he was wildly innovative and revolutionized pop many times over, i think his sense of self importance was warranted, i don’t think he’s really pretentious

if Thom wanted to pop his s*** off on other bands he very well earned it many times over with Radiohead, it’s the same way i feel about Kanye when he goes on his rants and starts talking s***

and as an aside there is nothing about Death Grips that is pretentious dawg lol, literally one of the most grassroots DIY bands out there

they have a d*** as a cover of one of their albums

Yeah it's mostly the fans

I’m not gonna argue his greatness, because I agree with you. But the guy would stop parties and concerts at paisley park to lecture others on God and how we need to bring “real music” back.

i think if you provided some examples we could better see what you mean, because im really starting to understand that pretentiousness is definitely way overused and is also extremely subjective.

like the definition being “affecting greater importance than one/a work actually possesses” who gets to decide what is important? you might post some lyrics that i don’t think are pretentious at all, because i find the things they’re talking about important or i find them impressive or appealing for some other reason. i guess you could find me pretentious at that point, but then i would just think you’re kind of a close minded mouthbreather like kodak spice lmfao. not saying you would do that of course

that’s why i feel like calling any art pretentious is mostly unhelpful, because it often boils down to “i don’t like this” and at its worst “i don’t understand this so it’s bad and pretentious”. again not saying that’s what you’re doing, just food for thought

i can see the charge there

idk if i’d say that’s pretentious, that just comes off like hateful conservatism which he absolutely possessed when he was JW. those were things he actually believed were important you know? it wasn’t fake, it was something he was passionate about, even if he wasn’t very open minded about it.

Whoever said Jaden earlier itt nailed it. He’s very pretentious and so was XXX, and I say that as a fan of both

I get what you mean.

Honestly, I think you could reasonably call this song, and the majority of this album, pretentious. Dude named it “The Truth”.

“dont have the pallete to consume it”
thats what im talking about baby

I think the part that actually makes it pretentious is that he was genuine in those moments.

oh man you really threw a curveball give me a sec to listen to this again, i do like this album tho

great album. ‘Don’t Play Me’ is my fav.

i get what you mean but is that really pretension?

pretension to me seems like it needs to have a prerequisite of like… fakeness? like they’re aware of what they’re doing and they’re doing it to impress you. “attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed” so being inauthentic. if he really believes those things is that actually pretentious?

I think you can genuinely believe what you’re saying and still be pretentious

I don’t read it the same.

I think he wants you to think he’s “broken out the matrix, and sees the world for how it truly is!”. And that’s real to him. Does it most likely come from a place of insecurity and projection? Probably. But I don’t think pretentiousness is supposed to be inauthentic. That would sorta satirize it, I think.

XXX is another good example of a super pretentious artist holy s***

he’s right though. where mfs get stuck is that they prolly think the palette is unchangeable, when it isn’t. also actual pretentious music fans think they’re better than others and that people are NPCs who listen to nothing but coworker music and will never evolve… they’re both wrong. we’re all human being who change and grow with time and experience. there’s no reason the average person can’t develop their palette to enjoy more ostensibly difficult music

there’s a difference between listening to something, not liking it, saying it’s not for you etc and moving on, and listening to it and arrogantly declaring it’s bad or “pretentious” because you don’t understand it, and a lot of the time they do that because they’re insecure about not “getting it”. and i do think a****** pretentious music fans contribute to that

what if he’s consciously trying to JUST save people or spread his beliefs? like there’s no selfish egotistical motivation in it at all. dictionary definitions aren’t necessarily the end be all, but when i read it the operant phrase there for me is “attempt to impress”. that really does imply some fakery or inauthenticity imo

how can you really know whether he’s attempting to impress people? you could argue from his later leaving of the faith that he was sort of putting it on more than he truly felt it in his heart, but you could also say that was more just cope for how s***ty he felt in that time of his life, not necessarily trying to impress people so that they think he’s smarter or more important than he actually is.

i promise you im really not trying to go through whatever mental gymnastics to avoid calling prince pretentious, especially because i already admitted he has been lol. this is just a fascinating convo that i think should be had

i guess so, like you can use your genuine beliefs to try and impress people by making them or you seem better or more important.

I suppose we can’t fully know where he was coming from. But I assume you wouldn’t argue someone if they said the lyrics in that song is pretentious, right? This is all subjective at the end of the day, but regardless of what was true to Prince, and his motivations — I think you can reasonably say he came across as pretentious.

Snippet over official track gooners

Yeah. Like when Yachty made that psych album after listening to DSOTM for the first time. He genuinely thought he was better and more ahead of the game than other rappers