Pretentious music??

Pollyanna

Platinum Member
"Pretentious" is a work bandied around a lot by critics. I never quite worked out what pretentious music was.

The dictionary tells me that pretentious means:

characterized by assumption of dignity or importance or

making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.​

Thing is, there's a lot of music that has "an exaggerated outward show" that might be called a lot of things but not usually "pretentious" - fusion, gospel and metal music are the most obvious examples. Prog rock is the usual the victim.

An "assumption of dignity or importance"? You can sometimes see it in a band's demeanour ... but the music?? I mean, all the musos are doing is writing music they think will sound good and then they tweak it until everyone's happy.

So the music isn't three chords or straight fours - that just means the musicians like to carry on a bit and get bored with the usual humdrum. I can't see the pretence, myself.

Am I missing something?
 
Critics, ha! A person whose job it is not to create anything on it's own, but rather to pick apart works that talented people have sacrificed for...
If someone could give me an example of truly pretentious music, then I could perhaps form an opinion. As it is, my opinion of critics isn't terribly high.
 
"Pretentious" is a work bandied around a lot by critics. I never quite worked out what pretentious music was.

The dictionary tells me that pretentious means:

characterized by assumption of dignity or importance or

making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.​

Thing is, there's a lot of music that has "an exaggerated outward show" that might be called a lot of things but not usually "pretentious" - fusion, gospel and metal music are the most obvious examples. Prog rock is the usual the victim.

An "assumption of dignity or importance"? You can sometimes see it in a band's demeanour ... but the music?? I mean, all the musos are doing is writing music they think will sound good and then they tweak it until everyone's happy.

So the music isn't three chords or straight fours - that just means the musicians like to carry on a bit and get bored with the usual humdrum. I can't see the pretence, myself.

Am I missing something?
I think when applied to music, the definition of pretentious leans more towards "assumption of importance". In other words, presenting the music in a cocky or presumptious manner with the artist believing he's/she's better than he/she actually is. Perhaps KG might fall into that catagory, whereas Elvis would not. I think it's more of a self hype observation. Something that has the outward appearance of substance, skill & gravity but underneath, lacks the sincerity & depth portrayed with such confidence on the surface.

Agree with Larry, it's all bollocks anyhow.
 
Good one, Pol. I wish I could offer a more articulate opinion, but I'd say there's music that says 'listen at me, aren't I impressive', and there's music that feels and is impressive.

I think one just knows by listening and feeling.

PS- sorry, real crappy response in hindsight, but I cant think of anything else to say.
 
Something that has the outward appearance of substance, skill & gravity but underneath, lacks the sincerity & depth portrayed with such confidence on the surface.

Yeah, that's what I find confusing. How do you give an outward appearance of substance, skill and gravity while really being crap?

I guess some would say that experimental music does that since some of the practitioners come up with strangely hifalutin comments about what their beeps and buzzes mean, but really it's just musos creating odd soundscapes because they like odd soundscapes, just as Jackson Pollock likes to hurl paint at huge canvases.
 
for me, pretencious is the same as take your self to serious, whatever your expression are. be it one chord or 150 strings. a poem or a bricksone in 1500 pages. But that has its place also, i like when people think they got something. Why do they have to be achame when they admit they think their genious? I think its refresshing. And sometimes hilarious.
 
I just realized that my screenname sounds a little pretentious, Larryace, like I'm this self important person or something. Actually I dislike that kind of perception. My company's name is Ace Electric. I just picked a quick and dirty name at the time. I had NO IDEA it was going to be a lifetime thing ha ha. In retrospect, I should have used my real name, like Jay Norem used to before he had to go underground for a while...
 
for me, pretencious is the same as take your self to serious, whatever your expression are. be it one chord or 150 strings. a poem or a bricksone in 1500 pages. But that has its place also, i like when people think they got something. Why do they have to be achame when they admit they think their genious? I think its refresshing. And sometimes hilarious.

But that's the thing, Swing (hey, that rhymes). Why did they play that one chord for a whole song? Because they felt like doing something a bit different. Why 150 strings? Same reason. 1500 pages? Because the author kept on thinking of more stuff to put in.

KIS, maybe Lady Gaga is pretentious (I don't know because I've only seen a couple of clips) but her songs and music are just modern pop from what I've gathered. I guess she likes that style and she guessed it would sell, and maybe figured that it would be a good vehicle for an "outrageous" video. But even that's all just a combo of business and fun with a bit of shit-stirring.

