“Snob Music” or “Pretentious Music” Thread - Experimental, Avant-Garde, Weird Music, Dissonant Music, whatever.

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Baptiste XIX RoseOfSharyn

Baptiste XIX RoseOfSharyn

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20 de Ago, 2020
This is probably just gonna be a string of random rambling.

I have the taste of a pretentious Music Snob, but I generally dislike pretentious Music Snobs.

I have realized this recently finding myself listening to more music you could consider Experimental or that generally have uncommon elements to casual music.
I have grown to love stuff I’d consider too boring, dissonant or weird 5 years ago, artists & bands such as black midi, SWANS, Moondog, Charles Mingus (atleast his Avant-Garde Jazz albums), Tim Buckley, Tom Waits (Post-1983), clipping., Anguish, Lingua Ignota, Scott Walker (Post-1995), Radiohead (Post-2000), JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, Frank Zappa, COIL, The Dillinger Escape Plan, & many others.

But with this newfound passion in discovering this music & enjoying it to spread to others, I have also grown a certain disdain for the pretentious arrogant contrarians who love this music, the ones who look down upon others for not enjoying their music taste, it only serves to drive people away from this music further, which is annoying cause I feel like some do miss out on a whole other world of music they haven’t fully explored yet.
The image of pretentious faggots like Anthony Fantano or smelly self-pitying arrogant Incels/Doomers being associated with this music doesn’t help it either.

How do any of you feel about this?

If any of you also happen to like music like this, I’d like to hear any potential suggestions.
 
I grew up searching for good music and who inadvertently became a music hipster. The difference between someone who appreciates music and a hipster is:
  • The former has opinions on the subject that they can defend in an argument, even if it's just, "I like how it makes me feel."
  • The latter can only make arguments which suggest that certain opinions are high status (mine), and others are low status (not mine).
That said, I threw away the spreadsheet I made when I was kid that had all the bands, albums, and songs I heard at random and which I liked because I'm too old to care. Sometimes I wish I kept it. I have no musical training and I'm too old for it to matter - my arguments for or against certain things are limited by this to say the least.

Song Tax:
I had a dream about this song when I was 16. In this dream I was in a dark ballroom dancing some sort of formal, complicated, and very taxing European dance with a masked teenage girl and other dancers. There were candle holders dangling from barely visible golden cords in the ceiling, which cast light through gold and green stained glass. They seemed to float in the air, and the pattern on the dancers and the floor was like that of a fire at night yet also reminiscent of sunlight under a forest canopy shifting in the wind.
 
Your music tastes are based. More and more, I like music that is considered weird. What I really like is passion. I can tell when a band is radio-baiting 'cause there's a distinct lack of soul — and I acknowledge that is a very pretentious statement, but you get what I mean. I'll enjoy a schlocky breakup song if there's a genuine story and an emotion behind it.

There're only a few musicians I consider to be truly pretentious. Most of the time, it's the fans making it out to be more important than it is. Tool, for example. I think people should freely listen to whatever they enjoy, regardless of its "depth," mastery, or simplicity

I'm a big fan of Fiona Apple. My sister and I actually study her music and lyrics to an autistic degree. Her Idler Wheel album easily falls under the realms of what most would call pretentious, but it's a really impressive feat of genre-melding, colors, textures, blah, blah, blah. Apparently, she was one of Kanye West's greatest inspirations.

I don't know if Death Grips is pretentious, but it's certainly experimental. Some of their songs slap. Portishead is another favorite of mine, as is Elysian Fields, Queens of the Stone Age + Them Crooked Vultures.

As you mentioned, Scott Walker might fall under that umbrella too, but the man was a genius. His song "Clara" is terrifying and despite its length, feels almost short. Highly recommend using headphones or a nice speaker for those who haven't heard it before.


As for your question, I say screw those people. Yeah, they make us look bad. My favorite bands' audiences are oversaturated with insufferable people I'd never want to hang out with, but if you like the band's stuff, no one can take that away from you. As long as you recognize that listening to it doesn't make you a better person, you're fine. I've known people who accused me of having shit music tastes because it wasn't the exact esoteric, arcane thing they listen to.

@Baptiste XIX RoseOfSharyn, we should become music buddies 'cause you seem to get it. I'm always on the prowl for new music. If you have any albums you'd recommend, send them to me.

You wouldn't have happened to hear Daughter's You Won't Get What You Want album, right? That's an extremely fun album. Anthony Fagtano might've given it five stars or whatever, but you can ignore that. This album is scary and it goes off the rails.
 
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Oh man, I like DEP and Lingua Ignota. I guess I was a faggot all along!

MysticLord dijo:
I grew up searching for good music and who inadvertently became a music hipster. The difference between someone who appreciates music and a hipster is:
  • The former has opinions on the subject that they can defend in an argument, even if it's just, "I like how it makes me feel."
  • The latter can only make arguments which suggest that certain opinions are high status (mine), and others are low status (not mine).
That said, I threw away the spreadsheet I made when I was kid that had all the bands, albums, and songs I heard at random and which I liked because I'm too old to care. Sometimes I wish I kept it. I have no musical training and I'm too old for it to matter - my arguments for or against certain things are limited by this to say the least.

