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Prog and other unlistenable music
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Sometimes people's taste exposes their personality and perspective. I don't know why calling pretention is now a crime: some things are honest-to-god pretentious.
Some dude I know has the best reaction when they call his music pretentious:
"Why thanks. I enjoy listening to music with a high vision that doesn't aim for the cheap seats."
And then the crickets show up.
Calling someone pretentious when they consider it a character trait just takes all the fun out of things, I know.
Personally, purposely underplaying instruments seems almost worst than overplaying.
I find simplicity for simplicity's sake to be significantly more "pretentious" than complexity for complexity's sake.
I'm looking at you, Jack White.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The difference as I see it is that purposely underplaying sets a cieling your fans never expect you to go over, while overplaying allows you to throw in lots of "simple" stuff here and there without too much grief.
Man, whatever. The Ramones ruled.
They were just technically unskilled, not underplaying. Difference!
We were both being cunts about it, but until you can tell me why him doing it is fine, and me doing it to prove a point sucks, then I really don't think anything you have to say is worthwhile, sorry.
Podly called the tune, I danced to it. That's really all there is to this.
I hope someones head explodes while listening to it.
Do you like Augury? They're pretty sweet.
Love Augury.
I'm just highly impressed at a lot of Canadian bands making headway these days. UneXpect and Protest the Hero just being my most notables.
As we can infer from Feral's comment,
"pretentiousness" is a characteristic of the artist, not the art. I mean, come on, guys. Somebody might be completely unassuming and just honestly enjoy wailing on their guitar for twenty minutes, whilst another guy could go plink-plink on a couple Casio keys for ten seconds and be able to discourse at great length on what it means and how awesome it is.
The problem is when we start drawing arbitrary social distinctions between people based on their musical tastes, especially since we all go to music expecting wildly different things from it. It's hardly surprising to find that Podly, with his poetry fetish, is going to turn up his nose at songs that are technically proficient but lyrically puerile. Another person might rate music based on its political content, or how well it speaks to their emotions, or how easy it is to dance to. Are any of these wrong?
Technical proficiency is a worthwhile pursuit, too, and I can understand why people who've devoted a lifetime to mastering the trumpet or the guitar or whatever would want to show off that mastery. But it's hardly fucking surprising that the potential audience for that is going to be a bit smaller than the one for songs about love.
So tired
Most love songs have lyrics that could have come from the stock lovesong rhyme generator ala 1984.
Thank you. Jesus.
Have my babies. Thank you so much.
Art can most certainly be pretentious. Art is pretentious when it pulls an Emperor's New Clothes--namely, it attempts to tackle big shit (tm) but does so in a puerile way. An offhand example of a two-word pretentious poem, one which my friend had to read in highschool: "black white." Like those two words juxtaposed really illuminate race relations--it's obviously trying for something profound, but falls utterly and embarassingly flat.
People may be quick to throw out the p-word, but honestly, art often reflects back on the people who enjoy it.
Okay, fair enough.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If someone enjoys prog rock and disparages other types of music as being too simplistic, why does that reflect on the music itself? There are assholes in any fandom. A lot of these guys are children of the late 70s and 80s who evolved in the vein of Jethro Tull and Yes. I know a lot of the guys from Dream Theater personally, and they're seriously some of the most down-to-earth musicians I've ever met. They don't consider their music the ultimate in the art; they just enjoy creating complicated riffs and time signatures. And some people enjoy listening to them.
The art isn't pretentious: It's shitty.
The artist failed.
Yeah, there, I'd call that a bad poem. And maybe the person who wrote it is pretentious, or maybe they're just not a good poet. Or maybe they were taking the piss. We can't know unless we meet them, or read something by them, to give that poem more context.
Look, I'm not suggesting banning the word or anything. Obviously in real life we encounter situations all the time where we're going to make that call and we'll often be right. But in this particular thread the word, and all its associated value judgments, really seems to have become a hindrance to communication.
'cause artists' intentions don't mean jack to their art in a post-modern worldview, homeboys
At first I thought this would be an intelligent discussion. Then you brought up Dream Theater, and I realized......why bother?
Ironically, I find post-modernism incredibly pretentious.
Yes--pretention is, in many ways, a subjective label.
i have a friend (well, an ex friend) who is obsessed with them, then again he pretty much defines 'pretentious', which leads me to hate tool even more.
anyway, its nice to see some people who dont think they are gods gift to music.
In the middle of a concert?
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HAHAHA. Holy fuck, I tell this story to friends when they say how awesome Tool is live as well. I, too, fell asleep at a Tool concert.
x2
Although i admit i seem to be pretty good at falling asleep at festivals, i slept through Lamb of God, Stone Sour and Killswitch Engage, in one go, right in front of the main stage this year. oops.
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No, you're wrong, Tool's pretentious and their lyrics are masturbatory and anyone who likes Tool is a pretentious idiot. :roll: