Aesthetic Taste – Songs I haven’t thought about

“😱but at the end of the day, no matter how you view music, you continue listening for the beeps and the boops”

– My friend, a connoisseur of the beeps and boops

This discussion regarding “beeps and boops” originated from the podcast “Trash Taste“, from an episode where they shared their favourite music. I believe it was Connor (CDawgVA) who suggested this terminology “beeps and boops” as a synonym to aesthetic tastes. Since then, I’ve had many discussions with my friends regarding the ratio that people abide by for their evaluation. Of course, it’s quite different for everyone. Some people prefer to stray away from pure instinctual tastes, some accept it as the ultimate factor. And I’ve actually discussed this in the comments of my top 10 songs blog post. A friend shared their thoughts on my list and believed there to be a possible correlation between the chosen songs. Perhaps I preferred music that follows a narrative, thematically relevant to the idea of collaboration, utilizes the instruments for the purpose of narrative, and etc. It’s evident in the ways I discussed about each song: I focused on the associated narrative and how the song expresses certain ideas- never really saying “it sounds good, I like to listen to it when I’m sad, when I want to feel hyped… etc”. This observation is quite interesting and it led me to contemplate about my perception of these “beeps and boops”…

The same friend who commented on my post is someone who values aesthetic tastes. While he has the capabilities of viewing music similarly as I do, he doesn’t emotionally regard them as I do: “Most of my favorites have a really ambiguous tonal complexity to them, and it’s sometimes hard for me to get the same intensity of emotion with other songs that have amazing uses of metaphor, symbolism, and narrative progression, but don’t quite trigger the same rich tonal ambiguity for me. For you, it might be close to the opposite” (Midnight Serpent). I’ve always believed that you could learn to enjoy it just as much- but it seems like there is a clear “taste” that opposes it. Songs that don’t have this rich tonal ambiguity, while rich in literary functions- they don’t provide him the same level of enjoyment.

Another friend of mine (who was quoted at the beginning of this blog post) feels similarly to Midnight. He regards most of his favourite songs under the evaluation of “beeps and boops”. He wouldn’t necessarily enjoy a piece of music if it didn’t appeal to his aesthetic tastes.

I personally prefer a balance that provides me the most enjoyment out of a song. If the music doesn’t have my aesthetic taste, I enjoy it through “metaphor, symbolism, and narrative progression”- vice versa if it didn’t have the latter. But, what exactly would be my aesthetic taste? If you’ve read through my “top 10” blog post, you’d recognize the lack of clarity on that aspect of enjoyment. One of the issues I often encounter is that I… well, learn to enjoy the songs I don’t immediately enjoy. It’s difficult to pinpoint my taste if this often happens. It seems like my aesthetic taste is in-grained in these literary functions. And I’ll provide further elaboration on this topic in the future- how I also found my aesthetic taste in gore, the grotesque, and etc through studying it. However, this raises many questions: Did I not realize I enjoyed them? Was I under the influence of certain ideologies or insecurities that prevent me from enjoying them? Is there a correlation that can be deducted? How much is necessarily learned- could I just be applying the same ideas onto foreign aesthetics?

It’s not necessarily clear as I haven’t given it much thought. Some possibilities may revolve around my tastes in existentialism, collaboration/isolation, narrative progression, the hero’s journey, etc. These don’t necessarily suggest my aesthetic tastes. If I were to consider pure sounds: violin, piano, guitar/electric guitar, erhu, soprano, EDM, dubstep- well, these are also closely associated with “external” thoughts. It’s difficult to necessarily pinpoint aesthetic tastes- perhaps I enjoyed something so much that I studied them further? That’s a possibility with the violin. But the opposite would be my appreciation for soprano- which I now consider a-part of my aesthetic tastes. And whenever I instinctually enjoy anything, I’m triggered to look into them further. And that’s why nothing becomes my favourites without me extensively thinking about them.

