As a hip-hop song writer and vocal operationalist, I demand that I know how my words affect the ears... simple as that.

But the difficulty of assessing how your voice/word play/word choice/rhythm affects the ears of other human beings is almost cynically detrimental to one's continuance of pursuing a dream or passion in singing/song-writing.  In my case, the statement made in the previous sentence does not hold entirely true.  I am an excellent self-critic and generally know what sounds pleasurable to the ears and what doesn't, but am I just lost in my mind?  Is it a self-propagated love for my own workings of oral magic (INSERT DIRTY CUNNILINGUS REFERENCE HERE)  or are the words that I combine with my emotions truly enjoyable to listen to?  Am I amazed at my ability to construct story-lines in songs?  Do I praise my self with congratulations for accomplishing the glorifying task of writing a song?  Should I take a step back and appoint my strongest criticisms to my fellow peers and listeners?  

I honestly don't know, but in my opinion, listenability is not just a definition for a sound being pleasurable to the ear, it cannot be preferential... listenability is closer defined as being the balanced composition of rhythm, tone, emotion, and clarified fluency to pronounce that the song being heard is nice sounding by all degrees of the spectrum (meaning that everyone can listen to the song).  But thats just me, and those are my views on how I should make my music.  No need for magnums, one size fits all, you know?

Afterthought:  I am currently working on a huge Legion of Doom project and we are expected to start distributing music within the coming weeks, it's been go time for the past month and we really feel like we are coming together.  Keep your low expectations, shock-value* is what matters to me (*Timbaland).