i couldn't get the hang of poetry

 Let's start with the word "good" itself, as ambiguous as it is. It has many applications, but one of the simplest is that when something is "good", it successfully fulfils its intended purpose. Take a hammer, for instance: it's designed for a specific purpose. If you have one that falls apart as soon it hits something, we can reasonably judge that it's a bad hammer, because it's not doing what it was designed to do. It's a bad example of its kind, in other words, and because we have a concrete definition of what a hammer is, and what it's supposed to do, we can objectively judge it as being "good" or "bad" with regard to how well it performs that function.

 Now, try to apply that simple concept to something as abstract as music and the whole thing falls apart. For "music" is an impossibly broad term; it encompasses everything from Bach to Bieber, and is ever-expanding, a literally endless world of possibilities. Even within very small, specific sub-genres, it's virtually impossible to find an agreed-upon "function" of music. Although there are exceptions - for example, overtly political songs with a very strong message, we might describe as having the intention to communicate that message, and deem them good/bad with regards to how well they succeed. But even that involves subjective judgement - most popular music doesn't have a purpose as such, a specific function it's supposed to perform in the same way a hammer does. We could, very tentatively, say that the purpose of popular music (and most other media) is, loosely, "to entertain". But that doesn't clear anything up, since what "entertains" varies hugely from person to person, and is even more difficult to objectively determine.

  It's also debatable whether entertainment can be singled out as music's equivalent function; many would see that as only part of the package, and not even close to the most important one. Of all the many, many possible effects any given piece of music can have on the listener - some perhaps intended by the creator, many more possibly not - which might be considered the most important, if any? And which do we choose to determine its worth?

   there can only be one: "real" and "fake" music

   A popular argument for the separation of "good" and "bad" music, favoured both by anyone insisting their favourite band is better than yours and a lot of "serious" music journalists, introduces us to the Serious Artist. The Serious Artist, whoever they may be, has Deep Thoughts About Things (what the Things are varies, of course, though they are often about, y'know, love and stuff) So they write some songs to express these Deep Thoughts, and then they record them, release an album, etc. The result, the journalists proclaim, is Real Music. Written, composed and performed by the Serious Artist, all in the noble pursuit of sharing their Deep Thoughts with the world - anything else, of course, is just a bonus.

 The villains of this piece are, of course, the Pop Stars, who ostensibly also make "music", but not as we know it, Jim. For this evil that blights the earth is Fake Music, and it is created not by Serious Artists, but by heartless corporations. The music is not Deep, but cheap and throwaway, with thoughtless and repetitive lyrics (often about, y'know, love and stuff). The Pop Stars do not write their own music; they are simply puppets of The Man, singing and dancing on command but capable of nothing with artistic merit, evidently being solely in it for the money and fame. They are not Serious Artists, and though they seem to bring pleasure to people (these are the mindless masses, though, and of course Real Music Fans know better), they must - in the name of all that is good and pure about Real Music - be stopped.

  The above is exaggerated for comic effect, of course, but the narrative is familiar to a lot of writing about music today, and I think the dichotomies of good/bad and real/fake it presents are, in many ways, fascinating. Here, the equivalent "purpose" is what the music in question intended to achieve: the Real Artists are assumed to be writing to express themselves, or to say something to their audience, an inherently better and more artistic act than the Pop Stars, who are merely money-making vessels. That seems to be a common enough sentiment, and argument for the inferiority of pop music by "real music fans". 

But if we call the Real Artists' music "good", it's not about performing a function; otherwise, when a pop song does make lots of money, to be consistent we would have to grant that it is also objectively "good", which I don't think the Real Music crowd would be happy with.

So maybe it's not about the song fulfilling its purpose, but its having a specific type of purpose, or more accurately, "meaning". There's something meaningful, from a song's conception, fundamentally present in the work of Serious Artists and lacking in the Pop Stars; to determine what, exactly, this is, we go back to the original source.

    music, meaning and authorial intent

    On this reading, the difference between Real and Fake Music music stems from why it was created in the first place, rather than whether or not it performs a particular function. The overall value isn't determined by the end result, but by its original reason for existing; in other words, the author(s) and their intentions are what determine the product's (a song or album, in this case) ultimate worth.

