I'm confused about what exactly this is. Is it about a hit song that is a significant divergence from an artist's usual style, or is it about a hit song that an artist comes to revile? Or does it have to be both?
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The description says the latter, the examples get steadily more like the former as they go on (and seem to be moving towards "song the fanbase doesn't like"). I smell Trope Decay.
Removed the "O Fortuna" example, which doesn't seem like either. If anything, it established Orff's usual style; the example rather exaggerated the contrasts with the rest of Carmina Burana, which it claimed "no-one has ever heard" while disregarding everything else Orff wrote.
I would think the trope-defining characteristics are that it's very different than their usual style (and, thus, all those examples of 'then the band decided to go in that direction' are invalid), and that it is either the band's biggest hit or one that people most frequently think of when asked for a song from the band.
Being liked/tolerated/hated by the fanbase or band itself should be irrelevant.
Severe Trope Decay... This just looks like lots of tropers shoehorning in their favorite band. "Not a real example but...".
I'd say an artist/song shouldn't qualify here unless the artist is known to hate the song, preferably with a quote (if it's an entertaining one like Robert Plant's or Oasis's).
I believe these are not examples, so I'm moving them here.
- Yes, "Owner of a Lonely Heart".
- Only in the context of the band's progressive rock past, really. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" was an accurate enough picture of the band's Trevor Rabin period.
- Radiohead, "Creep" (which went so far that they wrote the song "My Iron Lung" in response to them being reduced to that one song). People would turn up to concerts waiting for that one song and then leave after it was played. After a while they simply stopped playing it.
- Though "Creep" is interesting in that it wasn't a departure from Radiohead's style, just one of their earlier songs (and their earliest single). As the band progressed, their style become more and more experimental.
- It was a departure from the style of the rest of the album.
- Though "Creep" is interesting in that it wasn't a departure from Radiohead's style, just one of their earlier songs (and their earliest single). As the band progressed, their style become more and more experimental.
"I can't fucking stand that fucking song! Every time I have to sing it I want to gag. Problem is, it was a big, big tune for us."
Anyone think that this quote (it's from Oasis about Wonderwall) would work better as the page quote? The Metallica one is kind of long.
Classical music : Ravel's Bolero, Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata : they're, like, the most boring pieces of classical ever. Especially the Bolero, thirty-eight times the same theme with one more instrument by iteration. Seems to me the strongest sign a song will be a Black Sheep Hit is when it's so much simpler than the rest of the musician's output (minus the whole "not in the usual style" thing)
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Unclear Description
, started by SolipSchism on Nov 25th 2014 at 9:07:26 PM
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