At first I was laboring under the impression that Chinese lyrics didn't rhyme. That turned out to be untrue - they don't rhyme in translation.
Stephin MerrittSerious music isn't listened to in a casual setting. You don't want to listen to that in headphones on the subway.
Stephin MerrittWell, there are certainly original things to say. But I'm not sure that a pop song is the appropriate format to say them in.
Stephin MerrittIf the songs were in lumps, then you would expect to understand what was going on in the plot. Which is not a realistic goal. And also the instrumentation is different for every show, so it's more varied sonically. And people are free to make up their own plots, of course. There are pretty dense and complicated plots, and they're simple songs.
Stephin MerrittThere are only so many instruments you can layer on top of each other that aren't perfectly electronically programmed. "Long Vermont Roads" just cannot be performed live, because it's just too cluttered if it's played by humans. Synthesizers stay out of each other's way in a way that hand-played instruments never can.
Stephin MerrittThe adventure is when people don't know what they're doing at all. Like, I think that the first pop band to use synthesizers as their main instrument and take it seriously was probably Silver Apples. And they sure didn't know what they were doing, and they sure don't sound like anything else.
Stephin Merritt