Song Tax:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=El40ebDJy1AI had a dream about this song when I was 16. In this dream I was in a dark ballroom dancing some sort of formal, complicated, and very taxing European dance with a masked teenage girl and other dancers. There were candle holders dangling from barely visible golden cords in the ceiling, which cast light through gold and green stained glass. They seemed to float in the air, and the pattern on the dancers and the floor was like that of a fire at night yet also reminiscent of sunlight under a forest canopy shifting in the wind.
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I saw The Appleseed Cast as an opener back in 2019 and they were pretty fucking dope. I liked them and Cloud Nothings better than the fucking headliner!
 
I'm pretty into Clarence Clarity, does suck that Fantano gave him a bit of a rub and comments on anything he puts out will always have a few "why isn't the indie alt-pop british dude with no marketing because he clearly cares more about being a producer than a known artist more popular?!"
In fact, the most pretentious I'm able to get would probably just be hyperpop in general since the entire theme is just being varying levels of tacky and overproduced but I love it for that.

I do have a taste for intentionally loud and abrasive music like The Armed which I can see not going over with most people, though I wouldn't consider then too snob-baity.

Honorable mention for mathcore and swancore in general but I don't think it really counts. I also like Grimes' stuff but she doesn't really count either.

Pretentious fans really can bring down an artist's reputation quite a bit, one thing I will give Playboi Carti fans is that the culture is just about having fun, it makes them endearing in a way. Which reminds me that I like Lupe Fiasco, his fans are...yeesh.
 
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90s-style screamo has possibly the most pretentious scene of any genre ever. We even have a pretentious "we're just joking but not really" in-group word for it: skramz. People claim to be able to understand lyrics that are unintelligible and foreign-language stuff is held up as even more artsy. People who listen to drone are also terrible.
 
The Shadow dijo:
Does King Crimson count, or is prog its own brand of snobbishness.

I love King Crimson. I don't own a lot of vinyl but I own In The Court of the Crimson King.
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I somewhat considered Prog it’s own distinct brand of Snobbishness, even internet age hipsters I have met who will suck the dicks of Death Grips, Daughters & Merzbow will say something along the lines of “Prog? What overly dramatic overproduced pretentious theatre rock.”

I do love Prog though, In The Court of The Crimson King was one of my entry albums alongside Dark Side of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Fragile, Selling England By The Pound & Moving Pictures

But for In The Court of The Crimson King, I am honestly amazed it is still as good as it is for 1969, I mean the 60s definitely had Hard Rock & Psych Rock around, but Prog was practically unheard of around then,
 
Death Grips isn't music for snobs, it's industrial hip-hop that aimed for some sort of trendy 2010s 'internet counterculture' aesthetic. King Crimson might have some snobby fans but it's not music for snobs, it's incredibly listenable prog rock.
This is pretentious/snobby music.
(Although even this might be considered old-hat or 'canon' now for "avant-garde" types.)

A lot of incredibly experimental music is theoretically interesting, but lacks listening value or emotional content when the gimmick loses its novelty.
I think the main value of this music isn't in listening, but in putting the ideas out there, so that "popularizers" can incorporate the ideas into music that does have listenability and emotional content. Kinda like how you're most likely not listening to Stockhausen or Schoenberg for fun, but you might listen to a lot of what they distantly influenced, like Can or Klaus Schulze (or if you're not listening to Can or Klaus Schulze, you might be listening to what they influenced, like David Bowie)... etc.
 
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I think a big part of the pretentious music thing is just social posturing. When you're young, you want to be unique and cool (and if you "don't want to be cool" that's basically the same) and a big part of your identity might be your taste in music, but most people mature away from that a little bit and realise it doesn't make you a better person that your favourite artist only plays in his mom's basement.

I have some music education and I've known a lot of people who found even if they didn't like, for example, Rihanna or hip hop or EDM or whatever, they could appreciate their relative simplicity and the artists' authentic desire for their music to be this way. Obviously that might not be the case for a super star with ghost writers, billion dollar contracts and dedicated production teams, being a product as much or maybe more so than a musician, but there are still popular artists who might be more adventurous than you realise (Silk Sonic is a good example even if they're just reinventing Motown) and for all I know Tay-Tay really thinks songs about her ex really are gifts from God.

Tl;Dr I guess is superstars, big artists and aspiring pop idols have to keep selling their product and maybe don't have the same desire to keep experimenting as "authentic musicians" might have, to come up with something to set them apart.

I don't know maybe I am a snob after all, just a deeply closeted one (I am not a snob.)
 
MrTroll dijo:
Frank Zappa fans should be killed.
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Only the ones with a Zappa beard or no beard.

FZ shows a way out of being a "snob." Half his music and half the music he loved are brutally retarded. If you've learned from his example and your favorite things are, e.g., Milton Babbitt and DMX—and you mean it—you're not an asshole.

Dudes pretending to be like that are the worst kind of assholes though. Don't trust any of them under 40.
 
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