How many songs does a band need to have that you like for you to say you really like them?
I've realized the amount of bands that I'd describe as "really liking them" despite only regularly listening to 3-6 of their songs is pretty high. While I have a fair number of bands that I like 10+ songs from, the vast majority of bands I'd recommend have a much smaller pool. I was just listening to LCD Soundsystem, a band I've loved for years, and I realized I only regularly listen to 4 of their songs (All My Friends, Daft Punk is Playing..., Dance Yrself Clean and New York I Love You...). TV on the Radio, another band I've really been trying to get people to listen to lately, I only like 6 of their songs. And with a lot of these bands it's not even that I just haven't listened to a lot of their music. TVotR I've listened to 3/5 albums all the way through, and while there were a lot of songs I maybe sorta enjoyed, only 6 of them were good enough that I actually saved them.
It gets harder for me because there are also a lot of bands out there that I like 3+ of their songs but wouldn't describe myself as a big fan. Eminem, for example, I have like 15 of his songs saved but I'd definitely say I like TV on the Radio more.
I feel like for me it's more about how much I like the songs rather than the quantity. Like on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is barely liking it and 10 is absolutely loving it (so entirely ignoring songs I don't like), Eminem has a lot of like 4-7s whereas all of the TVotR songs I like I'd rate as 9s or 10s.
Honestly, I'd take a one hit wonder. I only really like "Watermelon Sugar" from Harry Styles and yet he was still my top artist on my Spotify Wrapped from 2021. Tunes on repeat is a helluva drug. So if you asked me if I really like Harry Styles I would easily say yes!
Now if we got into Daft Punk, I know the discography, I know the history, I know the inspiration, I know everything either of those boys have ever produced. I love them. It goes deeper than Harry. But it doesn't change the fact that I like Harry Styles. Hell I really like Red Bone and I can only name one song!
I'm of two minds: You have to either like a majority of their output, or like the band as people. But the second is odd since you're not listening to their music.
If you're "meh" on them as creative people and only like a couple songs you just like the songs.
If you have them but love every record they did you still would be counted as liking the band.
This is interesting because especially in the times we're living in now, for me personally, watching podcasts and interviews makes me like artists and bands before really listening to their music. I may not be familiar with their stuff a lot but hearing them talk and their stories would potentially make me listen to their albums.
But then again, there are artists like Buckethead with massive outputs, and I've known Buckethead for decades, I love his music. Yet, to this day I am yet to complete his discography, and I don't necessarily like everything, but I'll always check his stuff out.
I like a large quantity and a wide variety of music, but my list of acts that I'd say I really like is low... maybe somewhere between 20-40, out of the few thousand in my library when I last checked a few years back. I'd have to really be into at least two albums' worth of music minimum, or about 20 songs. You can chance upon some good chemistry (or mind-altering substances) in the studio and whatnot and catch lightning in a bottle on one song or even album, so that'd make me just like that project. If you can repeat it, that's what tells me you probably know what you're doing.
Overall consistency and the proportion of your total output that I like/have heard also plays a big role.
Same. There is only one band that I actually really like, out of the hundreds of bands and singers that I listen to, that I will say is my favorite. Because that one band is really the only one that I really keep up with.
There are bands that I like, but they are not my favorite one.
I am definitely in the same boat; there is a threshold somewhere after ~15 songs (?) that presents a new phase of listening potential / well-established likeness, probably dependent on the ratio of [liked songs:total music]. I think you can certainly claim likeness to artists of whom you only listen to a single or few songs, but really I believe (at least for artists that do in fact have a wider-ranging discography) that to articulate you "really like" them (as an artist), you need to listen to more and like more of their whole range of music. Otherwise, you "really like" a few songs by an artist, you probably don't "really like" that artist themself. Unless you know them personally or like them for some other reasons.
It's funny to see this question here, I've been internally debating this for a couple of weeks now. For me, I think it depends on the quality of the songs I like instead of the quantity. Like you say, I can have an artist in my library with ten or fifteen good/great songs, but I will still weigh them unfavorably against an artist that has released only a handful of songs that I would consider to be incredible.
