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rezzeJ  ·  2393 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I made some vaporwave crap

Whilst from one perspective what veen said isn't wrong , it's not definitive. There's plenty of incredible and interesting music that eschews the quality of 'catchiness' and the predicitable-but-not-too-predictable approach. That's not to mention forms such as electroacoustic/acousmatic music which are unbound from traditional notions of pitch, rhythm and instrumentation, which are all things we would would consider essential foundations to basically the entirety of western popular music forms. Instead they explore texture, sound gestures, and the transformation/processing of sound sources.

Here's 4 different examples of unpredictable and un-catchy music from 4 different genres:

Oneohtrix Point Never aka Daniel Lopatin, aka the pioneer of Vaporwave - Americans (experimental ambient)

The Physics House Band - Abraxical Solapse (prog rock)

Dennis Smalley - Wind Chimes (acoustmatic music)

Doom Salad - Relax Drank (jazz fusion)

As you can hopefully hear, all interesting pieces of music with great composition, musical moments, and ideas. Yet I don't think you would rush to call them 'catchy' or 'predictable'.

The point is this: don't let anyone tell you what music should be. The only person who decides that is you. That's not to say that you should shut your ears to criticism or feedback. Of course you shouldn't. But personally I become wary when people start making definitive statements like "music is interesting if..." (not hating on you veen!).

Aim to listen as much music as possible and seek to understand the works and ideas of those who you admire and/or are better than you. After some time (a lot of time) you will start to form your own conception of how catchy, predictable or <insert any other musical quality here> your music needs to be.