I've heard a lot of music called pretentious...and usually, I don't get how it applies. There are two kinds of music that seem to be called pretentious.
The first, music that uses a lot of big words, like the Decemberists. But me personally, when I use big words, it's because they're the first word that comes to mind, not because I want to appear smart by using them.
The second, and more common use of the word 'pretentious' applied to music seems to apply to prog or projects such as 'Late Registration' that sound designed to be big and epic. This definition of the word is applied to...Yes, Tool, Genesis, Kanye West, and so on. But I don't know, a lot of the time something is called 'Pretentious', I would use the word 'Ambitious' instead. Sometimes I get the idea that a 'Pretentious' album is just an ambitious album you don't like.
How do you all use the word 'Pretentious' applied to music?
I think there are multiple definitions, as you suggested in your initial post, Bob. Generally I think a pretentious album is one whose scope or projection overwhelms the creative power of its band. Lateralus comes to mind. Tool are gifted musicians, but this is an album whose length and obscurity rip apart the integrity of its songs. Opiate and Undertow are not pretentious, I would argue, because the songs on those albums are direct enough to stay under the band's control. Lateralus overreaches. It's pretentious.
Originally posted by Bobthespirit: I guess I could agree with that definition. If your ambition is greater than your actual talent. Say, with Phil Collins or Travis Meeks.
I guess I agree about Lateralus, but I think it has a few really good songs on it (A few overly long droning songs too).
Given that definition of ambition greater than talent, I think you would have to go on a case-by-case basis. If a band overshoots on a project and misses the mark, I'm not sure I could label that pretentious. If a band has a success and then continually attempts to follow up with grandiose projects that never work, that might qualify. One word that is often associated with pretention is ostentation, which is like showing off. This is what I tend to think of if something is labeled pretentious;demanding people to take notice of how great they are. Honestly, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head. Lateralus does overreach, but I would not consider it pretentious. I think you're allowed a pass every now and again. After all, bands have to try new things.
The main thing that makes an album pretentious? The fact that someone, somewhere doesn't like it. One person's sprawing artistic tour de force is anothers meandering pretentious mess...
I agree with both of your attempts to explain it, bob. I think beyond just using big words that being 'overly literary' can get you labelled pretentious...making references (even common ones, not really obscure ones) that show you've read a book or two often gets the p-word thrown out there. The Go-Betweens and Nick Cave both come to mind...not usually big words, but big ideas coming out (references to mythology, Proust, and so on) get some people to say they're putting on airs.
I'm not a fan of prog. I don't find it pretentious...just mostly boring. But my buddies who like some of it (Marillion, for example) will sometimes complain that they get a little goofy with lyrics and songs somtimes.
Typically if a band takes itself too seriously in a classical music way or with a self-conscious literature-influenced lyrical approach/ humour, it has been the norm to call them "pretentious". Post-Sgt Pepper's progressive rock suffered from this branding. Rock music is thought of as proletariat music and the more "bourgeoisie" influences there are (romantic classical music), the easier it is to bash the music for lacking street credibility. And the critics who brand things "pretentious" are themselves a victim since the definition of what rock music should be itself is questionable.
Some serious bands pulled it off brilliantly. Case in point - Henry Cow. They were brilliant musicians, all trained in the avant garde, who took themselves way too seriously. They were one of the founders of the Communist Rock-In-Opposition (RIO) movement and made their definitive statement in the "In Praise of Learning" LP called "Living in the Heart of the Beast". Though lyrically it is too wordy, it has enough blood in it to make you squirm. And Henry Cow compositions and improvisations are amongst the greatest in rock history.
The easiest answer would be - "pretentious" is relative. I like the Afghan Whigs, although they do tread the self-conscious territory a lot.
Obviously pretension means "putting on airs". That means to be somehow fake and fuller of oneself than is warranted (once again, you need a "critic" to have a "pretension".) Somehow, some critics seem to know that somebody else is putting on airs even more than the artists themselves do. Anything which is "fake" is "pretentious". I feel this much more often in film than music. I read some people claiming that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's new album was a scam to garner new fans, and thus, pretentious. That was pretty funny because that band's creative epiphany will be their "commercial" downfall.
