Songs – melody or contextual melody

Which one has more effect on you, the melodious songs or the songs with a context that you are familiar with? Which songs do you frequently listen, songs with some history (about the singer, band, or movie) or song that you just like listening? Is it only the song OR the associated video that makes it more interesting (Yes, i do not like the second half of chiggi-wiggi)? Sometimes you like a song from a unknown language so context is out of the question (remember las ketchup or Alizee); or is it not? You may be influenced by what others have said about that song, the stories that you hear about that band, that singer (the whole fuzz about Attaullah Khan, created by T-Series), does it not affect you? Sorry, for asking too many question but this is what I have been thinking for a while.

So let me give you a clearer picture. This is about my liking for songs, I feel that I am more likely to like a song if I see the corresponding movie (ehh may be applicable to bollywood movie). Though I am not sure if the vice versa holds. To give you an example, when I first heard ‘Love Aaj Kal’ songs I didn’t like them, but then after I have seen the movie, I started liking the songs. So there comes the question of context? Is it that after I know the context in which the song is being played in the movie, I start to move in the FLOW of the song.

Again is it only the context or just because I have heard the songs so many times now, I have developed an affinity to them, and I started liking them. I say this because I liked so many English songs after hearing them for over 100 times! This happened during my graduation, as it was the time when I heard English songs for the first time in my life. There are songs which I did not like in the beginning and then as I heard them every day (Thanks to my neighbours) I developed a taste for them. Most of my English songs collection has the same story. The context is not there, but there is a ‘late’ melody. I mean I did not found the songs melodious in the first 10-15 hearing.

And then the context can also have two meanings, the context of the movie and the contextual situation when you heard the songs for the first time. The songs may pop up good old memories in you whenever it is being played. For e.g. Asoka and DCH songs remind me of my first semester at IIT and Fashion songs remind me of my Summer Internship when I was on my way to Pune from Mumbai (I watched that movie in the bus). Why am I writing this????

Well I am not really sure what made me like the ‘Love Aaj Kal’ songs when I first disliked them and I kept thinking, unable to reach conclusion, I thought why not confuse others :) Do you really know why you like a particular song?