Why are people scared of overt displays of emotion in popular music?

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If, indeed, they are.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:37 (nineteen years ago)

They aren't, are they?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

Evidence exhibit no.1?

― whatever (boglogger), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

Why are people scared of overt displays of emoticons in popular music?

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

I thought anti-emotion was mostly for too-cool-for-school indie kids.

Actually, there is something to the notion of "performance" vs the kind of display one might make when singing a song that's really meaningful to them in any other context besides performing. You could argue that most "popular" performers are giving you something other than overt emotion - more like crafted emotion, or strategically enhanced emotion or something - though it's still pretty overt.

― Dominique (dleone), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:43 (nineteen years ago)

I suppose a lot of the popular music of the 20s/30s/40s eschewed overt displays of emotion. That's why somebody like Johnny Ray could seem fairly extraordinary when, to modern ears and eyes, he doesn't seem like all that much at all.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:48 (nineteen years ago)

I am a big tritophobe.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

i think overt displays of emotion ride a thin line; the difference between a really moving performance and a ridiculous performance becomes smaller and smaller as the emotion becomes more overt or dramatic. its risky as a performer, and i guess sort of as a fan, too. nobody wants to look stupid. it might be a defense sometimes to couch emotion in craft, but its a really important defense, i think. and duh, not every song has a super-emotional nature/foundation. nothing to do with being scared there, just a different purpose.

― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Friday, 10 February 2006 14:51 (nineteen years ago)

A large proportion of the music-buying public obviously likes overt displays of emotion, or Mariah etcetera wouldn't have careers.

How do people feel about different types of overt displays of emotion? How do Keane make you feel? Robbie Williams? Jeff Buckley? Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan? Bonnie Tyler?

Is there a sense that really OTT emotional displays are inauthentic? Does that matter? Is being concerned by that an indie hang-up?

Stevem's point almost gets right to the heart of what I mean, albeit ina very... aloof way? Detached? Pomo?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:13 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I think performance, and how you feel about about a particular artist performing, has a lot to do with what you bring into it. I remember watching Animal Collective a few years ago, and already loving their stuff. When I saw them, banging a single drum, moving their heads as if some kind of seizure trance, I was kind of disappointed. I don't think I thought they were inauthentic, rather, I thought that maybe I hadn't been able to see what kind of band they were until then. And of course, had I seen them 10 other times, I would probably have a different impression.

For me, claims of inauthenticity ride thin lines just as performances do - both of these impressions (or expressions, I guess) have as much to do with you as they do w/the artist.

― Dominique (dleone), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:20 (nineteen years ago)

actually i'm hopelessly inconsistent in this. if i like the production enough it won't really matter how cliched the sentiment, and how i judge the production is based on some rather vague notions too.

this is different from just actual emotional display though. surey nobody has a real problem with this in itself. emotional can mean positive/happy as well as negative/sad. i suppose it is best indicated by some sort of added gesture - changing tone on certain words to demonstrate anger, sadness, excitement or joy, laughing (Kate Bush!), mock-crying (Michael Jackson and Prince spring to mind) for example. but this seems mostly good.

― Sororah T Massacre (blueski), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:22 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's the idea that good 'art' shouldn't be about what you say, but how you say it - and emotional stuff is all about what you say - 'i'm heartbroken but gonna rise above it etc etc' often to the detriment of how its said (See Westlife for perfect example).

It's stuff that lots of people can 'feel' along with, and unless you are able to share in that feeling along there's a temptation to see it as manipulative.

an exception to this which always gets a critical free pass, 60'/70s soul music.

― bidfurd__, Friday, 10 February 2006 15:31 (nineteen years ago)

I think I want raw expression of emotion (whatever that means!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) combined with some sort of formal strategy (uh. . .) for modelling emotion. It seems like virtuosity helps make overt displays of emotion more palatable to me. (Then again, that's not always the case: opera.)

(Speaking of which, I didn't realize this Brazilian "Magdalena" song had been covered so many times by Cubans and Puerto Ricans in the distant past. And Bobby Capó is great!)

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:32 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's the idea that good 'art' shouldn't be about what you say, but how you say it - and emotional stuff is all about what you say

Wow, I don't agree with the second part of this at all. I think how its said (and I am not talking about lyrics here) is the crucial thing we are talking about. Flatly delivered "I am heartbroken" is an entirely different thing (though it still can and probably will have some sort of emotional impact).

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:35 (nineteen years ago)

what are some great "nakedly emotional" albums/songs?

― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:35 (nineteen years ago)

Throbbing Gristle, Weeping

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:36 (nineteen years ago)

first take
in the aeroplane over the sea
blonde on blonde
black saint and the sinner lady

???

― pssst - badass revolutionary art! (plsmith), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:38 (nineteen years ago)

A lot of Kevin Coyne

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:39 (nineteen years ago)

Haha, popular music!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:40 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't this why Country and Soul were necessary?

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

I don't like the emo emoting, but I like it in other forms. If a song's only hook is an overt display of emotion, I tend to get bored.

― js (honestengine), Friday, 10 February 2006 15:45 (nineteen years ago)

I was thinking about just this topic while watching the Grammys. I don't think anyone is afraid of overt emotion, viz. Mariah, even Joss Stone--and in fact I was really impressed by Mary J Blige's incredibly emotional performance when she sang 'One' with U2.

That said, though.... what made MJB's 'One' so good for me was that it was just her singing; it was very easy to get into her emotions in that performance; whereas, by contrast, Mariah's performance with the huge chorus, phony preacher, and so on was completely horrifying to me, because the mass scale of it seemed so fake and incoherent somehow. So, I think that for me, it has a lot to do with the scale of the means of expressing the emotion. Pop emotions expressed by a single person can be powerful for me, but pop emotions expressed on a 'pop scale' can seem remote and unappealing.

Anybody else feel this way?

― mrjosh (mrjosh), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:01 (nineteen years ago)

The level of "soul" – an adjective that means different things to different people – in a performance will determine to what degree this performance requires irony as a palliative.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 10 February 2006 17:51 (nineteen years ago)

Lord Alfred OTM

― marc h. (marc h.), Friday, 10 February 2006 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

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