I mean, yeah, obviously music is good and entertaining and engaging. If I asked you to think of your favorite song, you'd tell me it, more likely than not, super fast. Maybe we'd even get into a whole conversation about your favorite artist, your favorite concert, your favorite time of year to listen to the song, the list could really go on an on. That's all well and good, obviously. That specific song is clearly a part of you, a connection to the music and the artist that produced it. But, where does the connection stop?
For me, the true value of a good song comes from the association you make when you listen to that song, whether that be a specific time in your life, a specific person in your life that elicits the emotions brought on by that specific song, or a specific memory you think about when listening to that song. Essentially, a good song is one you can connect to, to a greater or lesser extent, to your own life. For me, this happens a lot. I tend to make some sort of association to almost every single song I hear. Some of my associations connect to people, some of them relate to a specific memory or time in my life, and it's sort of my way of keeping a secret diary within myself about how I felt about situations or certain people at a specific point in my life.
These are the kinds of things that people generally tend to call the "artist-listener" connection, the ability for an artist to say exactly what a listener is feeling at any given point in their life. Maybe the meaning of a song changes to the listener due to a change of perspective, the start or end of a relationship, The growth or ability to evolve a mindset is essential to the growth of an individual. Why can't a song have that effect and really make people not just listen, but listen and feel something about themselves? All songs stem from some sort of emotions or feelings, if they weren't, they wouldn't be able to be created by the artist in the first place.I'm sure we've all heard songs where we've gone "wow, I can't even imagine what this artist must have been thinking when they wrote this, this is so deep and really cuts to the chase so spot on." Good songs should put feelings and emotions into concrete examples of experience for a listener. The ability for an artist to create a piece of art that really makes people not just listen, but feel, is a good song.