Critics and musos seem to look at things differently. The former worry about what it all means and what artists are about. Musos normally just worry about the music sounding good and having a vibe about it.

It's funny because I like lots of music that's accused of being pretentious but half the time I don't even know what the words are about, just that the music sounds wonderful. You know what REALLY peeves me about critics? They often hardly talk about the actual music. You find out about the band's home town, the bands that some of the members used to play in, the books they read, and maybe what some punk rocker thought of them.

I like an album review to say ... Song 1, a lively rocker, funny lyrics, straight up beat, nice guitar solo ... Song 2, the obligatory ballad, great singing and keys, Song 3 has a reggae-ish feel etc etc. That's all anyone wants to know, isn't it? What style the songs are in, the highlights, the bits that worked and the bits that didn't.

Larry, maybe you could go underground for a while too? You could sign off your posts as Ralph Jones or something similarly unassuming ... hey, no, I'm not really Larryace haha ... do I seem like the kinda guy who'd choose a dicky name like that? C'mon! Nah, just call me Ralph, man :)
 
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I don't really have anything to add... This just reminded me of one of my favorite album/CD liners. One of the King Crimson 25th anniversary reissues (discipline? lark tongues? i don't remember which). The background for all of the inner liner notes is a collage of old newspaper/magazine clippings containing seriously negative reviews of the album's original release. hilarious.
 
"Pretentious" is a work bandied around a lot by critics. I never quite worked out what pretentious music was.

The dictionary tells me that pretentious means:

characterized by assumption of dignity or importance or

making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.​

Thing is, there's a lot of music that has "an exaggerated outward show" that might be called a lot of things but not usually "pretentious" - fusion, gospel and metal music are the most obvious examples. Prog rock is the usual the victim.

An "assumption of dignity or importance"? You can sometimes see it in a band's demeanour ... but the music?? I mean, all the musos are doing is writing music they think will sound good and then they tweak it until everyone's happy.

So the music isn't three chords or straight fours - that just means the musicians like to carry on a bit and get bored with the usual humdrum. I can't see the pretence, myself.

Am I missing something?

I believe the word comes from "pretense" which is derived from pretend, but implies a certain false or deceptive air to cover up one's real self. OK, how about that group from the 1980s called The Pretenders? ;-} I actually have no idea what kind of music would be pretentious, but music critics worry about alot of things that musicians don't, lol.

I agree with your Lady Gaga analogy from an appearance standpoint. She is a brunette Italian American that looks like a plastic bleached blonde corruption of the chick from Pulp Fiction. Now she is as pretentious as they come! I saw a picture of her before all the bleachings and caked on makeup and she was very attractive. Now she looks fake. But of course, who hasn't gone that route in the pop music business already? Michael J, Madonna, David Bowie, Elton John, early Genesis Peter Gabriel, Boy George, God, the list just never ends, does it? All that said, I would not consider Lady Gaga's or any of the aforementioned artists' music as pretentious. It's a little above cookie cutter pop, and she does write her own stuff, as well as songs for other pop artists. I think the critics are talking about appearances and not musical styles. I have no idea what a pretentious music style would even be. But there are alot of musical performers out there that really get into a hollywood drama thing than others, Especially after music videos started.
 
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I have heard jazz called pretentious from people because they think it's dumb. I guess they think it doesn't sound good so the people who listen to it only listen to it because they want to put themselves on a higher level and above everyone else. I have tried arguing with them about it, but they are fools.
 
I have heard jazz called pretentious from people because they think it's dumb. I guess they think it doesn't sound good so the people who listen to it only listen to it because they want to put themselves on a higher level and above everyone else. I have tried arguing with them about it, but they are fools.

Funny thing, isn't it? ... "want to put themselves on a higher level and above everyone else". All they want to do is play music that gives them a buzz.

Sure, some musicians have a superiority complex because they're insecure, and for some reason musicians are more likely to have that weird sense of ego-driven status about their prowess, probably more so than gifted accountants and doctors - more kin to lawyers :)

But ultimately they are still just playing in a way that makes them happiest. What they do when not playing is not something I care about.

And yes, Doctor, artifice and fantasy is a huge part of pop.
 
But really, can music be pretentious? Or is that strictly a human quality?
After all, pretentious people think they are more important than they are, right? I suppose you could write songs that overstate their own importance.

