I'll give tender surrender a try when i get home, but i'm seriously strugelling to aprecaite via and satch... They write some brillaint lines, but do "fill" alot.. I know what your saying about sounds being used in a non melodic context (eg sampling, one of my faviourite tools, also the majority of my bands use "noise" for effect, My bloody valentine are great at this, but a few of poele like cornelius are doing it well today, but they sample water sounds and things like that, rather than making noises with instruments, and why not)..
repition is not VITAL, and can back fire very badly when it's used too much.. but, I dont know, it seems to me that the whole music thing is based on a cluas between; melody, rythem and repition, no matter what genre/ culture / era... and to me, I find it difficult to enjoy piano pieces that go around never really playing anything with rythem... it's difficult to get it, you have to actually have heard the song enough times to know what to expect to enjoy it.. I'm sure some one gets what i'm dribbling on about...
Yeah, I just find it difficult to enjoy "for the love of god", when there are tracks like "found that soul"/ "australia" by the manic street preachers etc etc...
I'm also into putting concept and ideas behind songs, like alot of the sonic youth stuff (but i'm too humain to be postmodern, lol), and not having to write stuff so the average joe can understand it like he understands his glossy magazine, I'll write at the level i feel comfortable at.. and it's not to impress the colledge kids...