the concept of "cheesy"

zhao said:

i wish i could remember the author of that essay about camp vs. irony...

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Susan Sontag?

I think cheesiness has something to do with the expressed sentiment not seeming 'realistic' - so it might seem fake because it's expressed in a sketchy or cliched way that doesn't ring true, or because it's unrelenting in a way that outlasts your ability to empathise - in fact ,*unwillingness* to empathise could also explain your considering something cheesy, which perhaps explains why the cultural output of ethnic minorities, gay men, and (to a lesser extent) women is most often considered cheesy...

I'm going to listen to Babs Streisand 'Guilty' really loud now.

Townley said:

Susan Sontag?

or because it's unrelenting in a way that outlasts your ability to empathise - in fact ,*unwillingness* to empathise could also explain your considering something cheesy, which perhaps explains why the cultural output of ethnic minorities, gay men, and (to a lesser extent) women is most often considered cheesy...

I'm going to listen to Babs Streisand 'Guilty' really loud now.

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yes i would say this is rings true, esp in the domain of serious music you know - indie guitar super earnest rock stuff... those kids sniff at what you've described basically.

mms said:

very posh girls like musicals too, there were two posh girls at my uni years ago who became friends over musicals. The type of girls who had haircuts like princess di, wore expensive jumpers with spotted dogs on them with no irony and will look exactly the same all their lives.

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I think that look is hot!

There's a difference between liking something ironically and a perverse love of something, where you take pleasure in other people knowing you like something that is considered shit by them.

zhao said:

that's a whole other can of worms... but yeah i've always wondered about gays and musicals, what's the deal? i mean the only women who like musicals are older housewives. why do fit young men in their prime often share musical enthusiasm with fat, over the hill ladies? it's about "camp", right? something else i doubt i'll ever understand, much less acquire a taste for. i wish i could remember the author of that essay about camp vs. irony... or i should just have a sit down with john waters, i bet he could clear things up for me nicely.

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Yeah what Townley said is bang on - "it's unrelenting in a way that outlasts your ability to empathise" - is very very accurate, there's definitely an endurance factor, and it's definitely not just women of a certain age in the UK who like musicals, it's kind of a really acceptable night out for couples of a certain age group and maybe economic bracket. I think it's maybe the only time alot of people ever go to the theatre.

I've no idea about why musicals and homosexuality go together, I've got LOTS of anecdotes about explorations in trying to find out why gay men are into that but they're very long.

'Guilty' - the song - is genius though.* I put that down to the Bee Gees. Jesus they're such freaks.

*big rare groove tune too.

Edward said:

and does she love them cos they're great or cos they're so bad it's good

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To her credit she actually rates them/him, just spins me out as she woulda been all of 8 at their peak.


While I think its safe to say that 'forced emotion' is def cheesy its not that simple isit, theres this Victorian thing goin on where any, forced or legit, expression of emotion is seen as 'not the done thing'

and one mans OTT histrionics is anothers heartfelt outpouring, as has been stated, I for one connect with RnB / Diva-house style vocals (the more cut-up the better but thats a differant disscussion) because it rings true. I have / I've grown up around those kinds of emotions; scenes in bars, yelling matches up n down the street etc etc.

I think the cultural misunderstandings zhao is talking about, where ways of expressing things come across very differantally in differant cultures is just as true for differant classes.

mms makes some good points as well, its sad that in western culture its far more acceptable to express 'woe is me - its the end of the world' type melodramatics than pure, unrestrained joy. Again I think this has suttin to do with entrenched Victorian value systems, at least at this end of the empire.

is 'cheesy' a subjective response to what one sees as cliched and formulaic? (for me, wobblestep) but sometimes a perfectly executed cliched and formulaic records sounds magnificent (jakatta american beauty)

cheesy- SAW, camp-pet shop boys or is this too simplistic ? bobby O in the middle?

Handbag house; the genre with no redeeming features, and never likely to be revived?

abba? (the uneasiness amongst rockists to allow them into the list pantheon, but still N. Gallagher favourite)

Shakira?