I think we’re on the same page here. I have also been considering this when trying to list out my favorite musicians/bands. I’ve been thinking about it as a waveform, I guess.
I’ve got bands like Mutemath who I generally like everything they put out. But it’s only slightly higher than neutral most of the time - sounds nice, but mostly forgettable. I suppose I’d say I like this band.
Then there are artists like The Strumbellas, who have 2 songs I really like (high on the wave), but generally dislike and don’t keep any of their other songs. I suppose I’d say I like a couple of this bands songs, but not the band.
Then there are artists like Kishi Bashi and Florence + the Machine, who have tons of songs I don’t like, but also a ton of songs that hit super high on the wave. Bands like that are the ones I’d say I love and are in my top favorites.
This question doesn’t really make sense to me with the way I think about music.
One of the things I don’t like about most of the popular acts is that they have a tendency to make music that is as close to the same style as possible as a way to grow an audience. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but some pull it off better than others. Some artists, especially singers with grandiose overly-soulful performances, tend to sound too much alike.
I tend to prefer albums and performers who have music that changes more. Something that gives the mind a little bit of a challenge. That’s why much of my music library is made up of soundtracks and musicals; they tend to be fairly dynamic.
So to be one of my favorite artists, you just need to have albums that work well as a whole. If you have one good song and a dozen others that clearly don’t have the same level of polish, it’s not likely that I’ll keep you in mind. I might put that one good song in my folder of miscellaneous songs, but I don’t listen to those frequently. I’m also not a big fan of singles. I’ve got a few but generally I have a hard time keeping them
In my mind for very long. I generally prefer to listen to music for longer periods of time.
At the same time, not every album really needs to be a smashing hit. You can have a boring album or two and it generally won’t hurt my opinion of the act.
More than anything, though, is that I generally don’t like to describe myself as liking an act as much as I like the music itself. Almost every album is actually made great by the work of the people who are not on the album cover. Music is generally a collaborative art form. Much to my chagrin, you can’t put on a magical computerized helmet that will record the fully produced song that you have bouncing around your head. While there are some musicians who do everything by themselves (particularly in the indie scene), they are fairly rare.
I’ll piggyback this comment. In the days before streaming, I mostly picked soundtracks, and also compilations, for variety. Or bands that focused on whole albums, a thing disincentivized in the modern scene.
So I love most works by Pink Floyd, Yes, Miles Davis, Michael Jackson, Jane’s Addiction. And I love a couple tracks by, A-ha, Def Lepard, Timberlake, the Weeknd, Mylie Cyrus, The Fat Rat.
But I don’t really love thos bands (although I would have said so some years ago when my identity was partly formed by my consumer choices). I dig their music.
Also I bought a pair of nice speakers a couple years back. If you’re into music and can at all swing it, it is sooo worth it.
I have a very simple metric:
Would I pay $30 to attend their concert, or would I pass? I can't use modern concert prices where $70 a ticket is considered a good deal, it skews the decision-making far too much into finances rather than "would I go through all the extra hassle to see in person."
So I'm a fan of Greta Van Fleet (and Rush...but when they were in their prime, not now), but not Taylor Swift. And I'm pretty sure there are people whom would do unspeakable things for cheap Taylor Swift tickets.
A majority of songs on any given album; specifically an album. If you release an album and the majority (or all of it) I like, then I'll say I like said band. After that, band can pretty much do whatever and I'll still say I really like them, maybe with a caveat. Example: Skeletonwitch was great with Chance, but their stuff after he's gone isn't really worth the listen, but I would describe myself as a fan, but wouldn't go see them live.
Darkthrone is a band I would describe as one of my all time favorites, but I couldn't care less about their stuff from earlier than 2000.
When I was younger, I was much more concerned about the "purity" of fandom, only allowing myself to call myself (or anyone else for that matter) a fan if they liked every single thing the band put out. I just don't have time for that anymore, though I do still consider it important to at least have an album or two that are all bangers that you absolutely love.
