Do you care about the lyrics?

[SteveO]

If you listen to the incredible metal band Helrunar, it's in German but it adds to the ambience of their albums !!!!

I like this thread because I have an answer:

Importance of lyrics: 1%

Importance of music: 99%

As far as I remember, lyrics have always been the last thing I care about in music. I am always listening to the quality of the composition, the melody, the arrangements.

Sometimes it surprise me how much lyrics can be important to some people. I tend to think that they like more good texts, poems, words and rhyme than music itself; but because it would be boring to listen to these texts alone, music is added to enhance them. But basically these people don't search meaning in music, but in words.

Take for example this emotion: happiness.

Someone who prefers meaning in words will like a song with just acoustic guitar and someone singing a very good text describing the feeling of happiness with a melody that reflect what the person sing about.

Someone who prefer meaning in music will prefer an instrumental that depict very well the feeling of happiness.

Take for example Rammstein. They sing in German. I don't understand a word they say. But it's one of my favorite band. Their music just appeal to me. They are I think the most well known band from Germany so there is something more than the lyrics that the world like about them because outside Germany, German is not a common language.

Or when I listen to some black metal: I don't understand a thing they say. Try Cannibal Corpse and tell me if you can hear the lyrics; probably most fans are more interested in their music/riffs than some lyrics describing how you cut and dismember a body with pleasure.

I think most people are somewhere between words and music.

Mike Oldfield once said in an interview that he consider the human voice to be an instrument in itself, the mouth being the sound box. He has put words on what I think. I like voice, but I don't care about the lyrics it says.

Of course, some music I listened a lot to, I had no choice to listen to the lyrics and for some songs I ended up liking them. But for a good first impression, a song must please me musically.