This helps us differentiate the Real from the Fake Music: when our Real Artists write a song, it's assumed to be an act of self-expression, or of something more "meaningful" and artistic, or whatever the critics deem worthy. The music of the Pop Stars, on the other hand, isn't written by the people performing it, so we assume that, in execution, it lacks something - honesty, perhaps, or passion? - that the Real Artist puts into their performance, as a result of having created the song. The people behind the scenes who do write it, however, obviously do so for selfish reasons, usually financial gain. They don't put the same energy into songwriting as Real Artists, because all they care about is making money - again, we assume, there are no Deep Feelings there to express, no sufficient personal investment to transform the song into Real Music. Therefore, there is significantly more Meaning, and more artistic value, in the music of the Real Artists when compared to that of the Pop Stars.

  At first glance, this might look like a convincing argument: it points to a clear difference in the conception of the two different kinds of music that can, to some extent, be objectively determined. No doubt it's alluring to all the fifteen-year-olds out there who despair of their boyband-loving friends, while also being a convenient way for music journalists to argue their personal taste as inarguable fact. However, shifting the burden of proof of whether music "means something" back to the intent of its author does create two more significant issues. 

  The key word, you might have noticed, in the argument from authorial intent is assume. To decide that the Real Artist's music is inherently artistic in a way the Pop Star's isn't, we have to assume an awful lot about individuals that, in practice, we simply cannot afford.

There's no definitive way to tell what any one person's motivations for writing a song were, or what they intended to create, even if we ask them outright; people are complex. We might have any number of motivations behind our actions, sometimes we don't always understand our own reasons or even really have any - but it is rarely, if ever, as simple as the Real Artists with their noble intentions and the Pop Stars with their selfish ones. Maybe the possibility of making some money did cross the mind of your favourite Real Artist once or twice; maybe the writer of that mindless pop song you hate actually put a lot of effort into writing it, and is genuinely happy with what they created whether or not it's a hit! Most likely, we'll never know for sure. The difficulty in ever knowing whether an author's intentions were the "right" ones is only complicated by the fact that most music journalists are in no way consistent about who qualifies for Real Artist status; many artists who do write and perform their own material have still been derided as not being "genuine" enough or being "careerist" on the basis of one or two songs, particularly if they're - oh no! - popular songs.

We can only conclude that "true" authorial intent is just about impossible to establish, and something as subjective as other people's states of mind - perhaps the most difficult things of all to truly know - is a decidedly shaky foundation for an objective argument. In practice, the "realness" of the songwriter's intentions are just as much in the eye - or ear - of the beholder. But even if we leave aside all that uncertainty and pretend for a minute that there is a way to know the intention behind a song: is it appropriate to place so much importance on the writer?

  So far, we've invested all of a song's "meaning" into its original intent, whatever that may be, but in practice, that's only a small part of the overall story. It's a feature of art that it will be interpreted differently; consider, for example, all the infinite readings and interpretations people have of classic novels, many of which may be far from what the author had in mind while writing it. But this doesn't make them any less interesting, or in a sense, meaningful;  all it means is they've taken on a different meaning to different individuals. Multiple readings and interpretations are both fascinating and important because they have the power to say different things, new things, and to speak to different people in ways that they perhaps wouldn't before. That kind of continued relevance is often part of what makes a work "classic"; while original authorial intent should be taken into account and respected where appropriate, ultimately it is just one of many, endless and fascinating possibilities.

