swim

How does what I say go against that? I think in music it goes on to take the connotation making music you don't enjoy. Whether it's highly technical or three little chords.

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Seltzer

pre·tense /prɪˈtɛns, ˈpritɛns/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pri-tens, pree-tens] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. pretending or feigning; make-believe: My sleepiness was all pretense.
2. a false show of something: a pretense of friendship.
3. a piece of make-believe.
4. the act of pretending or alleging falsely.
5. a false allegation or justification: He excused himself from the lunch on a pretense of urgent business.
6. insincere or false profession: His pious words were mere pretense.
7. the putting forth of an unwarranted claim.
8. the claim itself.
9. any allegation or claim: to obtain money under false pretenses.
10. pretension (usually fol. by to): destitute of any pretense to wit.
11. pretentiousness.



As to how this relates to music... here's an example. People might accuse a musician with a lot of technical skill of being pretentious because he/she thinks that technical skill makes them a superior musician in general. But there's the problem right there... in order to fairly accuse someone of being pretentious, you need to know their intentions first... and that's where a lot of people incorrectly assume.

Just because a musician is very skilled doesn't mean they think they're some sort of superior being. Making that assumption would be foolish, but you'd be amazed at how many people do it.

Prog catches a lot of flak for supposedly being pretentious due to the complexity/length/technicality. Indie catches accusations of pretension due to long song names, fashion and underground status etc. For some reason, some people seem to think that jazz fans consider jazz superior to most popular music because of the sophisticated chord progressions. Ditto for classical for various reasons.

These are all silly accusations of pretension in music. For example, you can call a band like Meshuggah pretentious for using complex time signatures in every song, but unless you know their intentions, you're most likely sorely mistaken. If they're making the music they want without pretense, more power to them. There will always be people bringing them down for being more skilled than the average Joe, but that's life. You can look at the guy who makes straight As and assume that he considers himself superior to other humans because of it, but again, that is severely flawed judgement.

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simplephysics

Most pretentious.. probably Smashing Pumpkins. I'm sure there was a point in time where Billy Crogan did nothing but stare into a mirror all day.
Least.. This probably sounds like a generic MB answer, but I'd have to say Elliott Smith. He never thought he was bigger than his music even though he, for the most part, progressively got better.

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sleepy jack

Nirvana was pretty unpretentious, Kurt Cobain called the hysteria surrounding them a load of shit and then said there were 15 bands who were just as good if not better than them that deserved equal/more attention. As well as Elliott for reasons listed above.

I'd say Angels and Airwaves is extremely pretentious because Tom has said things like they're saving rock and roll and are the best band out right now and even said his album was one of the best of 2007.

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boo boo

Most critics (who themselves are incredibly pretentious) will tell you pretentious is a bad thing.

But in reality, I find that most music is pretentious in some way or another, and that artists who are not pretentious or at least try not to be tend to suck ass.

I don't think Jim Morrison was any more pretentious than Lou Reed or Leonard Cohen, or that ELP are any more pretentious than Pavement. I think that overall, any music that tries to be artistic in anyway is automatically pretentious, because art is always pretentious.

And one reason I hate Indie so much is that unlike so called pretentious genres/movements/labels like Prog and Metal. The whole selling point of Indie is that its supposed to be un-pretentious. But is in fact the most pretentious music imaginable, in my opinion.

The only bands I'd say are not pretentious are bands that make music purely for entertainment. So no, AC/DC would not qualify as pretentious, in fact they are less pretentious than John Lennon, this dosen't make them better of course.

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sleepy jack

Spoken like a true progfan

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boo boo

I think pretentiousness is overall a good thing in music. I think of music more as escapism than poetry, which I know some people don't like. So overall, I like my music the same as my movies, relating more to fantasy than reality.

I like my movies, literature and video games with elves, fairies, dragons and ogres, so whats wrong with music that has elves, fairies, dragons and ogres?

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Rainard Jalen

Somebody above used a dictionary entry for the word "pretense" - that's very misleading. Just because "pretentious" is a derivative of "pretense" doesn't mean you can gauge its most regular meaning from the latter.

The most frequent and commonly intended meaning of "pretentious" is the meaning of assuming an air of dignity and self-importance. This is also incidentally what is generally meant in the music press (and all art press) when some artist is deemed pretentious.

In that case, you can only really say that an artist is pretentious if they make that clear through what they say or how they behave.

boo boo

Well, I think when critics talk about artists being pretentious, it has more to do with their music than them personally.

Ironically enough, the only thing critics EVER want to talk about is the artists personally, rather than their actual f*cking music.

I've always hated that.

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Rainard Jalen

They call the music pretentious because they deem the musical format (typically prog and the likes) to be associated with a self-important character and demeanour. That is to say, the supposed "pretentiousness" of the music is only characterized as such inasmuch as it is seen as a reflection of the personality behind it.