wife like lyrics, and if they don't appeal to her, then that's that.

For me, some of the music I like I can't even understand the lyrics.

Sometimes it's the perfect combination of both. An example would be the greatest drinking/rocking band of all time: AC/DC.

Obviously, if I'm in the mood to ponder, it's Zepplin or something. I think. But when I just want to party, then it's something else.

If it says "oooh baby" then I'm uninterested no matter how good the music is.
 
Lyrics and vocals for are just important as any part of a song for me. It's just another element. It's dispensable. Half of what I listen to are usually instrumental in nature, and the music that I make is also instrumental in nature.

When I listen to Led Zeppelin's "When The Levee Breaks", the drums are the most important.

When I listen to Queen's "Under Pressure", the bass is the most important. All the rest is just even.

When I listen to The Beatles' "For No One", the french horn solo at the end is irreplaceable. All the rest is just the same.

When I listen to Elliott Smith though... the words are golden and he sings them perfectly.
 
I wouldn't say that they are the MOST important part of the song, but maybe somewhat important.
 
Wow! Interesting thread. Well are they? As should be obvious by now, that depends on the intent of the recording artist(s) and the recording engineer(s). I think with some artists, the intent is precisely to convey meaning through lyrics. This can be done effectively with some awful singing (Bob Dylan has been cited above), or with really good singing (Freddy Mercury has also been referenced). Sometimes the vocal really is just an instrument. The logical extension of this is Ella Fitzgerald's scat singing.

Sometimes artists change paradigm and intent over time, resulting in the difference between "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Back in the USSR". I think the real problem arises when the mixing and mastering engineers don't get it, and either place meaningless vocals up front and center, or they mix the lead vocal in a ballad down to the point of unintelligibility. That was my complaint with the first Nickel Creek CD. They mixed Sarah Watkins' delicate voice as if it was an instrument. It sat perfectly in the mix, and the story was lost completely. If you lose the story, you just lost David Wilcox and Maddy Pryor.

Often the balance between the story and the mix has to be a compromise, as with something like The Who, The Beatles, or The Eagles. In most of Country music, the story is a priority. In most of Disco, although it was vocal based music, it wasn't particularly important. Me, I'm a storyteller. It's what I do. It's all that I do. If a mixing engineer mixes my songs, and the lyrics are lost, I'll get a new mixing engineer. What does this mean to me? KCearl probably isn't going to buy my album. I'll sit up nights worrying about it. But it also means that when I mix something with vocals in it, I ask myself- does the story matter, really? If it does, there's going to be a little midrange boost applied, and the level of the lead vocal is going to come up until you can understand every word. The worst case scenario, of course, is when the diction of that lead singer sucks. Then you really are mixing Bob Dylan. When it gets to that point, you hope the story really is worth it. In the case of Bobby Dylan, it was.-Richie
 
most and I say most commercially successfully songs have beautiful lyrics.
Now when it comes to writing teams like Rogers and Hammerstein(SP ?) one would write great lyrics and the other great music. Together they and a multitude of others have their place in history.
It's the lyrics that emotionally move me and the music is the plate that it is served on.
To me if a song doesn't have great lyrics or a story to tell it better be a dam good instrumental with a good musical hook.
 
well the vocals aren't always the focal point of a song...but they still have to be good...but I hate overly technical singers or vocal gymnastics...john lennon and paul mccartney were excellent singers and never over sang in their tunes...
 
When considering most of my favorite artists from when I was younger until this point, I'm going to have to go with a "not at all" for this guy. It turns out that I either have no idea what they are saying most of the time, they don't have a vocalist, or I don't care what they're saying because their voice is an amazing instrument:

Pearl Jam (due to mumbles), Radiohead (swirly obscurity), The Mars Volta (not a chance, not even with 5 years of spanish class), Deftones (microphone consumption), The Blood Brothers (2 cats in a knife fight in a blender), Mono (no lyrics - I don't speak Japanese anyhow), Explosions in the Sky (no room for lyrics, too much awesome), Mogwai, GSY!BE, Silver Mt. Zion, Do Make Say Think, Dirty Three, Ours, Jeff Buckley (I would just hate to not include him in a list of fav artists), and Chris Cornell.
 
i agree this question can not be answered with yes or no.
most music has vocals, so we are used to it.
it's easier to deliver a message with words, than just with notes.
bad vocals or bad lyrics on the other hand destroy a song.

i love it when it all blends together, like when the sound of the guitar goes with the meaning of the words.
 
noisegames said:
i love it when it all blends together, like when the sound of the guitar goes with the meaning of the words.
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How the fuck does the sound of a guitar go with a meaning of a word?

If I wanna say "eat a bag of shit" in a song, what notes do I play?
 
Greg_L said:
How the fuck does the sound of a guitar go with a meaning of a word?

If I wanna say "eat a bag of shit" in a song, what notes do I play?
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E flat to D sharp......:D

I must admit, I've had problems with this idea for ever. You know, this kind of note evokes that kind of feeling which is contained in that set of words. It reminds me of the concept "it worked because we said it worked". You can fit any words to any notes. I think that's why songwriting has no limits other than the ones we place.
 
as an artist myself lyrics to me anyways r tha most important part of a GOOD song. it largely depends on wat kinda song u r tryin ta do tho.....i mean r u bullshittin or makin a song? get me
 
Kody said:
as an artist myself lyrics to me anyways r tha most important part of a GOOD song. it largely depends on wat kinda song u r tryin ta do tho.....i mean r u bullshittin or makin a song? get me
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What makes you think you're an artist?
 
Vocals roughly go into both sides of our brain (I'm no brain surgeon); Left gets the words, right gets the tune/melody along with all the other instruments.

The vocals are the most important part; when they don't work! Either the lyrics jar (in a bad way) with the vocal melody or if both the lyrics and melody jar with the arrangement.

Its all about context the voice can not be considered without reference to both the words and melody and then the vocal performance can not be considered in isolation from the accompanying arrangement/instrumentation.
 
The sounds of silence

I was exposed to classical music and various jazzy bits from babyhood and I remember as a child liking pieces like "Elizabethan serenade", "Hot butter" (or is it "Hot popcorn" ? I can never remember), "Dance with the devil" and "Eye level", the odd instrumental that made the charts, not to mention neat instrumental sections from songs like "Nantucket sleighride" and so many great TV theme tunes ("Hawaii 5-0", "Ask the family", "Ironside", "Match of the day") so the concept of instrumentals has never been alien to me. And getting further into classical, Irish/Celtic folk, Indian, Latin, jazz, psychedelia and progressive rock, instrumentals are for me just as valid as stuff with vocals. I love instrumentals. I love singing. I wouldn't even dream of pitting one against the other.
But the vocal is definitely not the most important part of an instrumental. :D
 
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