"Kitschy"

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superblonde
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"Kitschy"

Post by superblonde » Thu Jun 03, 2021 9:11 am

"Kitschy", don't you mean "crooning and ironically/satirically sappy"
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johnnyrowing
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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by johnnyrowing » Thu Jun 03, 2021 4:15 pm

Context?

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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by superblonde » Sun Jun 06, 2021 11:42 am

KITSCHY, RETRO SONGS with Male or Female Vocals are needed by a hard-working Music Library that’s always landing placements in TV Shows, Film projects, and Movie Trailers!

This Library is on the hunt for Mid-to-Up-Tempo Songs that could fit in the general stylistic ballpark of the following reference we got directly from them:

"Home" by Diana Ross

"Black Night" by Frank Sinatra Jr.

"Lonesome Town" by Ricky Nelson

You can submit recently recorded Songs in the general production style of the references; or, if you’ve got any vintage recordings (recorded back in the day), they would love to hear those as well!

Please submit well-produced Songs that have a kitschy, idyllic vibe and sound to them. Although this Company is looking for "cheesy" music, your submissions should still have well-crafted melodies, memorable choruses, solid arrangements, and captivating, well-performed vocals. Instrumentation in the general vein of the references will suit your tracks best. Please be sure that your production and any virtual instrumentation you use are high-quality.

TAXI Tip: Have you ever seen a horror movie trailer that opens with super happy music in the background? That's the kind of music that this Library is looking for – they want Songs that they can use to give viewers a false sense of safety before the scary stuff starts happening – like this trailer (From 0:00 - 0:30).

My possible interpretation:

"Cheesy" -> sappy
"false sense of safety " -> irony/satirical
"before scary stuff starts happening" -> irony/satirical
"Frank Sinatra Jr., Ricky Nelson, captivating, well-performed vocals" -> crooner
"KITSCHY, RETRO, vintage, Diana Ross" -> sappy ballad
"KITSCHY" -> cliche lyrics, cliche rhymes
"super happy music " -> major key


Especially the use of "kitschy" is too ethnocentric to be a reliable or meaningful term.
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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by Paulie » Sun Jun 06, 2021 6:14 pm

Sappy fits well, crooning not so much. I like "blissfully ignorant cheesiness." :)
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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by superblonde » Mon Jun 07, 2021 1:14 pm

Paulie wrote:
Sun Jun 06, 2021 6:14 pm
crooning not so much.
Baking powder? All 3 of the ref's " we got directly from them" are crooning and 2 of 3 are industry-defined as crooner artists.

Also, "idyllic vibe" != "cheesy"
"Cheesy" is a poor word choice anyway too.


"KITSCHY" also could imply trivial rhymes (now considered cliche, juvenile, 'cheap') like "sun..fun" or "swoon..moon" or "love..above", etc. Bad word choice for description.
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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by Muledog » Sun Jun 13, 2021 11:10 am

I'm working on 2 songs for this and am just hoping I interpret this one right. I think this one might be a little tricky but good luck to everyone trying for this one.
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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by superblonde » Sat Jul 10, 2021 12:09 pm

Muledog wrote:
Sun Jun 13, 2021 11:10 am
I'm working on 2 songs for this and am just hoping I interpret this one right. I think this one might be a little tricky but good luck to everyone trying for this one.
I wonder how it went?


I wager everyone has different interpretations for what this term "KITSCHY" means:

"Lots of KITSCHY, RETRO PIZZICATO INSTRUMENTAL CUES are needed by an extremely busy Music Library with a tremendously long list of killer placements in Hit TV Shows!"
. . . www.superblonde.org "All Kale Seitan! ♭II ‼" -Moshpit Chant of the Vegan Metalhead

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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by Muledog » Mon Jul 12, 2021 12:42 pm

Don't know yet but either way I was inspired to create two original songs I'm very happy with so there's that! Also did a cover of "Leave the Door Open" for a second "Kitschy" :D listing wanting covers and that was fun.
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Re: "Kitschy"

Post by superblonde » Sun Aug 01, 2021 6:05 pm

Interestingly I ran across a formal musical definition of 'kitschy' , in the grad textbook : Music since 1900, 6th Edition. Laura Kuhn and Nicholas Slonimsky, 1894-1995 (New York, NY: Schirmer Books, 2001)

I wonder if anyone had considered they needed to be utilitarian like the Biedermeier style, lol, I can't imagine it. Overall it is like someone saying, "Write a piece of music which sounds like Ikea furniture is constructed."


Kitsch. The German patois word KITSCH denotes a pretentiously manufactured object, an unimaginative arrangement of artifacts or a heterogeneous collection which is more tasteless than artless. Christmas cards with rhymed doggerel and tinctured flowers, religious gypsum figurines with a clock in the center of the torso, a motion picture representing muscular men lifting rubber weights, chrome gargoyles, dinner plates with reproductions of members of the presidential family and all sorts of tinsel and fustian, are examples of middle-class KITSCH. In music, KITSCH is represented by so-called semi-classical compositions made up of harmonic detritus and melodic debris from the mutilated remains of Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, or from a mixture of both. KITSCH products are usually given colorful titles such as "Purple Piano" or "Sentimental Violin," and favor for some unfathomable reason the keys of D-flat major or C minor. KITSCH is the degenerate descendant of the German Biedermeier movement. At the distance of a century, the Biedermeier products possess a certain charm of old-fashioned sentiment and the musical compositions of the period were invariably correct from the technical standpoint. Modern KITSCH is usually devoid of the most elementary type of technical proficiency and appeals to the lowest classes of commercially conditioned eyes, noses and ears.


Seems to me that most cues would fall under that scope of being ridiculously simple bordering on blase (i.e. based on 3 or 4 triads and unobtrusive melody), with a mainstream feel aimed at ' the lowest classes of commercial' taste.

I composed a piano-based crooner song for this listing although since it needed the right vocalist I never recorded it. I'll save it for the future. It had a tritone substitution so I wonder if it would have been considered 'too exotic' or 'too colorful' or 'not tasteless enough'.
. . . www.superblonde.org "All Kale Seitan! ♭II ‼" -Moshpit Chant of the Vegan Metalhead

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