  Pop music and literature occupy vastly different spheres, of course, but I think some parallels can be drawn, particularly in a song's having "meaning". Instead of looking inwards to the original intent of the creator, perhaps we should look at the myriad of different meanings a song, artist or album takes on in the context of its audience. Personally, I think this is far more interesting than trying to decipher the intentions of the writer, because music is such - even more so than other media - that, literally, any song can mean anything (or everything, or nothing) to anyone. All, of course, entirely subjective and dependent on the individual hearing it - a song can resonate, be it via the lyrics or music or context, in so many different ways that it takes on meaning for the listener, entirely separate from its origins. There's no "right" way to be affected: a song written in five minutes with the sole intention of making a quick buck can still mean something to one person, simply by virtue of the fact they enjoy it. Some songwriters, like Coldplay's Chris Martin, have been accused of writing "purposefully vague" lyrics so as to appeal to as many people as possible. Whether or not this is true - a question which, again, goes back to the issue of authorial intent - maybe the question is why is this seen as a bad thing? Perhaps because it doesn't seem personal or artistic enough to be Real Music, but it does - as does any song, since I find it difficult to believe that there exists a piece of music which no one in the world gets any sort of enjoyment from - achieve something: it makes people happy. And if that's not "meaningful" enough for the Real Music crowd, well, so be it. But, as one who subscribes to the belief that bringing happiness to other people is one of the best things one can do in life, it strikes me as something far more impressive.

    whatever you want it to be

    I realise there's many more applications of "good" and "bad" in music that I haven't explored; the more technical side, for example, where the terms might be more appropriate. I purposefully ignored those areas, because my aim was to look at the common usage of "good" and "bad", as used in discussion of popular music today, and I still firmly believe "good" and "bad" cannot be applied objectively to something as abstract as music, purely because there is no universally agreed-upon definition of what a piece of music is "supposed" to do, and no barometer for how well it does it. My concern, however, is that attempts to rigidly define "good" and "bad" music actually threaten to undermine the value of all kinds of music, and its ability to connect with people throughout history, in the first place.

  I don't doubt that people will continue to speak of the "good" and "bad", the "real" and the "fake" music, because that's today's language, and the majority are capable of separating personal taste from objective fact. The more aggressive Real Music defenders are, of course, equally entitled to their opinion, but insistence seems, to me, to be ignoring a significant part of all that music is and can be. Music has the power to speak to so many people, ultimately, because of its subjectivity; because of all the different ways people interact with music, all the potential to change lives and give happiness that can be contained in any one song, ever-expanding for as many different songs and people as there are in the world. Debate can be enjoyable and interesting, but in the end, the things we enjoy and the meanings we attach to them aren't always susceptible to rational argument - they just are. Feeling, not reason, is what makes so many people so passionate about music; the ability to take on infinite kinds of purpose and meaning, above and beyond its origins, but a meaning that also changes so unpredictably from person to person, and will continue to defy categorisation and arbitrary lines of "good" and "bad".

++ DO Stick To The Hits

An obvious one, and one that arguably applies to all acts, at all festivals, ever - but especially pertinent in the world of pop, where you're only as good as your last number one. People want songs they know, can dance to, know all of the words to scream into their mates' faces. Festivals are not the time or place for album tracks, attempts to be credible, or any kind of subtlety - just break out the Crazy In Loves, the Umbrellas, the songs everybody knows whether or not they'll admit to liking when they're sober, and you really can't go too far wrong. 

++ DO Have Something To Prove

"I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong," declared Noel Gallagher in 2008, after the announcement that Jay-Z was to headline the festival; a sentiment that, at the time, many were inclined to agree with. For his part, Jay-Z neglected to respond - up until opening his set with a (frankly terrible, but that's not the point) cover of 'Wonderwall'. Smart, tongue-in-cheek and instantly endearing to the masses, it kicked off what's now widely acknowledged as a classic headline set, and proof that - given the right orchestrator - hip-hop, and indeed all kinds of different genres, at festivals can be just as much of a triumph as the more traditional choices. Platinum-selling superstars may be used to unwavering adoration, but it's - to use a terribly cliched phrase - out of your comfort zone that you get to really show us what you can do Whether via canny covers or just a plain spectacular show, a pop star's festival debut should feel like a Moment, not just another phoned-in performance - so put some energy into really silencing da haterz, and you just might pick up some new fans in the process. Everybody wins! 

++ DO Give Them A Show...

