Most pretentious rock songs

Cafe Society
61

I’ve given variations on this speil before, but here goes:

People in general, and movie critics in particular, often equate “Pretentiousness” in music with the prog-rock and art-rock movements. Is that valid? Well, yes and no. Sometimes, prog-rock bands bit off more than they could chew. Sometimes, musicians who weren’t all that intelligent tried to write deep, meaningful lyrics on heavy subjects, and ended up writing pap. Or, sometimes musicians tried to push the envelope and did lengthy jam sessions or instrumentals that got boring. That’s all true.

But to me, pretentiousness is an attitude, not a particular genre. Any time a band or artist gives off a vibe that practically intones, “Listen to US! We are ARTISTS, and we are making important STATEMENTS,” that’s pretentious. ESPECIALLY if the artists shows little or no humor, self-awareness, or recognition of their own limitations.

Genesis, ELP, King Crimson and Yes didn’t know the Meaning of Life any more than I do, so if they recorded a 20 minute song exploring that topic, the results could be embarrassing.

But you know what? A stark, simple folk song can be incredibly arrogant and embarrassingly pretentious, too. Almost ever song of Bruce Springsteen’s ***Nebraska ***album was stark, simple AND unbeearably pretentious. Bruce is not partcularly smart, but feels compelled to try to make A Really Big Statement on many of his records. WHen he does, he’s pompous and boring.

By contrast, the Moody Blues were rarely pompous, even when they used lush orchestration. Underneath the mellotron, the Moodies were always a simple pop/R & B band from Birmingham. Strip away the orchestral sound and you usually found a pretty good pop ballad underneath most of their songs. (“Nights in White Satin” isn’t about the Meaning of Life, after all. It was just a song about a heartbroken guy who’s missing his ex-girlfriend.)

Like the Beatles, the Moodies were basically a pop band thta got an opportunity to experiemtn a little with different sounds, and try new things. Sometimes those experiments resulted in great music, sometimes not. But in the end, neither Paul McCartney nor Justin Heyward regarded himself as an intellectual or an artiste.

62

Rush gets bonus pretentious points for using “one” in the song instead of the more prole “I”.

One must put up barriers
To keep oneself intact

The English major side of me likes it; the regular side of me thinks it’s hilarious.

63

I love Pink Floyd, and would normally consider them sincere in their music…

Except they’ve used “eiderdown” in lyrics of at least three separate songs.

64

So basically what you guys are saying is that half my iTunes playlist is pretentious. :slight_smile:

Actually, there’s something attractive to me about a song that is unabashedly pretentious. It takes balls to attempt something like that. Maybe I like just because I’m generous in how I interpret the motives of the performers - I see them as being both self-congratulatory and self-deprecating at the same time. The band Edguy does this explicitly. There’s a note of “isn’t this silly that a bunch of gown men are playing heavy metal and singing about dragons?” And, yes, it is silly. But it’s kind of fun too.

65

Ugh. I always imagine the Moody Blues blushing furiously all the way to the bank.

66

It was a lot less calculated than that.

The Moodies started out as a pop/soul band, led by Denny Laine (later a member of Paul McCartney’s Wings). By mid-1966, the band had fallen out of favor with the public, Laine and bassist Clint Warwick quit, and the band brought in Justin Heyward and John Lodge as substitutes.

The band was on the verge of dying. Then they heard the Beatles’*** Sgt. Pepper***, and thought, “Wow, using an orchestral sound… maybe WE could try that.” They were given a chance by Decca records to make a concept album (at one point, it was supposed to be a pop/rock version of Dvorak’s New World Symphony). The result was the ***Days of Future Passed ***album, which featured the hits “Tuesday Afternoon” and “Nights in White Satin.” That album jump-started their careers, and made tem popular again.

The Moodies didn’t set out to be pompous artistes. They were an ordinary pop band circling the drain, and getting desperate. They took a big chance on a new sound. They got lucky, and succeeded.

67

The Procol Harum is credited with popularizing the Bach melody that formed the basis of “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” and the words reference a Chaucer story that most people would not have read and few people who did would understand. Thus the lyrics are a mishmash of classical references meant to invoke a whimsical story of a bittersweet failed romance.

68

When I saw the thread title the first one to come to mind is Rockstar by Nickelback.

69

Prog rock is often pretty freaking pretentious. I’m thinking of a young Peter Gabriel here, and Dream Theatre.

The Fixx were kind of pretentious. Arguably Midnight Oil were made of pretention, surfer licks, and a small dab of ska.

So much of Bowie’s oeuvre has been pretention, whether Ziggy Stardust or Tin Machine or anything in between.

So there’s a lot of pretension rock out there.

70

I was going to add John Lennon, but on second thought I think he was just terribly self-absorbed rather than pretentious as such.

Apropos of nothing, I heard “Hotel California” on the muzak in the dollar store today, and at first I was thinking, “That’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’,” and then realized my mistake. Weird.

I used to really like “Hotel California” but I’ve been away from that era of rock for a long time after burning out on radio playlists with an overly narrow definition of “classic rock.”

71

(I should note that I really like Oils, and the Fixx, and Queen…I’m OK with some of what I’m calling pretentious.)

72

While I fully know how pretentious ELP can be, “Lucky Man” can’t be pretentious by any definition

  1. Not about them.
  2. Simple as hell. The 4 easiest chords on a guitar
  3. Written when the guy was 12
  4. It has the Moog solo at the end, but it isn’t 6 minutes of key-wanking. A keyboard solo isn’t pretentious per se.
73

Goodness gracious, the bands and labels *were *trying *anything *in that time period, weren’t they…

But if you’re pretentious* on purpose*, knowing it’s pretentious, does it count the same?

Tend to agree.

74

I know I’m probably in the minority, but I think Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is pretentious shite.

I wasn’t overwhelmed when I first heard it - and now that it’s been covered by just about everyone and keeps turning up in television/movie shows, I’ve learned to truly loathe it.

75

Right. Bombastic is my favorite genre (Meat Loaf, anything written by Jim Steinman, Styx, Rush, Queen…) and while I take it at face value, there’s a wink there somewhere. There has to be.

76

I would not want to argue that the Floyd were never pretentious, but there is nothing pretentious about the word “eiderdown” in British English. I had an eiderdown" on my bed when I was a boy, and I expect the Floyd boys all did too. It is a perfectly commonplace word word over here: what Americans call a comforter (which strikes me as a term with far more of potential for being used pretentiously, although I can’t think of any actual examples).

77

I think you can make a great case for Pink Floyd, and Roger Waters in particular, as being extremely cynical, or, late in the band’s career with stuff like The Wall or Final Cut as being overwrought Waters wet dreams/nightmares, but I don’t feel pretension from those.

I think Waters is honest in his beliefs, but that doesn’t necessarily always translate into good music. I think the Final Cut is largely rubbish, for instance. Intentionally marginalizing your band mates in order to make “your” epic album isn’t a great way to go about things.

78

I don’t listen to most lyrics because I think rock lyrics are generally stupid. As far as musically pretentious, I nominate any rock act that plays with an orchestra.

My friend sent me this Dream Theater video the other day and its bombastic ostentation makes me want to vomit:

79

I think DEVO can be pretentious at times. I’ve heard that over the years they have been somewhat pissy at interviewers who started out thinking of them as a “funny” band, because they were very serious about their message of Freedom of Choice while dressing up as space aliens with energy domes on their heads.

80

When a guy named by-tor says your prog band is pretentious, it’s time to take a long, hard look in the mirror. :stuck_out_tongue: :smiley:

Seriously, though, Dream Theater is Rush with less humor and self-awareness. Not a good place to be.