I don't know if it's just me but I was researching what I found beautiful and most of the songs or progressions or lyrics that I really find beautiful are also sad or nostalgic or anything but happy.
Is it me or is it that beautiful songs really tend to go on sadness?


like this:

It feels just so depressing


Or like this

It's really anything but happy, and at the beggining the progression is undeniably sad.

Aut for the sake of not sounding like "aw just an otaku" here are another example:

the verse (00:21) is just so sad, and eve the chorus isn't happy, has a high energy but not happiness


Or this (the sadness hits so hard in this one, but it's so beautiful at the same time)

and for the one who will say "it's because you're onlly picking pop or teen examples", here:

a classic. the most beautiful part of this song (00:40) is just so sad

Another bossa nova example:

I really tried hard to not pick an anime song for the next but bro, this is the most beautiful sounding thing I could think right now:

Yeah, there are other genres, I didn't picked any because that's everything that came up to my mind right now, but I can't think of a single song that I found beautiful and it's on a happy mood. Even though if I found one it would still be so strange on how almost every beautiful sounding thing is sad

(Obs: I'm not saying happy songs aren't good, I'm just saying that beautiful songs doesn't sound happy)

 

Last edited: Aug 22, 2023

I reject your hypothesis.

 

I can only guess that some of those songs are in D minor, the saddest of all keys.

 

Good question but I don't think that would be true if we actually look at some kind of stats for this. I think the reason some might think like this, at least for me, is that sad songs feel more sincere if you will. I am usually a pessimist and not a super energetic, happy person. I am 100% sure that plays a big role but I feel that "happy" songs are kind of hiding behind a layer of irony. I don't think the world itself is a happy place, it is a constant struggle for survival, and running away from pain and boredom. In this case, a sad song feels closer to me and speaks to me in a different way than a happy song does.

 

heard this song randomly earlier, a restaurant played it on their sound system

worldwide success, beautiful not sad at all

 

To me songs in major keys who are about 'positive' subjects mostly sound fake and inauthentic or cliche. There are a few exceptions, but they are rare.

One way is to still use the major key is to use it in a modal way - avoid the V chord, emphasise the minor chords in the key. Sing the word glad as a blusey minor third with great ardor.

 

I think it's mostly about intention. Happy music is all about good vibes and oftenly movement, emotional music is more about meaning, it doesn't have to be sad but it often is.

 

Minor means pain
Diminished the strain
In tension, augmented
Perchance major....The
Happy lamented

 

That's just a generalisation, but the perception is often that 'happy music' is music whose edges have been filed off to the point of being interchangeable throwaway content, for the sake of maximum commercial success.

However, that doesn't necessarily determine beauty. It is possible to write a beautiful song about the most trivial of topics and still achieve commercial success.

People tend to believe that "sad music" is more beautiful because it often conveys a number of different, more complex emotions in more detail in the same song, which requires writing more varied music to match. However, that's often too much of everything for commercial music.

Again, complex/sophisticated isn't automatically beautiful.

 

This is a very good question ....Each chord represents each sensation that the body has such as (happiness/joy and sad/pain) and they both have a very short life span its never permanent ..it stay switching because u cant have one without the other they are both of the same coin just different sides happy and sad deviates from one another....this is why it's only one note that separates the major and minor chord..... to be happy all the time is inevitable to be in pain all the time is inevitable this is why the chords go back and forward to minor chords into major chords the minor chords give u sad or pain sensation and the major chords give u a happy or joyful sensation

so since the sensations we have got a very short life span so does the chords it represents the exact sensations that we all have within us to make it more easier to understand its like a reflection of our emotions and expressions but translated into chords and melodies

 

We can empathise more easily with sad songs because they're usually about human emotions.

For a contradiction I offer Exhibit A, a song which most people perceive as happy and positive but nothing could be further from the truth when you look at the lyrics and why the singer wrote it. It's a very bitter song.

On The One Show in October 2010, Harley called the lyric "a finger-pointing piece of vengeful poetry. It's getting off my chest how I felt about the guys splitting up a perfectly workable machine. I wrote it saying 'Look, you'll learn how well we're doing here, we're doing well, why are you doing this?'" He elaborated:[10]

'Three of them came to me in a little posse with several ultimatums. They wanted to write songs for the third album, and I said 'Well you know I started the band, and I auditioned you, and I told you the deal at the time. We're not moving the goal posts here.' They knew this, and they came to me demanding that they could write songs too, and I just said 'Well go and do it then'.'

 

Not hearing it before now and withstanding the gust of an ill percieved wind of what most people perceive as happy, to my first listen I heard it as a bit of an angry song, Harley getting shit off his chest by what my ear hears as his ticked off delivery in the lyrics.Even without the backstop of your knowledge of this song, for me it is a How To of how to introduce irony by way of happy windowdressing the front of a shop of horrors.

 

it's just that happiness is boring

 

I meant this to be a question

Well, I have to admit it, this is a good exception.

This is a great song, but it doesn't sound like something I would call beautifull, it's a viby song and has a happy vibe, but it doesn't feel beautiful, and I have no idea why, also:

"These chords that I'm using are usually sad
I had to use them, they're the best chords that I have
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Oh yeah, this progression is usually sad
But it felt my sorrow and I wanted it to feel me glad"

It almost feels like she is going insane over the lyrics

I agree, Joji did exactly this on this song:

It's a trivial song with non-meaningful lyrics and not beautiful at all, until the chorus hit at 01:09

At 01:09 it turns into a really melancholic song, and at the exact same time it feels so beautiful, the chords on both the ukulele and the piano, the lyrics, the soothing voice, everything just seem so... beautiful, but nothing seems happy, that's what I mean, finding a song that sounds happy and beautiful seems really hard

That's what I mean, this is a nice song, but it isnt beautifull, it's just a nice song, but I cant attain the beautiful quality for the melody being played, it sounds good, it feels good, but isnt something id call beautiful

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The first one, omg this bass is amazing the vibes on this song are just beautiful, and it's not happy at all, isnt a sad song too, but it sounds so beautiful, I'd say it's melancholic

 

Well said. I think people latched onto the chorus. At university one time I discussed the song with a mature student and she didn't believe me when I said it was an angry song. Next time I saw her she'd heard it again and told me how surprised she was, she had no idea. It is very clear in the verses and especially in his delivery.

 

I was curious about how Harley sings it these days. The bitterness is gone, he's largely going through the motions I think, probably sick to death of playing the song by now so he feeds off the audience, having fun with them with it.

 

Nice topic. Yes it seems to come down to personal taste, but I tend to hear sad songs as the most beautiful ones, too. I just like sad music.

Something I want to add is that music doesn't have to be in a minor key to sound sad. As far as I analysed it, the following track by Ethel Cain is in D-Major. Actually there is only this ultra simple chord progression: D-Maj / G-Maj ... the note c# plays a big role in many of the melodies in this song. Which is the major 7th of the key. To me this maj 7th plays a big role in the stylistics of emo and post rock, two genres fans would most likely call "sad and beautiful".