Apart from the aforementioned hits, one draw of big pop acts at festivals is to provide Something Different - some sequins, dance routines, glitz and glamour among all the uninterested dudes playing guitar. Snobs may sneer at the superstar DJ likes of David Guetta and Calvin Harris, but it's equally difficult to deny that the combination of pounding dance anthems with a rainbow of fireworks exploding in the sky isn't an effective one. Smaller-scale, you could always do as Tinie Tempah at V Festival in 2012, and implore the crowd to take their tops off and whirl them in the air as one like a field of drunken helicopters, but looking and feeling considerably more impressive than that sounds. Even The Script, who put the "bland" into "band", attempted to justify their second-headliners slot at this year's V by, er, calling one lucky girl's ex-boyfriend and singing down the phone to him: a clear case of cruel and unusual punishment. For better or for worse, you don't get any of that with Kings of Leon.

-- ...But DON'T Put Style Over Substance

Festival crowds spend a lot of their time waiting. They may well be wet and muddy, or at the very least cold, since if it's Britain, it's probably raining. A fair proportion will be inebriated; some may get a bit agitated. Come headliner time, they want some hits (see point #1), they want to have a good time, they want to feel like waiting for three hours behind that really tall guy who refuses to move has all been worth it. I can just about guarantee you that they do *not* want costume changes. Especially at the expense of hearing any actual music, and - sadly - Beyonce at V 2013 presents a masterclass in this. It doesn't matter who you are: a set comprised mostly of flicking your hair about, then disappearing for a costume change, leaving your audience with a random breakdancer or cello solo, before finally reappearing to sing four songs, two of which are vaguely recognisable? Sorry, "Queen B" - it's just not good enough, see me after class. Particularly when you've already kept said audience waiting for half an hour, which leads us to...

-- DON'T Act Like You're Special

Diva behaviour at festivals is by no means limited to the pop stars - the infamous "these toilets are reserved for the Manic Street Preachers" debacle at Glastonbury '98 is proof enough of that - but that doesn't make up for the fact that most of them seem incapable of starting a show on time, and then show no apparent remorse for it. At their own shows, stars like Justin Bieber and Rihanna can get away with turning up an hour late because of their legions of adoring fans willing to forgive this and much, much worse. But a festival - and this applies equally to over-complacent rock bands - is not your show, dear pop stars, and these are not your fans. For every devotee waiting for hours at the front, there are many more people who are just mildly curious, waiting for the next band, for their friends, or who may well have no idea where they are at all, and you'll find these people a lot less forgiving. The same applies to bad backstage behaviour: for example, when Nicki Minaj played T In The Park, rumour has it she demanded all the grass around her be cut. If word gets out - which it always does - the naysayers have a ready-made case against you before you've even stepped onto the stage, and it won't endear you to the undecided, either. If you can leave your ego at the door, turn up on time and pull off the "hey guys, I'm just like you, really!" schtick, however, you just might stand a chance.

-- DON'T Forget Where You Are

With no new material from the band’s recent reformation in sight, opener ‘Crystal’ sets the tone with the original video, featuring the fictional band The Killers, playing on the screens behind them. Lest we forget, it went on to inspire a little-known Las Vegas quartet, and that says it all: tonight is nothing less than a Great British Band(TM) cementing their legacy with style. Frontman Bernard Sumner knows it; despite sporting a broken leg, he appears relaxed and jovial, and his voice, notoriously hit-or-miss live, is on fine form through triumphant renditions of ‘Regret’, ‘Ceremony’ and ‘Age of Consent’ - if there’s any complaint, it’s that the band at times seem to be having more fun than the audience. Perhaps this cooler-than-thou Williamsburg crowd are simply more restrained than your average beer-drenched UK gig-goers, but it’s not until they bust out Joy Division’s ‘Isolation’ that the pogoing starts.

But it proves impossible to resist such an arsenal of shimmering electro-pop anthems - as the sun goes down, ‘Here To Stay’ and ‘World’ soar and ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ feels almost like a religious experience, the crowd singing as one as lights flash and the heavens open. The joyous atmosphere only grows; ‘True Faith’ is predictably magnificent, pumping fists and flickering strobe lights turning the wide open space into a rave. ‘The Perfect Kiss’ is gloriously uplifting, and ‘Blue Monday”s stuttering drums and pounding beat sound as revolutionary today as they did back in 1983.

