SONG BANDS VS. VIBE BANDS 

 

There are two types of bands: bands that fuck and bands that suck. No, I’m kidding. Besides that, it’s Song bands and Vibe bands.

 

Even without listening you can usually distinguish Song and Vibe bands. Look at a track listing. If you’ve 12 songs averaging three minutes each, you’ve a Song band. If you’ve six songs averaging seven minutes each, you’ve a Vibe band. If you’ve 20 tracks that are 17 minutes each, you’ve definitely got a Vibe Band. 

 

And then there’s the instrumentation. Typically the more instruments that play in the band, the greater the chance that they are a Vibe band. If they’re often working a groove, they’re probably a Vibe band. If they don’t have a singer, they are absolutely a Vibe band. Conversely, if an artist describes themself as a “songwriter,” they probably have a Song band. If a band has really good lyrics, 95% sure they’re a Song band. If an artist puts pictures of themself on an album cover, they’re probably in a Song Band. 

 

None of this is to say one is better than the other. They serve different purposes. Song bands are for hanging out. Vibe bands are for being alone. Song bands are for getting drunk. Vibe bands are for getting high. Song bands are for the first hour of a road trip. Vibe bands are for the other eight. Song bands need music videos. Vibe bands need lava lamps and AI visualizations. You fuck to Song bands and make love to Vibe bands. 

 

Song bands write tight, structured tunes. Most of the music you hear on the radio is written by Song bands. Most pop, country, folk, 50s and 60s rock & roll, Stax and Motown hits, and punk (but not post-punk) are created by Song bands. If the song adheres to a typical structure (32-bar, AABA, ABABCA), it’s probably from a song band.* If you’re going to perform a cover, typically it will be from a Song band. 

 

Then there are Vibe bands. Vibe bands aren’t concerned with typical song structure. They get by on groove, attitude, and a specific collection of sounds. Jazz, metal, funk, rap, dance music of any kind, these are the genres of Vibe bands. If a band jams, there’s a 90% chance it’s a Vibe band.

 

Now most bands aren’t one or the other, and some bands are so idiosyncratic that they fall into both categories. Bob Dylan wrote “Blowing in the Wind,” which is as Song a song as they come, but also “Visions of Johanna,” which is as Vibey as they get. The super Vibey Grateful Dead cranked out two acoustic albums in 1970 – American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead – composed of straight-up Song songs. And some bands and artists change as they age. Curtis Mayfield’s work with The Impressions is all Song, but his work as a solo artist is mostly Vibe  – not surprisingly that switch happened when the ‘60s turned into the ‘70s, a Song decade into a Vibe decade. On CD, 2000s indie rockers are typically Songsters, but after they learn how to play their instruments, become Vibey jammers when they play live at festivals.

 

But just as no one likes The Beatles and The Stones 100% equally, no band is 50:50 Song or Vibe. They must fall on one side of the divide or ther other. In fact, the Beatles/Stones dichotomy is a little misleading, as they’re both Song artists. Let’s take two artists from around the birth of rock & roll to use as a more clear analogy: Chuck Berry and Miles Davis. 

 

Berry is fundamentally Song. He writes using the same five instruments, reuses the same lyrical tropes, and has structural fundamentals so strong that he has been dubbed the “architect of rock & roll.” No one even listens to Berry anymore, but I bet you know at least half of the songs on this compilation subconsciously. Every song Berry wrote could’ve been a single. That’s as Song as songs come.

 

On the entirely opposite end of the spectrum, we have Miles Davis. Davis oozes Vibe. He vibed so hard that he created a music called “cool jazz,” and then vibed so hard again that he mastered jazz fusion. Miles is still so vibe that, 30 years after his death, white people affect his gravelly voice when they want to sound cool to black people. 

 

Berry and Davis exist on the opposite ends of the spectrum, and I’m 99% they never covered each other, so I think they’re the perfect avatars for our Song and Vibe dichotomy. 

 

* A fun caveat: For the most part, highly structured songs come from Song bands, but that’s not always the case. In fact, the more complicated a song’s structure, the greater chance that it comes from a Vibe band – think: prog rock, technical metal, etc – the vibe of that band just happens to be: look at how hard these songs are to play.