"Naked Woman, Naked Man Where did you get that nice sun tan?"
Originally posted by mark f: I read some people claiming that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's new album was a scam to garner new fans, and thus, pretentious. That was pretty funny because that band's creative epiphany will be their "commercial" downfall.
That's an interesting claim. I'd guess that more people would call the BRMC record "selling out" than being pretentious, although I guess the adoption of a new style (gospel-blues-country-folk?) could be pretentious if the style was the hot trend. Maybe the claim is that BRMC is pretending to be something they're not by dropping the Jesus & mary Chain sound for something more rustic? If so, that's pretty presumptive of the critics to assume that they can tell BRMC what style they SHOULD have...
I generally think pretention is unwarranted arrogance. When you don't have enough respect for an artist, you'll generally see tham as arrogant and meaningless, which makes everything they do pretentious. It's different, however, to be brilliant and arrogant; all of a sudden their bullcrap is a lot easier to swallow.
For example, Bob Dylan at the peak of his absurdist songwriting. If any other songwriter had attempted to sing "Highway 61" or any of those other songs from the period, they would have been labeled as some pretentious, nonsensical asshole, most likely because they didn't have the massive, established artistic respect that Dylan had at the time. Or the confidence.
There are also instances when respected artists are viciously labeled pretentious later on in their careers. I think one of these cases in Pete Townshend. Although he made good to great music, some of it at the tail-end did get pretty pretentious.
However, I don't necessarily like to run around calling albums pretentious. I am guilty of it, I'll admit that, but I tend to think that if I were to call an album 'pretentious', then there must be some degree of arrogance or pretention within me. *shrugs*
I feel completely under-prepared to participate in this thread, so full of long words and ideas..........hang on, I think we have established a word for that: p......
Just joking guys.
The one band who seem to get labeled pretentious more than most these days is Muse. I gues this is because their sound is so big, mixing those huge riffs with the soaring keyboard sounds that make it almost operatic. Now as Hemorrhoids suggested, this is probably because rock isn't "supposed" to sound operatic, and therefore they are trying to do too much.
Personally, I love Muse, and treasure Absolution. Lateralus was also a fave for a while, I just had to skip the pretentious filler. Oops ----------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Chris_Creevy: Go to myspace.com and look at a lot of the bands on there. They're all pretty terrible and try to sound extremely serious about their music.
To put it one way. Theres a huge difference between confidence and being big headed. Radiohead walks the fine line and U2 fell off it.
The myspace comment is hilarious. I completely agree.
An album could be considered "pretentious" if it encapsulates a period of time in which a popular musical group--long known for highbrow, prostelytizing fare--attempts to take on the trappings of conformist minimalism; this while simultaneously attempting to make broad, challenging intellectual analyses of their own critical (if not popular) juxtaposition. Such a situation could, in retrospect, be applied to the landmark 1988 Poison opus Open Up And Say...Ahh!.
Open Up differs from other non-mainstream fare of the time; to be sure, one has to look no further than U2's Joshua Tree in order to discover just how far and how fast a band can rise (or fall) to the occasion of serving the collective humanity. But the devil is in the details--Open Up is a collection that begs repeat listenings as one is drawn into a web of ever-expanding psycho-social (and now, it appears) sexual exploits. These draw the listener in, but sadly offer little more than a self-conscious portrait of a too-complicated, too educated, too cereberal-for-their-own-good band that has clearly not been able to get over the fact that they just don't give a damn anymore that moms in Green Bay (or their daughters, for that matter) won't be humming along come Memorial Day.
Not that the band could be blamed, though. All was not as it seemed in 1980's america--skyrocketing crime, poverty, the emergence of AIDS and of course Ron and Nancy--these things certainly have to be factored in to the equation when one discusses what little "material" Mr. Michaels and company had to work with. But the passage of time clearly begs the question: would just a little outside record-label well, interference, have made Open Up a little less relevant and a little more enjoyable? Would the formidable Michaels/C.C. Deville/Rikki Rockett triumvirate have been any less compared to Lennon/McCartney, to Jagger/Richards?