Inevitably, we can’t ignore all that aforementioned history; an all-Joy Division encore, at a different time, could be risky. But New Order have more than earned their right, and the crowd certainly aren’t objecting; ‘Transmission’ becomes a club anthem surprisingly effortlessly, and ‘Atmosphere’, with the field singing “don’t walk away in silence…” as one while images of Ian Curtis float across the screen, is a moving tribute. It could only end with ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, inducing a flailing, uproarious singalong at stark contrast to the melancholy lyrics.

But that, in the end, seems very appropriate for tonight. History’s a powerful thing, and it makes for great stories. Ultimately, though, it’s great songs - songs that connect and uplift and inspire - that live forever. It’s these songs, regardless of events and names and places, that deserve to be remembered, and it’s these songs that make tonight a celebration. Tonight, New Order remind us that love may indeed tear us - and them - apart, but, with music, there’s always a way to pick up the pieces.

We’re here, after all, to experience all the excitement of a three-day festival in one day, and in one marquee in Blackburn Leisure Club, so it might start to seem quite reasonable to triple one’s alcohol consumption. The impressively large crowd certainly seem quite refreshed, as many of them are already sporting face paint and waving inflatable hammers from the kid-friendly stalls outside, and the cynical comment would be that of course one must be suitably drunk to believe that the not-terribly-imaginatively-named Kings Of Lyon, Coldplace and Oasish are the real deal. But I think this attitude misses the point somewhat, as this is not Stars In Their Eyes. It’s surely more important that tonight’s headliners can show us a good time, rather than being able to pass for long-lost relatives of the Gallaghers/Followills/er, Coldplays?

Not to undersell any of the bands on this score, though; when Kings of Lyon kick things off, after a raft of local cover bands earlier in the day, their frontman manages a pretty decent approximation of Caleb Followill’s Southern drawl. They plough enthusiastically through the highlights of KOL’s back catalogue, album tracks ‘Be Somebody’ and ‘Knocked Up’ going down as well as hits like ‘On Call’ and ‘Radioactive’. Although at this early slot (6.45 start) some people are still coming and going, and others are distracted by having found Wally (there’s a group of individuals all wearing the trademark stripy jumper and hat. One could ask why, but why indeed not?) failsafe festival favourites ‘Use Somebody’ and ‘Sex On Fire’ provide massive singalongs, and raucous older songs ‘Four Kicks’, ‘Molly’s Chambers’ and the closing ‘Red Morning Light’ manage to get even the people at the back enthusiastically pogoing. Consider us well and truly warmed up, and thankfully no errant pigeons were involved.

Now for something completely (or at least somewhat) different: Coldplay tribute Coldplace faithfully recreate the band’s latest tour set-up, with neon rainbow lights and ‘Mylo Xyloto’ lyrics scrawled across everything. It’s a pretty magnificent sight for a tent in Brough, and luckily the songs aren’t bad either; delicate anthems ‘Fix You’ and ‘The Scientist’ provide an epic karaoke session, and batting around the enormous balloon that descends during ‘Yellow’ (it’s yellow, do you see what they did there?) might just be the highlight of the night. Tragically, it pops before we turn into overexcited kittens, but the euphoric ‘Paradise’ and ‘Princess Of China’, with the crowd gamely filling in for Rihanna, more than make up for it.

No such bells and whistles for Oasish, but they don’t need it: from the minute “Liam Gallagher” (with parka, haircut, sunglasses and swagger; if you squint, or are just very drunk, you might swear it was he) swaggers onto the stage, everyone here is definitely, as they used to say, mad for it. This is a set of wall-to-wall anthems - ‘Supersonic’, ‘Live Forever’, ‘Wonderwall’, even ‘Happy Birthday’ when we’re invited to serenade the band’s drummer - and every song is a scream-into-your-mate’s-face singalong. “Noel” (less convincing, but nobody cares by this point, if they ever did) gets a turn in the spotlight too, for ‘Little By Little’, ‘Half The World Away’ and a predictably magnificent ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’. As the final notes of ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’ ring out and the party draws to a close, it’s hard to imagine a better way to end it.