All that said, I'm not really sure this applies to Pop sensibilities. Pop artists is geared much more towards singles these days and it seems that many proper Pop albums have a lot of filler, so the parameters may be different. This isn't coming from an elitist perspective; I like plenty of Pop music, but it's just not my favorite genre, so I can't make a reasonable claim here. I would say I'm a "Fan" of 80's music, but when I say this, I say this as a person who pretty much only likes the big singles of the 80's and disregards the vast majority of the rest of it.
Long story short: It's probably up to you and who really cares what anyone else has to say? You don't need to be ideologically pure here.
1?
If it's a good song, it's a good song. Frankly if I never knew who a band was but could still find similar content I wouldn't care. In general I hear one i like, listen to the rest of their stuff, and then get whatever else I like from that, and move on.
Golden Earring has two songs that I super like but I can’t get into any of their other stuff. So I like them just don’t like most of their music.
Yeah there must be a bunch of artists who I'd concede have a good song or two but I otherwise dislike at least enough to say I don't "really like them".
Similarly, there's a number of 'one hit wonders' where I suspect most people would say they love the song, but wouldn't bring up the artist if asked.
Dead or Alive, Men Without Hats are the two big ones that come to mind.
seems like we're trying to shoe-horn a complex set of human emotions into a rigid "like" or "don't like" framework....
one of my axoims, borrowed from Hank Green, is: "our language is insufficient to describe our reality", and this is another example of that.
I have never been on Green Day concert, I know less than 10% of their songs and I listen to a few select ones over and over again despite having all of their (older) CDs. I like the songs I listen to and I also respect them as the band.
Can I say I like the band? I think I can.
For me, I’d say that if I can hit about five songs that I actively like from a band, then they’re about halfway towards me saying I really like them. However, I also need to have at least one full album from them that I really like, as well.
For instance, I’d say that Ladytron and Metric are both pretty good bands. They each have multiple songs which have shown up in multiple playlists of mine that I’ll sing along with when they come on. The difference is, Metric has Fantasies, and I really like that album. Ladytron doesn’t have a single album that I ever find myself reaching for. All of my favorite bands have multiple albums that I really like; up until that point, I could like twenty of a band’s individual songs but they’d still just be alright on my book
Interesting question. I think I only really „like“ bands where I generally like their music and most of their songs and albums. If I’d only like one album or a couple of songs, I don’t think I’d say that I’d like a band. On the other hand do I love bands, where I basically like all of their music and the personal behind the music.
I would say one of my favorite bands/artist is Tricky. I only really love their first 3 or 4 albums but I like a few songs from each of their other albums. I think of it more in terms of the impact their music has on me.
Zero?
For some of my favorite bands/acts, I can't even name a single song that I know the name of. That's not really the spirit of your question, since I do like the music regardless, but I guess I'm just saying that having favorite songs isn't how I think about music I like. I'm mostly into bass music and jam bands, where individual songs often don't matter nearly as much as the experience as a whole.
I can also have a great fucking time at shows where I don't even like the music, as long as the vibes are good/entertaining. Like, the music I've heard from the grateful dead is pretty bad, but I'd love to accidentally catch a show at a music festival.
As a data hoarder, I have to like most of an album to consider putting a band in my library. If I only like a song or 2 from a band, I just won't keep it. That being said, if you put my music collection on a single playlist, it will play over 3 months.
I know my system wouldn't make sense for most people, but I like whole albums, and don't listen to "hits" or whatever.
I mostly listen to metal, classical, hip-hop, trihop, downtempo, shoegaze, jazz and some stuff on the edm spectrum.
Wow that is super granular. I kind of use a system of 1-4 (dislike, listenable/kinda like, like a lot, love). I would say I "really like" a band if they have a few 3-4s on an album. If I've heard their other albums and they all suck then I guess I'd just say I "really like" that album, rather than the band. Maybe I would still say I "really like" them if they had like 10+ 3-4s across their discography that I could make a playlist out of.
For me it’s the number of albums. If I like at least half the songs on half their discography then I consider myself a fan of the band and not just a fan of a handful of the songs. But I overthink these things a lot, and that can be a problem for me.