And that’s the point of this blog post- not to go further in-depth about the origins of one’s taste, or the ratio that determines one’s inclination towards the intrinsic/extrinsic spectrum. Perhaps that’d be for another day… today, however- I’d like to share some songs that I absolutely love, but I haven’t given much thought to. Not that I don’t plan to- I definitely see a lot to dissect from these songs. However, I typically want to listen to a song around a million times before I can grasp something to consider. Whenever I like something, I think “there’s something there that I’m missing”, and so I listen and listen and liiiiiisten. A lot of times it’s the opposite: I don’t like a song, but then I listen and listen and listen again again again! Maybe that’s forcing myself to find something that I like, or perhaps it’s forcing myself to like it? Good questions to consider, but not the point of this post.

Anyways… maybe you spotted the reason why I didn’t talk about my aesthetic tastes in my last music post? Well, the extrinsic takes over and basically justifies and compliments my aesthetic tastes. And… I don’t necessarily know how to talk about my favourite songs otherwise. Perhaps that’s why people fall towards the description of “beeps and boops”? But personally, if I don’t have both these “beeps and boops” and aesthetic appeal, it’s difficult for them to be elevated to a level of my favourites. The two major factors trigger me to listen to something over and over again is when there is both- or when I can perceive that there is both.

Anyways again! These are the songs that I like… but I haven’t given enough thought. These are the songs I listen to constantly because they both sound good and I want to learn more.

Comic Girls ED – “Namida wa Misenai”

I rediscovered this song last week… oh my god, it was the first time I really cried in a long time. This song is the reason I’m making this post in the first place.

When I first listened to it maybe 2 years ago, it felt like all my worries were gone- just for an instance, just for a moment. Let me preface that there’s a lot I don’t like about the associated anime. I tried watching the first episode again and I just couldn’t get through it. The OP is also difficult to get through. I mean, it sounds like I might like it- the OP sounds like it’s similar to my other favourite songs. But goddamn it’s sort of cringy? And that just shows how personalized my favourites are. Just because they sound or look the same, doesn’t mean it’s the same. However… the ED of this anime kind of makes up for it?

I’ll try my best to express my enjoyment without trying to dissect it- just talk about the beeps and boops. It’s difficult though, I feel like my enjoyment is closely associated with these external factors. The song feels like a whisper beneath all the hardships, insecurities, ideologies. It feels like a release of everything I don’t like about the anime and… just enjoying what I actually like about it. Like the song is telling me to shut up and look at the show from another perspective- outside my usual evaluations and beliefs. Don’t worry about how cringy these cute girls are, how annoying the presentation is, or how much I don’t like the main character’s voice. Yet, I love her voice in this song? It works so well in this song?

I mean, the song bleeds into the show- at almost every last scene. These scenes are my favourite despite everything I don’t like about the show. But, I’m getting off track! How do people talk about songs they like without talking about these things??? Maybe… this song gives me something that I don’t often see in the real world? Just listening to each moment, between the keys of the piano, the pacing of the singing, the switch between each singer- just getting a moment to hear everything, consider everything. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I like pianos? Or why some of my favourite songs are fast, then slow, the fast again! And how the piano matches the “kanjite ita, onnaji kaori”, like matching our voices with the tune- slowing down, getting faster- just to match that fleeting moment? Each singer trying their best to just… reach a moment of clarity.

Well… I seriously don’t know how to talk about this song!!!

BOFURI ED – “Play The World”

This song just sounds really fun… from the slow melody at the beginning- like a game loading, then the fast pace drum- as if it were a blinding light announcing your emergence into a new world, then the progression of the song towards the chorus… AHHH! Look, I’m having trouble talking about music without doing this metaphor-symbolism bullshit. This is what I got from the song. And if I were to think about the pure aesthetic of the song without these associations, I believe the distinctive pacing of the song is really appealing to me.

But… I truly appreciate video games as a “new world” when listening to this song. It complements the anime so well, especially with the “mo ikkai” before the chorus. It just sounds so fun! And oh my god I want to talk about all of this anime’s OPs and EDs as I love them all the same! Ah geez, I don’t know how to express my enjoyment of this song without these associations. It just seems like these thoughts make the beeps and boops sound even better than they would otherwise! Because, let’s be honest… these songs are very generic.

