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Are questions about individual songs, but not about identifying them, on topic? If so, what are the criteria for what makes a song-specific question on topic?

For example, in Skrillex's song "First of the Year (Equinox)" (Spotify link), there is a clip of someone shouting, "Call 911 now!" I would like to ask how Skrillex obtained that sample. Would such a question be on topic?

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  • To be clear, I'm not just asking about the Skrillex question I'm considering posting. I'm also asking about questions that, in general, focus on an individual song but aren't off topic for other reasons we've established.
    – Kevin
    Feb 26, 2015 at 4:42
  • Questions about single songs can be great, I think can think of many history questions that would be interesting. For the potential question under consideration, though, the whole "fan perspective" versus "production perspective" line might have been crossed, which is a separate discussion.
    – Matthew Read
    Feb 27, 2015 at 1:58
  • I asked a question about my specific example: musicfans.stackexchange.com/questions/382/…
    – Kevin
    Mar 9, 2015 at 1:07

3 Answers 3

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Yes, single songs would be on-topic. We would be doing ourselves a disservice if we are building a site about music history and appreciation, but couldn't ask questions about songs.

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I don't see why something like this would be off topic (as a general idea). We already have a song-specific question

But the answer to your question could simply be "Someone recorded someone yelling Call 911 now"

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I think it totally depends on how interesting the answers to the question are - or, until it has an answer, how interesting they are likely to be. As Shevliaskovic alludes to, is there any reason to suspect that this question has an interesting answer?

So I would suggest -

  • That such questions are on topic if they seem likely to be of general interest

  • That people downvote if they feel that they are not!

EDIT in response to comment : or, just "vote up" and "don't vote up".

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  • 2
    That will lead to people voting down content if they don't like the band, artist, or song the questions are about.
    – Dom Mod
    Feb 26, 2015 at 13:44
  • I think topo has a point here. 'What 'noise' was used on x' can have pretty short-term interest if the song in question was a minor hit last year & will be totally forgotten by most of the world by next year; but may have wide appeal if it was in the charts for 350 weeks in the 70s.
    – Tetsujin
    Feb 26, 2015 at 14:39
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    I agree with Dom, "interesting" depends on the individual and cannot be applied to a whole community. Obviously the person asking it finds it interesting enough to ask about
    – Zach Saucier
    Feb 26, 2015 at 14:53
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    I suspect by "interesting" you mean "of interest to the community" in general. That's just a very difficult criteria to use to gauge scope. It's a bit like saying "I'll know it when I see it" or *"We want it if we want it." Unfortunately, everyone is not so like-minded to rely on such a "just use common sense" premise.
    – Robert Cartaino
    Feb 26, 2015 at 15:21
  • Yep, that's what I'm saying. And maybe it's a terrible idea. Downvote away!
    – user16
    Feb 26, 2015 at 15:22

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