Avoiding the Saturation Principle: My Logic(?) in Judging New Music

I'm pretty comfortable citing the Saturation Principle to explain many of the cases where I'm not interested in a certain piece of music. I'll work in future posts to further apply the principle and some nuances in the concept, but I'm sure it's there. It underlies the conscious mental process I go through when I listen a piece of music for the first time- I'm looking for something that doesn't sound familiar that has some characteristic that makes it feel like a new musical experience. If something doesn't pass the test, it's the flip side of that- it doesn't seem to expand upon the (large amount of) music I've heard before.

I have a harder time explaining for myself what helps a song or album to pass the test. I do know that I tend to have one of the following two thoughts:

1. This sounds unique. I touched on this in the original post- after 10-15 years of familiarity with a certain type of music, a twist can go a long way. I know a lot of people find the vocals on Hold Steady songs off-putting, and I can see why, especially in earlier songs like the below. But for someone who had heard plenty of music that already fit the description of raise-the-goblet-of-rock arena anthems, overlaying it with Craig Finn's half-crazed ranting made some of the more familiar characteristics sound fresh again.

This isn't to say that any twist will do. In this particular case, the unhinged quality Finn achieves by largely avoiding rhythmic and melodic integration into the song might well be too much to take if it wasn't balanced by the fact his lyrics are consistently thoughtful, vivid, even literate. (I particularly like the the image of trashy John the Baptist-type with crosses made of pipes and planks leaned up against the nitrous tanks he's taking hits from.) More broadly,  what I'm interested in listening to has always remained within the standard sorts of rock/pop/folk/blues musical forms.

In short, I know that "unique" for me is a matter of balancing the new with the familiar. What I find harder to explain why the balance works for me in a case like the Hold Steady, and doesn't for, say, Antony, who has a similarly unique voice and works within another musical form I frequently like.

2. This is [insert name of genre] done really well. Plenty of bands I like would sound perfectly normal and familiar to more casual listeners than I. I'm guessing most of you would be quick to peg the Ron Sexsmith song below as soft rock, adult contemporary, or whatever other genre term you use to the describe the types of radio stations that air Delilah and John Tesh. I just consider it a superior example of the genre.

When I try to explain why, though, I tend to lean back on terms like craftsmanship or say it's simply good songwriting- exactly the sort of language that I'm trying to expand upon here. Something "unique" tends to at least be identifiable, even if I want to better explain why some such qualities work better for me than others. But there's something more holistic to explaining an idea like craftsmanship, so it's more difficult to define what exactly that is.

For purposes of this blog, then, both parts of this logic are only starting points for discussion, ones that raise as many questions as answers. In writing about music I like here, the focus will be on how I define terms like "unique," "well-done," and "well-written" in each particular case.