I think claims of pretentiousness is just something people use to put something down because they don't understand it. A good example would be a lot of Patti Smith's lyrics. She's coming out of an abstract lineage of songwriting and poetry so obviously her lyrics arent going to be as linear as Lou Reed's often were. I mean maybe their is no meaning to a lot of her stuff but who said there was ever suppossed to be. Its same thing with Kurt Cobain, David Byrne and many others.
There’s a dream that I see, I pray it can be Look 'cross the land, shake this land - "Maybe Not", C. Marshall
Location: "Out on tour with Smashing Pumpkins, nature kids, they don't have no function"
Originally posted by Backcountry: I feel completely under-prepared to participate in this thread, so full of long words and ideas..........hang on, I think we have established a word for that: p......
Just joking guys.
The one band who seem to get labeled pretentious more than most these days is Muse. I gues this is because their sound is so big, mixing those huge riffs with the soaring keyboard sounds that make it almost operatic. Now as Hemorrhoids suggested, this is probably because rock isn't "supposed" to sound operatic, and therefore they are trying to do too much.
Personally, I love Muse, and treasure Absolution. Lateralus was also a fave for a while, I just had to skip the pretentious filler. Oops
Christ, I had such an argument re pretentiousness with a mate of mine - it all depends what one thinks one should attempt or be - it all gets so complicated depending on the imagination of your audience! If it is all blue jeans and E street band, well it's hard to put a dainty foot wrong - but when Bowie overshadows you, well then just throw yourself into krautdub and wear a silver suited parrot on your velvet jumpsuit and keep it moody! ----------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Backcountry: I feel completely under-prepared to participate in this thread, so full of long words and ideas..........hang on, I think we have established a word for that: p......
Just joking guys.
The one band who seem to get labeled pretentious more than most these days is Muse. I gues this is because their sound is so big, mixing those huge riffs with the soaring keyboard sounds that make it almost operatic. Now as Hemorrhoids suggested, this is probably because rock isn't "supposed" to sound operatic, and therefore they are trying to do too much.
Personally, I love Muse, and treasure Absolution. Lateralus was also a fave for a while, I just had to skip the pretentious filler. Oops
Christ, I had such an argument re pretentiousness with a mate of mine - it all depends what one thinks one should attempt or be - it all gets so complicated depending on the imagination of your audience! If it is all blue jeans and E street band, well it's hard to put a dainty foot wrong - but when Bowie overshadows you, well then just throw yourself into krautdub and wear a silver suited parrot on your velvet jumpsuit and keep it moody! ----------------------------------------------------
I have no idea what happened here - but the last post which I swear i didn't type is friggin fantastic - I must lay off the morphine - oh, so pretentious!
i just thought it was a band not deserving the respect they assumed they should get for all incredibly overblown concepts or structures they were hocking that didnt have the essential music to back it up.
then theres also people like mia doi todd, who people accuse of being pretentious because she makes so much hoopla out of just not singing like most folks.
it's mostly about attitude rather than the music i think. even your album cover. if you've got a fairly basic one people would just dismiss it and think "yeah, that was a lot of jammy toss" but if you get storm thorgerson to do it people will nail your ass for being so full of yourself.
A pretentious album, to me, is an album that has been hyped to be something more than it is. This would include albums that are hyped as "the most amazing album in the history of music" that don't hold up to their original claims. One shining example of this would be The Killers' Sam's Town which lead singer Brandon Flowers projected to be the best album of the past 30 years.
Another way an album can be pretentious is by being "deep" for the sole purpose of being "deep". I feel this same way about art and drama and every one of the fine arts: I get really annoyed when people call something deep or see some underwritten meaning that wasn't originally meant to be there. I'm not sure if that makes sense or if I explained it sufficiently, but I hope you get my point.
