"angst"

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Thoughts on "angst" -- the word (the American/English critical usage, anyway), the concept as it applies to popular music?

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 16:52 (twenty-three years ago)

i've got angst in my pants.

― gygax!, Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:01 (twenty-three years ago)

I see it used a lot in reference to female singers -- they can never just be described as "emotional," they always have to be "angsty" (and "angst" seems to equal a sort of cheap, teenage anger at The World or Some Guy What Did Them Wrong). I don't have a problem with angst (it's a perfectly natural human trait), but I don't like it when the word is used in that "oh, isn't your anger cute?" putdownish way.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah it is often coupled with "teenage" suggesting it's used to describe not 'emotion' per se but emotion filtered through a particular lack of perspective.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Men have attitude/character, women have angst.

That seems to be the unfortunate consensus.

― Andy K (Andy K), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:20 (twenty-three years ago)

"attitude" is SO MUCH MORE OF A TURN-OFF WORD though! I mean "angst" is bad enough but "attitude" is what The Music have.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Also men totally have "angst" critically, from Morrissey to Conor Oberst. Eminem has "anger" admittedly.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:27 (twenty-three years ago)

"attitude" is SO MUCH MORE OF A TURN-OFF WORD though!

For you. :-)

The kids can't get enuf of it!

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Also men totally have "angst" critically, from Morrissey

But he's not really the best example of a Manly Man Expressing Anger.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Attitude! You got some fuckin' attitude!

etc., etc.

― Glenn Danzig, Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:33 (twenty-three years ago)

aren't emo and nu-metal caked with angst?

― maura (maura), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I hear angst used to describe whiny guys a whole lot more than whiny girls.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah it is often coupled with "teenage" suggesting it's used to describe not 'emotion' per se but emotion filtered through a particular lack of perspective.

Agreed, but on the flip, it also connotes a raw and pure emotion, unsullied by the jading effects of that same perspective (and by turn a battle against the onset of deadening maturity).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:46 (twenty-three years ago)

aren't emo and nu-metal caked with angst?

This is the way hipster critics look at those two genres:

Emo = emasculated wussies
Nu-metal = men who are so hypermasculine they're practically feminine (it's Iron John with stadiums instead of forests).

So if they're being identified with women or feminine traits, they're full of "angst."

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:48 (twenty-three years ago)

i have never heard that male-female continuum theory in discussions of nu-metal. hmmm ...

― maura (maura), Thursday, 10 October 2002 17:50 (twenty-three years ago)

While the word does seem to be applied almost exclusively to the twenty-something male, I don't see it as derogatory in a gender-specific way.

The origins of the word as it applies to pop-crit pretty much start in the early 90s with critics who wanted to marginalize that which they didn't understand -> the spectacle of Nirvana's nihilism might seem pretty silly to anyone on the outside.

I don't think the word has changed much in its tone or intent over the years in that it still implies a level of condescension on the part of the user. If anything, it's become a little more untrustworthy (re: cliched) b/c a lot of the bands who it's used to describe (Papa Roach, Staind, etc) are not bands tradionally bands perceived of as being genuinely angst-ridden...

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Excise that last 'bands' obv.

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:19 (twenty-three years ago)

i have never heard that male-female continuum theory in discussions of nu-metal. hmmm ...

Yeah. The two schools of thought are "aggressively macho mooks" and "punk-ass whiny gay bitches." ("Three Dollar Bill, Y'all" indeed.) So it might not be a continuum, but it's interesting that people are so divided on whether guys like Fred Durst are macho or effeminate.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Jody I don't think it's necessarily always feminine-associated (although you're right that this is a trend). I think it gets applied more to acts that seem emotional about something, only something vague or undirected enough that the listener can't quite isolate what it is (which really is something closer to the proper sense of the word): Conor Oberst seems "angsty" because it's impossible to pinpoing exactly what has him so upset and drained all the time.

I think the feminine aspect of it comes more from people being less willing to detect a specific focus to the emotionalism of women.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Pinpoing!

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Pinpoing!

I'll get the paddles!

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:42 (twenty-three years ago)

Women hardly got the angst tag until Alanis's You Oughta Know. (Also, seeing Tom mention Conor amuses me.)

More interesting figures in the nu-metal as fucking with gender stereotypes are Korn's Jonathon Davis and Maynard (yeah, so Tool is not exactly nu). Durst is just an oaf. I mean, is trying to act like you're 16 really masculine?

― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:42 (twenty-three years ago)

only something vague or undirected enough that the listener can't quite isolate what it is

Is this the listener's fault or the artist's?

― Jody Beth Rosen, Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:44 (twenty-three years ago)

"fred durst" + angry
Results 1 - 10 of about 3,820

"fred durst" + angst
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,800

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:50 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't angst just general discontent with no specific reason?

And why is "angst" (sort of) noble and "hotheaded" or "self-esteemless" is ... not?

― dave225 (Dave225), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't angst just general discontent with no specific reason?

Dave I think you're helping Nitsuh out here...

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 10 October 2002 18:58 (twenty-three years ago)

I often think that angst is a cliche in music because who in this workaday world DOESN'T feel it?

Although, I've been reading a bit of history lately and it has surprised me that just about everyone as far back as pre-biblical times was convinced that the world was about to end. Immanenently. I guess I could also do Freud's Civilizations and Its Discontents to thread here too but, you know... I don't want to be a bore.

― Aaron W., Thursday, 10 October 2002 19:10 (twenty-three years ago)

"fred durst" "happy" = 10,700!

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 10 October 2002 19:16 (twenty-three years ago)

"fred durst" "love" = 26,500

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 10 October 2002 19:18 (twenty-three years ago)

"fred durst" + smart

1 - 10 of about 2,490

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 10 October 2002 19:37 (twenty-three years ago)

"Fred Durst" + monkey = 3,300

― Aaron W, Thursday, 10 October 2002 19:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Angst is as overused (and misused) as pretentious.

― hstencil, Thursday, 10 October 2002 19:43 (twenty-three years ago)

"fred durst" "beaten baby seal" = 0

pity, that.

― maura (maura), Thursday, 10 October 2002 20:40 (twenty-three years ago)

"fred durst" + "give it up already"

6 results.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 11 October 2002 00:04 (twenty-three years ago)

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