Forced, Obvious and Fake

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Julie and Melissa are arguing about the Soft Bulletin over in a Flaming Lips thread. (Hopefully I'm not putting words in her mouth but) Melissa feels that the Soft Bulletin, and the Flaming Lips in general, have an obvious and forced sense of wonder and innocence (or something like this, sorry for the clumsy paraphrasing!)

Now, I am NOT interested in talking about the Flaming Lips specifically on this thread (go over to the C/D thread for that), but I am interested to know how and when music strikes you as forced or obvious, and what qualities in the music or presentation lead you to label the music as such.

This seems to me to be the one area of music discussion it's almost impossible to argue about; one person’s "forced and obvious" is another’s sublime, and there seems to be no explaining why it works for one person and seems fake to another.

Is there some way to gain a deeper understanding of this?

― Mark, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks.

― Mark, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ahem.

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That's the band, not (necessarily) the Tim Buckley album, seeing as how I've never heard it. Every single word that man sings just seems to me to say "I'm great, me. You - pah. You're shite. But me, I'm Great." Plus which his voice is twatty.

― Mr Swygart, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

interesting, in a way i think the soft bulletin uses many things similar to very sugary eurotrance (with the melancholic counterpoint to the rich sounds if you see what i mean), but somehow the soft bulletin is not able to convince in the way eurotrance can do. perhaps in softbulletins case its that its not fake and forced enough, perhaps for an overtly manipulative sense of disneyfied wonder there needs to be at least some triteness. if this is lacking it can never really break free of earthbound shackles, because theres still self-consciousness holding it back, tethering it, fear of getting it 'wrong' (whatever wrong is, but the idea that there is a wrong, somehow)

― gareth, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''Melissa feels that the Soft Bulletin, and the Flaming Lips in general, have an obvious and forced sense of wonder and innocence''

if that is what she's saying then she's right but I like that! I think it's done really well. They pull it off and are convincing.

To answer yr question i think it depends on your musical/social background and the environment around you and your politics. Opinions on a specific record result from that.

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There's a fine line between being forced or fake (which everybody hates) and creating a persona (which everybody seems to like). For example, no one (at least on ILM) accuses Eminem of being forced or fake when he puts on his "Slim Shady" act, even though it's obviously an exaggeration of his "authentic" personality.

― o. nate, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Err not to get too into the Bulletin aspect of it but I think it's a good example of what usually makes sense-of-wonder break down: a vocalist emotes as if something earth-shatteringly lovely is playing around him/her, but the music and arrangements are really not all that. (In a lot of cases it's the sonic equivalent of, say, watching the acting from Lord of the Rings but if the actors were wearing tank tops and standing in front of a brewery.)

― nabisco%%, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''a vocalist emotes as if something earth-shatteringly lovely is playing around him/her''

But this EXACTLY what happens in the soft bulletin. Wayne Coyne knows the arrangements are great, he has confidence in them and he sets the vocals that he thinks are appropriate for it.

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Flaming Lips strike me as the type of band that would cover "It's a Small World" in all seriousness.

― Melissa W, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am listening to Faure right now, and I've decided for the moment that all wide-eyed senses of wonder should be accompanied by Faure- like arrangements.

― Melissa W, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Flaming Lips strike me as the type of band that would cover "It's a Small World" in all seriousness. -- Melissa W (MelCaramel@aol.com), June 14, 2002.

not only that. . ..but i think they'd actually make it worth listening to for the 400th time.

― msp, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

almost all new rock and roll seems forced. reads: mooney susuki and other 'crazy' and/or 'zany' bands

― ddd, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Err Julio I repeat "not to get too into the Bulletin aspect of it" -- clearly the two of us differ on this one and I doubt sheer assertions on your part will change that much; I'm talking generally and conceptually about the vocal drapes not matching the musical rug.

― nabisco%%, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

almost all new rock and roll seems forced.
It doesn't SEEM but it IS. It is up to the listener to be fooled or not (which isn't a negative thing). And not only new rock 'n' roll.

― nathalie, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Though thinking about it, forcedness can be fun too. I really like British Sea Power, for instance, and they're about as forced as you can get...

― Mr Swygart, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''I am listening to Faure right now, and I've decided for the moment that all wide-eyed senses of wonder should be accompanied by Faure- like arrangements.''

Melissa I don't want to know abt Faure (i don't even know who they are) but i want to know this: what do you think of CANADIAN HEAVY MEATL?

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would sucched that rock music is a genre which has reached a stage where only the Forced, Obvious and Fake is worth listening to - well maybe not 'obvious' but thats such a personal criteria relative to the listener that it has no real meaning.

Of cource the other qualities can be overdone, or done badly, but the sound of someone trying really hard can be engaging. The sound of someone trying too hard can irritate.

Accepting the facade of rock music and doing it anyway with enthusiasm is the only palatable way to make rock music, and is far far preferable to the dreary tortured artist schtick of Coldplay or the 'we are dangerous rebels on the edge of society' drivel from self deluded idiots like Primal Scream.

― Alexander Blair, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Gabriel Fauré was a French composer that rather presaged the impressionist movement in music. Beautiful. Did some very interesting things with tonality and modal harmony. Right now I'm listening to his Requiem.

I know nothing about Canadian heavy metal.

― Melissa W, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I actually like when a band is self-conscious and can be ironic about its own image. Take the Ramones. They are obviously well aware of the image they project. But even though it is fake up to a certain point, it did work much better than say uh... Primal Scream. (This is why Sugababes for me doesn't work: they aren't aware of their image.)

― nathalie, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Hives are a bit like that, I think, but the way in which Howlin' Pelle appears to have been rather unnerved by the 'unmasking' (or not) of Randy Fitzsimmons is annoying, cos it suggests that without that whole artifice they couldn't function. Which is annoying, cos I quite like them for the whole image and the way in which they do seem to be taking the piss out of it (though not in a Blink-182 kind of way)...

― Mr Swygart, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

''I know nothing about Canadian heavy metal.''

Meliisa, I'm talking abt canadian heavy meatl here!

― Julio Desouza, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(In a lot of cases it's the sonic equivalent of, say, watching the acting from Lord of the Rings but if the actors were wearing tank tops and standing in front of a brewery.)

Wait a minute, wasn't this the plot of Strange Brew?

― nickn, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Meliisa, I'm talking abt canadian heavy meatl here!

Hmmmmm.

― Melissa W, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Whole point of the Soft Bulletin=oversaturation. The feeling of wonder is supposed to be the emotional equivalent of a color TV with the Tint knob rolled all the way to the right so that all the images bleed over their own edges. And stuff.

― John Darnielle, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But it's more like watching old Mickey Mouse Club skits starring Annette Funicello.

― Melissa W, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But it's more like watching old Mickey Mouse Club skits starring Annette Funicello trans. for me as "it's totally excellent"

― John Darnielle, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i don't think that is forced-ness in music which is insulting or patronising, rather it is insincerity. The Flaming Lips may completely contrive their sense of wonder and innocence etc but they're not doing so in an attempt to patronise or poke fun at the listener.

it's perfectly possible to believe in and project things which may not come naturally, or form a part of everyday life.

surely this is the cornerstone of all art.

― Wyndham Earl, Friday, 14 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mike Patton = forced eclecticism with a hefty wad of strained zaniness.

― ian, Saturday, 15 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

ten months pass...

thread revive
looking for new answers in 2003!

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Sunday, 11 May 2003 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TO THREAD

His complete inability to phonate plus his entire "C'mon baby be my beard" persona is the epitome of forced, obvious and fake.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Sunday, 11 May 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

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