List The Following In Order Of Preference
 

Out of these 5 characteristics which do you rate as the most & least important when listening to music...........

1. Songwriting - Speaks for itself really. Do they have to have great songs for you to listen to them or would you check out a band just because of what genre they happen to play or by which bands they were influenced by even if their songs are not the best ?

2. Technical Ability - Do you have to have every note played with precision accuracy or can you forgive the odd duff note or songs played simply.

3. Attitude - This can come in many forms.It can come as an energy when playing the songs , it can be about a message in the music or it can be someone who is uncompromising and make the music they want to without giving in to trends or fashions.

4. Originality - Do you want music to be groundbreaking & original with influences in many different genres of music or are you the sort of person who is happy listening to many bands from the same genre playing the same sort of stuff ?

5. Image - This is not just how the band looks , by image I mean does the way the whole image the band give out important.From the album covers to the themes of the songs , to the way that the band expresses themselves through the music.

For my own personal opinion i`d put them in this order....

1. Songwriting - If the song doesn`t grab me i`m not interested , simple as.

2. Originality - As much as I like listening to old favourites I love hearing stuff that i`ve never heard anyone else do before.If it`s something totally different than i`m not familier with i`m more likely to stick with it if i`m not sure about it more than if i`m listening to something thats been done before better.

3. Attitude - I like my bands to say something , I like bands where you can see they have a love for music.I like bands to have a purpose whether thats to get a message across or to introduce me to something new.

4. Image - As someone who is interested in art I like to see bands make an effort at how they put themselves across. I mean to give you an example why check out a metal band who sings about dungeons & dragons who have a generic spiky metal logo . probably some fire on their album covers too when you can listen to an 80s indie band with a guy wearing a hearing aid with flowers stuffed in his pocket who use images of cult movies from the 60s on their album covers. Which band do you think is going to have the more interesting music?

5. Technical Ability - I put this last simply because if the band has all the 4 above i`ll listen to them anyway. If they have this as well then great.
But I can forgive a few duff notes once in a while and it won`t bother me.You don`t have to be among the worlds elite musicians to make good music , you just have to be good enough.

1.Songwriting
2.Image
3.Originality
4.Technical Ability
5.Attitude

When I listen to music I want to connect, so songwriting is a big deal, with the lyrics and the mood and all that. I also like to see the band's "hand" on the music so image and originality rank high. With that said, I also enjoy art so I like to see creative covers and creative titles to songs and all that jazz. Not everyone can be amazing, some just want to express themselves so technical ability does not rank too high for me. And honestly, attitude isnt really important. If it were to judge the band members themselves then I would condier attitude important but the rest outrank attitude.

1 - Songwriting
2 - Originality
3 - Technical Ability
4 - Attitude
5 - Image

Attitude is good if it's affects the band's originality and style... Rage Against the Machine wouldn't have occurred if they weren't pissed off at something.
But a good band can exist without a special attitude.

Image is good for lyrical content and album covers. And I suppose it's nice if I'm able to wear a band t-shirt without receiving obscene stares because of it's artwork.

What I find interesting is how songwriting can be split up. In other words, we could create a poll for your favourite type of songwriting...
* Melodic
* Catchy
* Epic
* Atmospheric
* Progressive - i.e. it builds up to something
* Virtuoso Like
* Emotional

1.Songwriting
2.Originality
3.Technical Ability







4.Attitude






































5.Image

Though i love good album art, and i'm a big Roger Dean fan... I guess it depends on how you define "image"... I just have to agree with Seltzer on this one.

1 - Teachnical Ability
2 - Originality
3 - Songwriting
4 - Attitude - who the **** cares.
5 - Image - means nothing when its something i wouldn't even want to know about.

sometimes the lyrics make the song, other times the teachnicl ability does. But the perfect mixture is almost imposable to find.

anyone can write a song, so if you have originality on your side then you can write a good song. Which is why originality comes first. I like to listen to songs that are complex, and clear at the same time.

Originality
Song writing
technical ability
attitude
Image

Songwriting
Originality
Attitude
Technical Ability
Image

1. Songwriting
2. Originality
3. Attitude
4. Technical Ability
5. Image

I'm glad we agree :)

Originality - Mincing into the stuido to bust a sweat over Creeds effortless riffs will earn no votes from me. Imagination is high on my list.

Attitude - My definition of attitude is 'feel'. If I feel the band through their music then thats all thats needed.

Technical Ability

Song writing - I'm indifferent on it. If Dylans making a song then the songwriting is obviously more important than the above 3. But in the same token I love the Melvins, and Buzzo doesn't even make words when he sings some of his songs. Yet I don't care because it sounds so bloody awesome, it has that attitude and feeling.

Image