Music Banter - View Single Post - Alva Noto - Transform (2001) [SAA Album Club discussion Thread]

clutnuckle · 02-01-2011, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

You don't think music can present itself (or be presented) as something more than it is?

That's not pretentiousness. That's just a disguise. Like somebody coloring up a simple pop melody in heavy orchestration and calling it 'classically influenced'. That's not pretentiousness; that's inaccuracy. It's a problem, but it's not pretentiousness. Pretentiousness occurs in the music industry, but not in the actual music itself. I've talked with people who think that free jazz albums are pretentious because "THEY'RE TOTALLY ASSUMING I WANNA LISTEN TO 20 MINUTES OF WAILING WHY NO GOOD SIR?" In WHICH CASE, the person SAYING that is pretentious as they're ASSUMING based on their PERSONAL IMPORTANCE that these people should not make something that doesn't register with them. THAT'S pretentiousness. A human trait, not a musical one in any sense.

A copy-paste from a list I made a while back:

Quote:

Dictionary definition: 1. characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.

Music cannot assume anything upon itself. Music doesn't live. If you use flowery language, you might metaphorically say that it does (ie: "This music is brought to life as it leaps off of the page into your ears!" or something lame like that), but it does not live. It cannot assume ANYTHING upon itself. It may be loud, or abrasive, and sort of demanding of your attention, giving off a "LOOK AT ME!" kind of sound, but that doesn't equate to it assuming it's important. It indicates that the author of the music WROTE IT THAT WAY. Yes, a person can be pretentious, and VERY WELL the musician making Godspeed You! Black Emperor's music might be a pretentious guy! I really don't happen to care about his political views, so I don't know per se, BUT it's what people say. Some people may draw a line like this: "Okay... So music CAN'T be pretentious... But the people making it CAN BE, and thus the music was always be fueled by self-importance and there IS self-important and pretentious!" Not quite. If that were the case, most pretentious musicians would all come from the same train of thought. Pretentiousness is a fairly one-dimensional concept; if you ARE pretentious, there's only one way that you will make it live through your music. Some musicians known for being pretentious are Noel Gallagher, Thom Yorke, Efrim Menuck, and Morrissey. NONE of them seem to particularly sound similar. If they were in fact somehow converging their pretentiousness with their music, wouldn't we HEAR something very similar in all of their music? Their styles are so distinct from one another that it's simply a nonsensical brand, one that you ONLY say if you have nothing interesting to say.

2. making claim to distinction or importance, especially undeservedly.

See 1. Music cannot claim importance to itself, and even if its authors do, they cannot translate their pretentiousness into music in a noticeable way. "Undeservedly"? **** off; dislike a happy-go-lucky band all you want, but I happen to love how proud they sometimes manage to sound. Would you really rather the creators of the music you're hearing didn't give a **** about it? I love how enthusiastic musicians can be, continually interested in musical development and wanted to be proud of what they make. Without this ill-defined "pretentiousness", music would make NO progress, because nobody would give a ****.

So yeah.