Here, I'll start.

Title:

"The most important song ever written"

This is the most important song ever written
As soon as I wrote it, I was forever smitten
And when the words of this song are heard by the human race
It will absolutely transport them to a far better place.



Does that qualify as a pretentious lyric?
 
Depends on the delivery...if it's dead serious, then yes. If it's ironic, then the exact opposite...probably, unless it's being ironic in order to be very serious and then it might actually be pretentious after all.


This sounds like fun, I'll have a go.

"Giraffe"

Oh!

You are so

Tall.

Too tall for me,

Like a ladderrrrrr (FX: space echo)

But all the people, they want to see you go-o.

Save him! Save the giraffe-ee
There's no hope for him otherwise, can't you see.

You can't because you're too blind to see the giraffe-ee.

Why won't anyone see the giraffe-ee-ee-ee.
 
All this pretentious stuff got me thinking.

At my next gig I'm gonna tie the sleeves of a sweater around my neck and carry a tennis racket or perhaps a golf club out on stage with me.
I'll sip champagne in between tunes from a fluted stemmed glass.
I'll even have some French cheese and crackers on a small round table next to me.

Of corse, I'll also begin to smoke a pipe and drive a Volvo SUV with a stupid bumper sticker that pertains to an environmental or educational organization.
I'll begin to speak with an accent that no one from the area that I live in speaks with. The Kennedy family comes to mind!
 
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Bob, I'm sure everyone will be fooled into thinking you're a high society guy :)

Larry and PQleyR, you guys are total geniuseseses! ... "As soon as I wrote it, I was forever smitten" ... "Like a ladderrrrrr (FX: space echo)" - potent stuff!

One thing I notice is that if a lyricist is keen on poetry and using typical olde worlde poetic devices they get hit with the P-word. It seems that not being straightforward and earthy is assumed to be pretentious.

A bit of cross referencing ... this conversation reminded me of an old toon I made about the kinds of artist attitude that is never referred to as pretentious ... it's in the Drumming Cartoons thread.
 
Yeah, that's what I find confusing. How do you give an outward appearance of substance, skill and gravity while really being crap?

I guess some would say that experimental music does that since some of the practitioners come up with strangely hifalutin comments about what their beeps and buzzes mean, but really it's just musos creating odd soundscapes because they like odd soundscapes, just as Jackson Pollock likes to hurl paint at huge canvases.

You get a good producer.

Couldn't you argue that most music is really pretentious and there are only the few who are really great artists? In that sense, the others are just pretending to be artists. :p

I've met many people over the years who would argue, "life is too short, why listen to anything but the greatest music?" Those people would tend to devalue anything in the popular realm of music-making.

I could give a few examples that I think are pretentious music.

Eleanor Rigby is pretending to be a classical piece of music by using a string quartet. this was the piece that redefined The Beatles as not just a pop sensation though. Was it pure marketing or artistic expression?

The lush orchestrations of Barry White and the Love Unlimited Orchestra.Kind of over done; but very well-crafted.

Anything put out by Motley Crue, which of course also has the pretentious spelling of the name. But some of that stuff is really well-produced.

Marketing artist like Metallica, Madonna or Kurt Cobain as great artists is pretentious to begin with.

What about something like 21 Century Schizoid Man.. Well, prog is the victim. But wasn't the intent of prog to be quite pretentious from the out set. The Moody Blues are the ultimate example, using the orchestra. The excesses of ELP, Yes "doing what classical music does," pretending to be like classical music.

In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with pretense in music.The example, that I gave of Kid Rock's All summer Long, is a well-crafted pop tune. Whether you like it or not, or like him as an artist. You can take apart the song and see that it is well-crafted. But to call Kid Rock a great artist or market him or Kenny G like that, that is somewhat of a marketing fraud.
 
But really, can music be pretentious? Or is that strictly a human quality?

A human quality I think. Deltadrummer brought up some interesting examples of musical pretension, but is it that or fusion, and where does one draw the line? We as humans can deliberately hide behind facades and put on pretenses, mostly in the quest to present ourselves as greater than we actually are, but always to be something we are not. I don't know that I have ever heard music that is doing the same thing. I'll think about this some more - I was thinking that some of Zappas stuff was along those lines, but changed my mind. His parodies are in the mind. The music itself was a genuine as the genre he was mocking.
 
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