Misused: Suspiciously Apropos Music

The trope description and laconic are perfectly clear on the fact that the trope only covers lyrics performed/listened to in-universe. However, a wick check revealed that only half of the examples are aligned with that idea.

Results:

There are three major categories:

• Appropriate songs performed in-universe (on-stage/karaoki etc): 20%
• Appropriate songs played back in-universe (radio, mp3 player, ringtone, jukebox, etc). I suspect that many of those undergo a Diegetic Switch and end up on the soundtrack: 35%
• Appropriate lyrics coming from the soundtrack: 45%

Evaluation:

I believe the creator of Suspiciously Apropos Music was interested in the idea of characters being exposed to lyrics matching their situation. Obviously, this cannot happen with lyrics on the soundtrack (unless characters have Medium Awareness). However, the trope does not require any reaction of the characters to the similarity between lyrics and plot which raises the question what the difference is between an appropriate song heard by characters but not reacted to and an appropriate song on the soundtrack not heard by characters. What is not covered by the trope is the common practice of creators to accompany their stories with popular songs on the soundtrack whose lyrics match the story for added appeal.

Possible courses of action:

1. Drop the distinction between source music vs. soundtrack and make this one trope about matching lyrics to be picked up by the viewer. Lampshading in-universe would be a bonus point. This needs just a little rewrite of the description and laconic.
2. Split this into two tropes, one for performances/playbacks in-universe, one for songs playing on the soundtrack.

Edited by eroock on Feb 5th 2019 at 7:06:19 PM

Bump

Option 1. Tropes Are Flexible.

Edited by Brainulator9 on Feb 5th 2019 at 8:53:32 AM

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!

Option 2, or just remove all misused entries. Isn't it assumed that background/soundtrack music should be appropriate for the scene?

^ It's about the lyrics matching the plot. That's a bit trickier (and more rewarding for the audience) than just finding music that matches the vibe of the scene. But I see a point here about a misleading trope name. Suspiciously Apropos Lyrics would cut it better.

Others?

Leaning to Option 2. Tabs has a point.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

What point? That soundtracks are supposed to have fitting lyrics?

Yeah.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I don't understand. Why the different standard? Would the expectation of plot-matching lyrics not also apply for in-universe performances? Both are controlled by the same creators.

Basically because one is in and the other is out of universe. Its expected that a soundtrack be fitting, but how many times has, say, someone gone to a concert and the music just happens to fit their situation perfectly? Yeah, obviously both are the choice of the creators, but the context is different.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Wait, is this trope about in-universe music or out-of-universe music (specifically lyrics)?

Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!

In-Universe: "This isn't about a purpose-written background song, or a scene where the action matches well with the background song — it only applies when the song is actually happening in story."

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Is it about that, or apropos lyrics, which are harder than apropos music?

Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!

^ Apropos music would probably push this into YMMV territory. Let's stick with lyrics which are irrefutable.

So is it in out-of-universe trope?

Join the Five-Man Band cleanup project!

No. It's about in-universe music.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Actually, we are here to discuss this question. Almost half of the wick-checked examples were out-of universe. Current score is 2:2 (including my vote) for merging versus splitting off these examples into their own trope.

In-universe music with matching lyrics to a character's situation is suspiciously apropos. Out-of-universe music with matching lyrics is just apropos.

We should remove examples of the latter as misuse. The large number of out-of-universe examples, despite the description saying the music has to be in-universe, suggests people see incorrect examples and think "It's OK to add my incorrect example because THOSE incorrect examples are present", perpetuating the misuse.

Edited by Tabs on Feb 13th 2019 at 12:04:26 PM

Exactly.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Since the description and laconic are perfectly clear, any objections to keeping the trope as-is and removing misuse (and commenting out unclear examples)? By that, I mean only keep examples describing in-universe lyrics that suspiciously/amusingly fit a character's situation.

Or even keep this trope as-is and creating a separate trope for soundtrack lyrics, but I stand by my assertion that that is People Sit on Chairs some kind of Omnipresent Trope.

Edited by Tabs on Feb 16th 2019 at 6:46:38 AM

Crowner

Question: How to prevent similarly high misuse in the future if option 1 wins out? Users won't just change their patterns because we cleaned up the wicks. Would 45% misuse call for some more drastic action like a trope rename?

I was going to say that removing non-examples should help stop most of the misuse, but I can put the page on my watchlist and see where things go after.

I could not (yet) find a TRS thread in the archives to use as an example.

^ Does following related pages notify about newly added entries on work pages? Because that's where most misuse occurred. The list on Suspiciously Apropos Music seems pretty solid.

Edited by eroock on Feb 25th 2019 at 12:18:52 PM

I think the soundtrack examples where a song really fits a certain situation could be moved to a new YMMV trope. It would be along the lines of Awesome Music, but inclusion would be determined by how well a song matches what's happening.