it's not the word, it's the connotations of the word that are bogus.
So which connotations? I guess it seems to me that my main beef is that people tend to use "pretentious" as if it were synonymous with "extravagant, and sucks," which is not the case.
I, like most people in this thread, would argue that The Mars Volta are extremely pretentious, just going by the definition of the word:
attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed
where I guess the operative term is "importance." The Mars Volta seem to write music as if every single (often nonsensical, at least to the listener) lyric, flashy guitar solo, and minute of studio idling is just
laden with significance and terrible meaning, but frankly it's hard to agree that their albums are that weighty. They write fifteen minute songs, but they often don't seem to have fifteen minutes worth of important stuff to say in them.
But I like The Mars Volta
anyway, and I would argue that their pretention, while it certainly exists, does not negate the band's merits: a talent for writing ridiculously abstruse lyrics that still convey a strong sense of unease, undeniably proficient musicianship, a good use of dynamic swells and ebbs, and others.
So my question is, Tommy, is that an adequate use of "pretentious" for you? I don't mean to seem like I'm turning on you after my original post. I do agree with your comment that "pretentious," as used to describe music, seems to be primarily a weapon used by (as you said) anti-intellectuals who seem to believe that if musicians want to be taken seriously or have their music actually thought about, they're just overreaching and their music can be safely disregarded. That people who dislike The Fiery Furnaces call their music "pretentious" is ample evidence of that for me.
But The Mars Volta obviously put some thought into their music; I don't see how you could just toss off songs like the ones they write, however disorganized they may be. And so even though they may not be quite as profound as they seem to think, there is still meaning in what they do, and to dismiss that offhandedly by calling them "pretentious" is kind of intellectually lazy.
Not that I'm accusing anyone in this thread of doing this; I haven't read it that closely. I guess my main argument is two things: first, that pretention is a legitimate word with a real meaning and it can be used without perverting its denotative definition. Artists
can pretend that they're more important or talented or cultured than they really are; their own opinion cannot be used as a yardstick to measure any of these things, however serious they may be. Second, that "pretention," when leveled as a criticism against art, does not automatically erase any merit the art has. Johnny C's descriptions work for me here. In the end, he said that neither of his examples were
bad as art, but he nonetheless gave lucid descriptions of why they could be regarded as pretentious, which might detract from their effect.
