Quote:
Originally Posted by dankrsta
An artist can only tell me that through his song. I don't see the artist, I only 'see' his song. Therefore song tells me it's going to be mind-blowing or whatever. I can call the song pretentious if it doesn't achieve what it/he promises. The artist put the pretense in the song. I don't care about him or how he acts outside of what he shows in his art. The song is his creation, it becomes a little world of its own, separated from him after it's finished. Everything he put there is now a part of it and that includes pretense.
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How exactly is a
song telling you how it thinks it's so great (which is generally the definition of pretentiousness)? It never does because it can't speak, and it can't communicate any pomposity with you. There is no song that will directly make you think "Wow this thinks it's SO GREAT. It's not even close!". If somebody actually listens to music and feels this way about a song because it used 'fancy instrument', then that's their their problem with pretentiousness, not the song's. Pretentiousness in music appears when the artist brags about something, and then their art can't back it up. The artist is pretentious, not the music.
Music can carry a lot of things, sure. A sad feeling or two he/she had when they recorded it. But pretentiousness is one of the most direct, one-dimensional descriptions for something that takes human examples to define. Not what the human made, but how the human discusses what they've made/will make. The terms 'inaccurate' and 'misleading' are much different and ultimately more satisfying because on the song's part, it really had no control over this supposed "I was expecting a lot more from this..." feeling that we sometimes get with music. The artist does, however, and therefore he is the pretentious one. The song is just a misleading work.