Seltzer

I think he's saying unnecessarily long/random band names are considered pretentious which is true - as to whether they actually are pretentious, well, probably not as often as they're considered pretentious. 'Pretentious' isn't a word I like to use very often, because it is abused when people assume too much. E.g. I wouldn't wager that every indie band with a long name is being pretentious. Some are just having fun or conforming to others who have done that.

Also, there's the whole prog is pretentious thing where a prog band is pretentious for having long songs and being technically skilled. Rubbish. If a prog band wants to write a long song, I don't see how that makes them pretentious... it's merely harks back to classical structures. It's their choice, but people assume that prog bands think they're superior to other musicians for having long songs.

And obviously jazz musicians are being pretentious when they use unusual scales... no, they just like to use those scales because they find them musically interesting.

People often use the word when something doesn't fit their standards or they don't know the motive behind something and assume pretentiousness. Sure in some cases, a band is being pretentious... e.g. there are a lot of jazz snobs/elitists who deserve to be called pretentious, but often there's nothing pretentious at all.

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Anyway, that was just my horribly jumbled rant on that topic and now follows my on topic part of my post.

I'm not put off by bands with bad names but it is slightly annoying because people assume too much. My Bloody Valentine is a great example... people assume they're emo. Death could be seen as a generic band due to a 'generic' death metal band name when they're anything but, and their name isn't generic because they were around at the start... in their time, that bandname wouldn't have been generic. Destroyer 666 is another good band with a shite name. People assume Eagles of Death Metal are a death metal band.

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