Music Banter - Why/How is art rock pretentious?

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Quote:

Originally Posted by RoxyRollah (Post 1657806)

Yea kinda.

Getting even more drunk? Cause I have A LOT more beer. Like, I've decided that I'm not going to sleep even though I have work at 7 in the morning. Probably going to go to work at least moderately drunk cause **** life. Dubtrack? Let's do this ****.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Batlord (Post 1657759)

The way I see it, when someone (whether it be the artist, fans, and/or critics) calls something "art rock" it often comes across as a self-conscious and egotistical attempt to distance the music from mainstream "non-arty" music. I mean, there isn't a genre of art called "art painting". It's just art. Music is likewise just art -- even though a lot of people don't think of it that way -- and the kind of people who would use the term "art rock" are aware of this, so their using it just seems redundant and desperate.

That is not at all a criticism of the music itself of course, or even the tastes and opinions of people who call something "art rock", just my general impression of why they and the genre are seen as pretentious. It's not like I care about doing away with the term, and I use it myself, as it is a recognized genre name that describes certain bands who might otherwise be hard to categorize (not that "art rock" is a particularly useful description of a band's sound, but it's better than nothing).

I feel similarly about "literary" fiction and "intelligent" dance music. I like both of those things, but super pretentious names.

Your last album sucked too^..

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoxyRollah (Post 1657865)

Your last album sucked too^..

Mine?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RoxyRollah (Post 1657865)

Your last album sucked too^..

I don't know... I'd give it like a 4/10 but it certainly didn't suck. I think you just aren't paying attention to the subtleties, that's the main charm about it.

Art rock is pretentious because regular people who are used to listening to regular radio music don't understand it, and think that the whole point of it is to be a hipster **** and just pretend to like it because it's "deep" or some **** like that. It's really just people being afraid of things that are different than what they're used to.