The Island

I mean, not entirely. But usually there has to be SOMETHING you consider good—the rhythm, the instrumentation, the lyrics, or any aspect of it that stands out to you as enjoyable.

In my case there are more than a few songs that I enjoy for the music but have absolutely garbage lyrics.

Lyichir pretty much beat me to the punch here in every way. For me, instrumentation and melody are far more important than lyrics. I mean, I would rather that songs have good lyrics, but I'm okay with iffy lyrics provided the melody is good. Even bad singing I can easily get over.

On the flip side, lyrics are irrelevent if I don't like the melody. I just won't listen to it.

(It might not surprise you to learn that I mostly like to listen to instrumental music.)

To a degree, yes. There has to be something about the song I like. For example, I don't really like all the lyrics of Fall Out Boy's "Thnks Fr Th Mmrs," but man if the line "I want these words to make things right, but it's the wrongs that make the words come to life" isn't just right on point. The instrumental work is fairly good as well. Take those two things together, and I can begrudgingly give it my approval. Contrast that with a song from a genre I'm usually a big fan of: God's Not Dead (Like a Lion) by the Newsboys. I like the message of the song, but find both the lyrics and the music a tiring way to present it. I don't find the song itself very good or compelling and so I can't find it in me to like it, despite my feelings regarding the message.

There needs to be something I like in it, but there are many songs/albums I recognize as being objectively awful yet I still like them

Nope. I have the ultimate collection of so-bad-it's-good-songs, with terrible singing and moronic tunes that feel like a five-year-old did them. I love them because they are funny.

 

As for lyrics vs. words, no amount of good lyric content will ever overcome blaise tunes. I occasionally listen to stuff with iffy lyrics if the tune is good - Pink's "So What" is a fine example - but after awhile my offense at the lyrics causes me to turn it off. 

 

I have found that the songs that I listen to the most are songs with good tunes and good lyrics. Those do exist - it just took me a lot of my life to find them - and now that I have, I'm not letting them go.