Your favorite songs and what makes them special

• What are your favorite songs?
  
• What do you think make them work?
  
• Why are they your favorites?
  
• If you took something out of them would they lose their power?
  
• Could anyone had done similar song with the same impact?

This song (or actually these two songs) is one of my absolute favorites. It's strange because usually I can't stand 8-bit music and even my girlfriend seems to be somewhat reluctant to hear this masterpiece.

I'm not really sure what makes the song work and it's driving me nuts. Anyone can pretty much put this song on anywhere at any time and I'm ON 100%. Some people have played this with piano etc. but it just doesn't work like that. So maybe it's not the composition itself. Also with this kinda tunes it's not really the feeling behind the playing either, because these sounds are 100% computer generated.

I love the melodies and I love the way tension builds up in each section. It's really hard for me to describe this.

There are some other 8-bit songs that I think are great compositionally but I just can't stand listening them because the sound of those sin tunes are just awful. But with this song I don't seem to have that problem. I... just... don't notice it at all. I'm in ecstasy.

I think part of it might be the timbre of the sounds that are being played. Perhaps you're girlfriend can't stand that buzz saw shaped wave. For me I really like the timbre of electronica music; to me, it has a unique quality of epicness to it.

Right now, "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips is on my mind (particularly because Bridesmaids came out, it brought back childhood memories), and I'm trying to figure out why that song works. Is it chord progressions? Phrasing of the melody? I know there's a three-part harmony consistently running through the song. Perhaps it is the use of split chords? The timbre of the feminine voice?

Lots of things to learn from songs.

I think that songs using a lot of digital sound.. especially sine wave based, have an openness about them because of the lack of overtones being produced. The lack of overtones has a special purity of it's own that holds character. Like a flute sorta.

My favorite songs or music are usually the ones that provide an experience of transcending the fact that you are listening to a song. It goes beyond it and moves you emotionally and really has a direct change on your current mental state. That is pretty vague but it sums it up for me.