What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

[shreddermon]

I put together a mix disc of VH tunes a few months ago. While listening to it repetitively in the car ( [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] ), I got to wondering "what defined them and their music"? I finally did come up with a few things, and that led me to thinking "what did they have in common with other great bands"? Or what defines the difference between a "good" band and "great" one. Mainstream popular, I mean.

So what do YOU think defines a great band and tunes? Here's what I came up with:

- Great backing vocals. VH just had this nailed from day one. Backing vocals define a tune, and make you hum it all freakin' day long! The more I thought about this, I concluded it was the most important element of ANY great band. This positively defined early VH's style.

- A great front man. By this, I mean entertainment, not just vocals. DLR was the vocals, but EVH was really the band's frontman. Or maybe it was the combination of the two. DLR was the entertaining clown, EVH was the talent. You need a lot of both. I guess it doesn't all need to be in one person, though. [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

- Catchy hooks. Not just a cool guitar riff or whatever. I mean a short piece of melody from the song that just drills into your brain like a damn powertool. It gets in there, and then you don't want it to leave.

- A solid rhythm section. If the groove and the bottom ain't there, nothing will be. Alex and Michael knew their role, and did it damn well. Gets your feet tapping and the hands slapping.

So what do YOU think?

[GodOfRhythm]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

Connecting with it. That's all I can think of. It clicks or it doesn't.

[Newc]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

Lyrical hooks, a catchy chorus, a simple layout, an engaging frontman (or woman if you wanna get picky) not so much in appearance as in 'eyecatching' (read: DLR vs Britney - She's got the tits, but he's got the 'Pimp', ergo Dave wins), and a unique production sound.
Korn, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed, ect etc - same drums, same guitar tone, same evrything. Dave didn't sing like Plant, Plant didn't sing like Elvis, and Bon Scott didn't sound like John Lennon. EVH didn't play or sound like Clapton, Clapton didn't sound like Page, SRV didn't sound like BB King. Alex's drums as well as his style didn't sound like Gene Krupa or Ginger Baker or Charlie Watts. Mike's bass lines didn't sound just like someone else's bass lines (tone, note selection, etc, admittedly there's not as much bass tonal variety as there was for guitar and vocal tones).

But the most important thing next to advertising is your production - how it sounds both live AND recorded. It's easy to walk into a studio today and lay down a few tracks and say you made a record, but you're gonna come out with whatever that studio/producer gave you for a sound unless you take charge of it. If you pass around that CD and get people interested in you enough to go see a show, they'll be disappointed if you don't sound close to it when you play live, but they'll also be disappointed if the CD has a raw edge that's missing in the live show. VH was on stage what you heard on the album - rock and f'n roll.
A producer can make VH sound like Korn, and Korn like VH, but when people hit the show to SEE what they've been HEARING, they won't like it, because the production style (instrument tones, etc) generally dictates what the live set sounds like.
I've seen quite a few bands that sounded better on disc than on stage.

[shreddermon]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

[ QUOTE ]
But the most important thing next to advertising is your production - how it sounds both live AND recorded.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point. Usually overlooked. Or, even worse, sometimes listeners think a bad production is actually due to them being a "s**tty band".

[RR_1525]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

One thing to remeber is poeple dont buy tickets to hear the cd, they pay the money to see a show. A lot of people look at strictly the production aspects. Take Kiss for example, while they did have some talent, they had the BIGGEST stage production.

D.

[etaeniura]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

RR 1525 has a good point. Kiss's stage show is still a sight to behold after 30 years. I saw them with aerosmith last year, and while I'm pretty sure Aerosmith has more in the talent department, their stage show was kind of bland. The band that opened for them, Saliva, was great-very energetic, very entertaining without having flashpots and monsters and video screens. David Bowie also puts on a great show-very talented singer/songwriter (his band is outstanding)as well as a great showman.

As for what makes a great song or band-If I hear it more than ten times and I don't want to change the radio station to look for something better, it's pretty good. I get bored or burned out on music really fast.

[Shawn Lutz]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

There are too many variables as what's great to me may not be great to someone else.

Band Chemistry

Talented Musicians who are all on the same page who believe in the band, its songs and direction.

Bass - One who can cop a grove but can technically do more than thump on the E string repeatedly. One who can play melodic and cover a lot harmonic ground.

Drums - Tight, powerful, a loud drummer who doesn't have to stay in 4/4 time. A drummer who can count and stay sober for a gig. Must be tight with bass player.

Guitarist - Someone who understands that songs are songs and just not show pieces for wankage. One who can solo and make that solo be part of the song. A guitar player who can feel a melody, harmonize it, knows theory and has the ability to play technically challenging music.

Melody -- often overlooked in music and to me one of the most important aspect of all music.

Vocalist - one who can sing in key, can be melodic and mean. Not just a screamer of grunter. Knows theory and harmony, great front man ability.

All this leads up to this....

The ability to be entertaining during live performances. The ability to use dynamics within the set and songs vs. full on 11 for the entire set.

Hunger, energy and drive to make it. To me this seems to be lost after the 2nd album. Once people get bigger budgets or have some success the magic fades. I like raw hungry low budget albums. Seems to me a pattern, VHI and VHII, Blizzard and Diary etc.

[lerxstcat]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

Great answers that I can't add much to; only to say as Shawn did that it lies in the eye and ear of the beholder. Most of the bands I think are great are obscure to most people, and many bands that are widely acknowledged to be great do nothing for me, or are okay to listen to but I don't hear the greatness. The great thing to me about that is that I have a lot of $1 and $2 cutout CDs in my collection that I love; sad for the great-but-obscure but cool for my small wallet!

[charvelguy]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

We did this one already-but its still a good thing to hash about.

[Ace]

Re: What makes a GREAT band & tunes?

I think that the most important thing a band can have for me to get into it is BALLS!! There are many different bands that I like, but the one thing they all seem to have, for lack of a better word, is BALLS!! Motorhead would be a prime example. They aren't technically phenomenal musicians, but goddamit they get onstage and go in the studio and just rock out with their c0cks out!! Van Halen did that(notice I said DID), Led Zepplin did that, The Who fuckin' INVENTED that, hell even Tracy Chapman does it, though in her case I would have to call it inner courage. Passion, creativity, songwriting and integrity to an uncompromised vision are a few of the ingredients for making a band with BALLS!!