Dimrain47 – “At the Speed of Light”

Okay… I’ll try to talk about this song outside it’s relation to Geometry Dash. But goddamn I love this song because it just never ends the horror that is the difficulty of the level Cataclysm, Bloodbath, Bloodlust, etc! Anyways, the one characteristic of this song that I love is the pacing. It slows down, then gets faster- a slow beat juxtaposed by a swirling electric sonic in the background. There’s just so much going on that you don’t know, can’t figure out when you’ll have time to breathe, when you’ll have to accelerate- you just have to adapt to each situation. And I just love how the piano strolls into the song like a echoing memory repeating the same melodies as the fluttering moments. It isolates a single melody that repeats throughout- like “this is the path that’d help you make it through alive within the chaos!” Everything is so messy, but don’t forget that one melody that’s help you push through!

Fuck, I don’t know if this shows my aesthetic taste.

No Game No Life ED – “Oracion”

It’s like a dream, it’s like happiness, it’s like fading loneliness, it’s like echoes, it’s like catching up to a dissipating wave, it’s like… yeah… You know, I really don’t like Shiro’s voice. But just like Comic Girls’ ED, I fucking love her voice in this song. It sounds like she can open up herself in this expression of gratitude to Sora. I feel like I misunderstood her and her emotions. And… there’s so much that I associate to this song- but DAMN I’m trying to talk about why I like it aesthetically. I don’t know how to really, it just sounds good, but it sounds even better when I think about it in other ways.

You know, I feel like this is how I am? It’s hard to express why I love these songs without the metaphors and associations. With them, I can connect the chaos that is my taste…

The Largest Black Hole – Soundtrack (2021)

It sounds like an ever-increasing… something. Maybe the physical, maybe the abstract- it’s just growing.

Look, it’s getting harder to limit myself to what I think is aesthetic taste. It sounds good? Why? WHY DOES IT SOUND GOOD? Why do I love the ticking, the ominous chanting, the echoes, the… the stuff in the song!?

Gioachino Rossini – William Tell: Overture (1829)

The entire 12 minutes of this song is just… peaceful and exciting! Everything leading up to the final realization- like after everything that’s happened, you fall into a peaceful slumber. And then… you remember that it’s not over! And… hmmm…

Conclusion?

Well, you saw my struggles throughout this blog post. I simply can’t express my enjoyment of a song without recalling external factors. Sure, I can simply say “it just the beeps and boops”, but consider it for a bit. What exactly do you like about the aesthetics? It’s not just “unexplainable”, or perhaps it might be to a certain extent. But what I realized from thinking about music is how much external influences determine tastes. How you feel about an instrument, how much a sound relates to a moment in your life, what you think about when you hear something… and it can be instinctual too. We like certain sounds because they’re comforting to the ear- soothing for concentration. Or we love a sound that’s awful and disgusting, perhaps because it considers the realism of the world and our desire to keep existing- or its juxtaposition with the familiar? I love the piano because it relates to many abstract concepts regarding time and space, love and hate- and it just echoes in a way that’s… nice.

Perhaps the point of this blog post is the importance of continuing your sentence with a sub-clause, an “and…” For me, it helps me realize the scope of this world- allows me to connect each idea with another, let’s me justify the intrinsic desire to listen to music. Fundamentally, it relates to the reason why I continue living despite the chaotic mess that is life. That’s why it’s difficult for me to just enjoy the song in one fashion- that’s why I want a bit more, hear a bit more. It doesn’t just sound good, or it doesn’t just express an idea well. Maybe it’s not just good or bad? It can be both, and I think it’s better when it’s both.

That doesn’t solve the question of what my fundamental taste as an isolated factor is… but I don’t know honestly. I don’t think anyone knows themselves either. We just try to make categories and evaluations to consider the stuff we think we know- and then comes exceptions, these paradoxes in our tastes. Perhaps it’s the way we think about these things that make it difficult to categorize? Or maybe we neglect things in order to abide by the rules we set for ourselves. Whatever it is, I think it’s quite fun. Just a snapshot in our lives that show us what we think, how we think, why we do anything in the first place. And what matters to me is just trying to find something- a relation between a song and a person, a connection between the ocean and the trees, and how we both enjoy music, you and me. But at the end of the day, no matter how I view music, I continue listening for anything, everything, all at once.

Thanks for reading! Please consider commenting on what you think about all this! And do you see something similar in these songs I shared? It’s a small sample, but it’ll do for now. Perhaps I’ll provide more in the future? More music posts from someone who knows nothing about music!