Super Tramp, I believe, came out with some unbearably pretentious pile of crap. Can’t remember the title, but its “ugh” factor approached infinity. :rolleyes:
“Fool’s Overture,” (complete with Winston Churchill and church bells) perhaps?
“History recalls
how great the Fall can be
while everybody’s sleeping
the boats set out to sea
borne on the wings of time
it seemed the answers were so easy to find…” etc etc.
Supertramp was INCREDIBLY pretentious, but I love them.
To paraphrase somebody-or-other’s sig line, you say “pretentious” like that’s a bad thing. I love pretentious music. There’s nothing more dismal than having to listen to bland lifeless top 40 shit for solid minutes at a time.
Lots of good ones have been mentioned so I won’t duplicate (not knowingly anyhow)…
a) The Grand Illusion, Styx. One of my favorite pretentious albums and the title track plus “The Angry Young Man” have to make the list.
b) The Prophet’s Song, Queen. “The earth will shake, in two will break, and death all around will be your dowry”. Queen does serious hard rockin’ to stand up against the most heavy of headbanging bands. And rules. Pretentious in a Zeppelin mode.
c) Kansas, Cheyenne Anthem and Carry On Wayward Son from Leftoverture. Heck, all of Leftoverture, come to think of it. Classic.
d) Moody Blues, Every Good Boy Deserves Favor. Gotta include “Procession” (the one that encapsulates the history of music from the Stone Age to Rock, incidentally incorporating the acquisition of language) and “My Song” (the song that never ends) and “The Story in your Eyes” just for recapping the Procession theme.
e) In a different vein, “American Pie” (Don McLean). The Day the Music Died.
f) Enigma. This is the voice of Enigma. Lay your head back and let us blow your mind.
g) Alan Parsons Project, I Robot. Could it be that somebody else is looking into your life, some other place, some other time? Surely you know the chance has gone by…
No discussion of pretentious music would be complete without a mention of Conor Oberst. I mean, I like Bright Eyes and everything, but my goodness. I wish he would spend more time actually singing and less time trying to be profound.
The songs in this thread basically formed the playlist in my dorm room in 1988-90. I blame my roommate; he owned all the CDs and the stereo.
“Do they Know it’s Christmas.” Yeesh.
Tenacious D - Double Team
A pretentious song, but purposely so. I’m going to put some of the lyrics in a spolier box since they’re crude.
Damn, a hard day’s rockin’. Better slip off ma shoes.
Maybe give a little stretch, and a bend.
Dip m’toe to jacuzzi, baby. Slip out this book:
The Buttress of Windsor. Ho ho ho, who’s this? How’s it goin’?
That’s the first thin’ I say to you.
How’s it goin’? Are you flowin’?
Listen honey,
…
Man I’d like to place my hand
upon your fuckin’ sexy ass and squeeze.
And squeeze!
…
Me, me and KG,
It’s all about sex supreme,
We likes to cream jeans. (sex)
Have you ever been worked on
By two guys who are hot for your snatch? (sex)
That’s what I’m offerin’ you.
…
And then you feel a tickling on your head.
It’s KG with the feather and the French tickler,
Look out baby he got the tools.
And then you feel sumpin’ down by your feet.
It’s me, it’s JB, I’m suckin’ upon your toes.
We don’t mind sucking on toes!
Good luck finding a boyfriend who sucks toe, ow!
Havin’ sex with me and KG,
Now you’re talkin’ double team supreme!
That whole English “Art Rock” thing sure went over the top, but I guess anybody could see it coming. With the exception of a few musicians like Eric Clapton, there was just so much that the average British kid during the “Blue-eyed Blues” era could do with a style from 5,000 miles away on the Mississippi. So they drew upon what was handy to the British middle class: the Church of England hymnal. Not to complain; I fondly remember a lot of Richie Blackmore, Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, etc., but, still, “Art Rock” is a oxymoron.
That said, even Robert Fripp at his frippiest would only say “listen to this song I wrote.” However, Yanni, musical poetaster, would say “listen to this piece I composed!” Not just pretentious but delusional.
Shoeless beat me to it. Much as I love their music, ELP’s lyrics can be cringingly pretentious.
from “Lend Your Love to Me Tonight”
Although they did collaborate on that song, I was thinking he meant “Say Say Say”.
Agreed that there are a lot of odd definitions of “pretentious” floating around the thread…
Apparently, you never heard “Lightning Crashes” by Live - which is out pretentioused by many things in this thread, but it’s way up there on the meter.
Long thread, and no one’s mentioned Meat Loaf/Jim Steinman yet!
Oh, they got worse than that.
I give you “Paper Blood”
“Surrender to the power of wedge”???
And of course, there’s always the classic “Hallowed Be Thy Name (aka: How many nonsequiturs can I string together and make it fit the metre?)”:
YEAH, baby!
They could still be awesome, though. Just not always.
Gangsta of Love - The Geto Boys
Hey, leave the Yeah Yeah Yeahs out of this! 
Anyway, might I add…David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s (!) duet of The Little Drummer Boy?
It’s the lyrics they added to it that made it pretentious, IMO. What with the “Peace on Earth…can it be?” and the “Every child must be made to care!” parts. It just ends up sounding like propaganda.
No one has mentioned Harry Chapin?
I’m a minor fan of Harry but he really went OTT on a lot of his stuff. Songs like “Better Place to Be” “Mr. Tanner” and “The Rock” are real top of the line pretentious crap.
An dishonourable mention also goes to the singing social worker Phil Collins for his dreadful “Another Day in Paradise”.
I’ll second anything by The Doors. Almost everything by U2.
And Earthsong by Mr. M. Jackson.
To get this title, I think the song would have to be smug no matter who performed it- so I can forgive Lennon and Imagine.
If it was a movie, Last Year At Marienbad would win hands down.
I’m thinking of the song that is the equivalent.
Was it sung in ‘The Birth of a Nation’?
:eek: You are so right, Big Bad Voodoo Lou! Of course, “Ebony and Ivory” still makes my cut as one of the most pretentious songs ever, but it would have been deliciously pretentious had it been MJ.
Damn. Now I’ve got that song in my head AGAIN.