What is Your Favourite Song by Chris Hunter

(This week on my blog I am posting an entry every day, and each entry will be written by somebody other than me. Today’s entry is by musician Chris Hunter who’s song ‘Rich!’ is available on iTunes, other songs by him can be found on his SoundCloud page.)

There are some questions I don’t mind being asked. With my close girl friends we end up talking about our personal lives without even realizing and when I’m with my Uni course-mates we end up asking each other about our opinions of new music or our assignments. But when I am asked the question “What is your favourite song?” I end up freezing, unable to think.
    I am a big lover of music. I get that from my family and I really thank them for that, but having such an eclectic music taste, listening to many different genres of music and finding enjoyment from many forms of music, I found myself not being able to answer the question simply.
    I find music to be an extension of emotion, a metaphor or memory for a certain time in a person’s life, a distraction from important times and bad experiences, but being a producer of my own music, I primarily find music as inspiration. I listen to a song or an album and listen to each element: bass line, melody, drum beat and vocal and take emotion into consideration after I have found parts of the song, if not the whole song inspirational or enjoyable. It is rare to find a track or an album that combines great production with clever and emotional writing, but the ones that do, I personally feel, end up going on to have high sales and successful songwriting careers. This doesn’t necessarily mean the artist themselves, as many stars have songs written for them to record for their album by songwriters away from the spotlight. This subtlety is something I find humbling. Though they will gain credit for it through royalties and will be given thanks on the album artwork, giving away something as personal as a song is something I would find hard to do, unless the price was right…
    I love a big production, but I also love simplicity. Just a singer and a piano or a guitar can make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up just as much as a symphony orchestra or a dirty dubstep drop. I know I have found a song I really like when I am either weeping as I find the message connects with me on a personal level or I am jumping around the kitchen like a lunatic with his arse has on fire.
    But the one thing that makes music special is that it brings people together. Music is universal. You may never have met somebody before or just passed them by in the street, but finding a connection through music can often bring about friendship, relationships and even love. That, for me, is seen as why so many songs are written about love. Because music helps you to forget the good, the bad and the ugly, but it can also help you to remember them too. Emotion is what makes music so raw, so heart-felt and joyous.
    Going back to the original question, I can have a favourite ‘modern’ song for a period of time then it generally ends up being something else very quickly. I love a song that is inspiring to young people to be themselves and love who they are, so that is why songs such as  ‘Jessie J – Who You Are’ and ‘Christina Aguilera – Beautiful’ have always stuck out in my mind as saying:
“Hey, I am me, and I am happy with that.”
    But they aren’t favourites of mine. They’re bloody good songs, but not an all time favourite. You have band like ‘The Beatles’, ‘Queen’ and ‘The Rolling Stones’ that revolutionized how the world sees British music. You have modern equivalents such as ‘Coldplay’ and ‘Muse’ plus artists like ‘Adele’ and ‘Emeli Sande’ who have conquered America and the rest of the world showing how dominant British artists are on the world’s stage. (Don’t get me started on ‘One Direction’, but they’re good-looking lads and are successful, so hats off to them.) Their songwriting is clever, catchy, recognizable and relatable, but neither of these artists have written my favourite song.
    To conclude, it has taken me a long time to work out what my favourite song actually is. I know many of my friends may ask: “What the hell is this?” but this song has such simple electronic production, which I found captivating. It gives a sense of atmosphere and presence, which I find exciting, but this was a song I found when I went through a tough time that helped me to realize I wasn’t alone. Now when I am asked the question ‘what is your favourite song?’, I don’t have to bore people with my top 100.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9WdUgn0XkU

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
This entry was posted in All, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *