Is Progressive Rock truly pretentious?

The word "pretentious" is a  word which is over-used  in the world of prog. The lyrics of prog come across as being pretentious...(there goes that word again), and then you have the musicians composing a concept album. This is what rattles the chains of prog haters. The last thing on earth they want to hear is a story about Aqualung the hobo or the sci-fi of Tarkus, etc, ect....but people of this nature leave out the other chapters and they miss out on great music. Merlin by Halloween, Attic Thoughts by Bo Hanssan, and all sorts of underground prog artists who have taken the music steps beyond what appears to ride the perfect wave on the surface. Pretentious...the word itself...defines a style of music. If prog is like theatre then it is pretenious for it's nature alone. It's what many people around me have always hated about prog. It's ridiculous to consider their viewpoint a weight of honest value. It's all a preference ..however adults have to return to childhood and make fun of the things they dislike in life. I make fun of the news media and also find it annoying. If I dish it out, I should be able to take it. That is why prog should remain a private self-endulgent affair with yourself.

Dean wrote: octopus-4 wrote: to pretend=to try in advance (from latin praetendo). prae="in front of". ...from the Latin praetendere = to put forward or stretch forth - originally it meant 'to claim' as in Bonnie Prince Charlie, The Young Pretender who claimed the throne. It was later that it came to mean false claim. octopus-4 wrote: What are we speaking about? There are good lyrics and bad lyrics as well as good music and bad music, or even rappers who pretend to call music what they do.  It is nothing to do with good or bad music, good or bad lyrics - a piece of music that has good music and lyric can still be called pretentious, though personally I don't believe that any piece of music (good or bad) can ever be pretentious in itself.   Pretentious is when the artist or fans makes claims about the music that are attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than it actually possesses. Raising "Prog" to high Art (with a capital "A") and putting on a par with the great Classic works (rather than the really crap classical works that no one has ever heard of) is pretentious in the extreme  - calling Prog anything other than what it is (Popular Rock Music) is pretentious and vainglorious.

I dislike theoretically challenging/complex music and not only do I hate Punks/punk music in general, but I also detest Rolling Stone Magazine. I like music to be emotionally challenging, but oh well. Is some progressive rock pretentious? Of course! Most of them pretended that simply changing a song from 4/4 time to 19/4 time and changing the length from 4 minutes to 14 minutes makes the songwriting 'better', which makes me laugh a bit. That's a fair bit of pretense. And then they start thinking that quoting Ayn Rand or singing about Henry VIII makes the music somehow innately 'deeper', as if 'I will choose Free Will' is some illustrious, mind-blowing statement. Golly!

Well, I think that term has been tossed around way too much. If a musician feels that what he/she creates is more than "just music" and is some kind of spiritual or transcendental experience, then yes it would be pretentious, because it would be pretending to be something it's not.

 There's no denying that music can create very strong emotions, but, at the core, it's just structured sound that happens to please somebody's ears. 

colorofmoney91 wrote: Vompatti wrote: Much of bad music is pretentious regardless of how complex it is.

octopus-4 wrote: to pretend=to try in advance (from latin praetendo). prae="in front of".

to dismiss progressive rock as pretentious is wrong because that is a generalization, and the prog world is a complex one, and has a lot of different aspects and attitudes associated with it

       And as someone said before, there is pretentiousness in every type of music

               

No it's not. In my job I try to be a bit of a perfectionist and I don't think my customers find that pretentious, I know they appreciate it. We are the customers of the musicians so it's only for us to be grateful that they try to deliver a quality product.

I used to use that word, but my view has changed. Now I think pretentious is the most overused word ever and now borders on being a synonym of incredibly experimental and unique, which really ticks me off.

Edited by DisgruntledPorcupine - December 05 2011 at 11:07

Yes. And that's why you like it.