There's Soul Music but not Soul Movies - Why Music is the Ultimate Form of Expression

It's so easy to take music for granted. After all, no other medium of expression is versatile enough to seamlessly work its way into every aspect of our lives, from grocery shopping to weddings. The frequency at which we are serenaded makes it easy to dismiss tunes as background noise, as constant and unremarkable as breathing. Don't be fooled. The sound of music is the most powerful means of communication known to man.
When describing how his songs relate his emotions, David Bowie said "There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say ...  It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means." And he's right. You see, language is a limited means of communication. For a word to be invented, it must correspond to a thing or idea that is understood. Words must be defined, and therefore speech and writing can convey only the definitive. But our emotions, which are very important things to relate, are not easy to define. This is why describing how you feel is such a hard thing to do. But even when you can't pinpoint your mood, you can always find a song that suits it. That's because music has the power to connect to our feelings when nothing else can.
Music transcends words and speaks to emotions because it's physically stimulating. You can feel it. The bass vibrates your car; a sublime melody sends shivers down your spine. Each song has a texture to it that tugs on your heartstrings in a particular way. The key is that the listener's mind is completely removed from the experience. You can analyze song lyrics as you would other media, decoding them for their true meaning. But a song you like always makes you feel something right away. 1970s rock-operas are great examples of this (A Night at the Opera by Queen, No Answer by ELO, and Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars are three good ones). The chords are so raw and so powerful that you feel a a rise in your chest. It's completely mindless and completely spiritual, a message sent from the soul of the writer into the soul of the listener without the brain interfering. Such music is communication that bypasses the limiting prism of words: it is pure sensation. For beneath our technology and culture humans are animals, and sensation is our primitive language. It is what touches us on a most basic level. Thus, the chord progression electrifies you, it elates or depresses you. But it's never misunderstood.