Rather cheesy than dull though

Are Abba still cheesy?
Interesting fact, there are no cymbals on their recordings. Listen out next time you hear them!

To her credit she actually rates them/him, just spins me out as she woulda been all of 8 at their peak.

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yeah I was freaked out by other teenagers in the early 90s/late 80s who were into the Doors and Hendrix... I don't think it's cheesy, just odd.

on the other hand I meet young kids who love rave and acid house and I can't see anything wrong with it, even though they were probably not born in 88.

sorry...off topic but what the hey.

Townley said:

I think cheesiness has something to do with the expressed sentiment not seeming 'realistic' - so it might seem fake because it's expressed in a sketchy or cliched way that doesn't ring true, or because it's unrelenting in a way that outlasts your ability to empathise - in fact ,*unwillingness* to empathise could also explain your considering something cheesy, which perhaps explains why the cultural output of ethnic minorities, gay men, and (to a lesser extent) women is most often considered cheesy...

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I think your first point is very much on the mark. But I think the same idea kind of explains why a lot of (say) straight white western middle class listeners would find music by working class black african lesbians cheesy - it's partly about whether you're involved in a culture and its music to the extent that you see its cliches as standard structures and look for the feeling and nuance in between them or whether you hear the cliches as the be-all and end-all of the music. And whether you're used to music / culture where that level of emoting is the norm. You get this the other way with dance fans saying that all rock sounds the same because it has guitars and a verse / chorus structure and doesn't express anything beyond moping.

FWIW, I used to know a few music students who considered anything post Bach to be irredeemably cheesy...

I think what makes something defined as cheesey is pretty dependent on cultural aspects and on own personal taste. I think perhaps in the UK for example it may be slightly different to America . Context is also important aswell because it has quite a few different uses and definitions. A good example for the epitome of one use and definition for 'cheese' would be modern happy hardcore/ euro trance. Music that is trying to draw emotion in a very generic and obvious way. Much like when you would call a scene in a film cheesey because of the obvious and overused bits of dialogue/acting and predictable plot. In this definition it normally is used for things with an upbeat nature, simple rhythms, basic chord progressions and melodies around a major key signature etc.

I have never heard anything like Jazz or even modern R&B referred to as cheesey (you would either say you like it you don't like it or its just generally shit, or perhaps call it run-of-the-mill/elevator music/pedestrian etc, respectively if it was a particularly poor example of an otherwise liked genre)

Slothrop said:

FWIW, I used to know a few music students who considered anything post Bach to be irredeemably cheesy...

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I tend to agree as far as Wolfgang "King of Pop" Mozart is concerned.

Seriously though, cheesiness is an interesting concept. I completely agree with Townsley, that cheesiness is the perfect opposite to authenticity. In fact, if you accept that in these days, by absence of any shared canon of supposedly good taste, experienced authenticity is considered as the only legitimate standard for acquiring one's personal taste (and accounting for it!), cheesiness just means bad taste. Unless, of course, it rings true and gets experienced as authentic...

on the contrary, I find 'cheesy' to mean somethings that's MAINSTREAM and INSTANTLY DIGESTIBLE, hence Bon Jovi, the lead singer of Nickelback meets Carlos Santana and ABBA are are equally cheesy and hideoulsy mainstream and commercial.

Also 'cheezy' refers to something that doesn't challenge the intellect too much...

Cheese by the way is easy to digest, but smells.

nomos said:

utterly spot on, doom.

if i never hear this term again it'll be too soon - "it's awesome because it's so cheesy" etc. have some conviction ffs!

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I don't really understand why you guys are getting so worked up about this. You seem to be assuming that people who say this are all actually really into genuinely what they say they're into for the japes... which is quite an assumption. I guess it's a reaction against irony being so 'in' with irritating hipsters and stuff? You hate it so much that you lose all sense of it and find no value in it at all?

It just seems a bit black and white to me. Possibly because a lot of my friends, who I think are wonderful people, are on this retro tip, and I don't want to think they're all idiots... maybe because I've had fun dancing to music I think is toss. Irony doesn't have to be some kind of majestic coverup for all your insecurities... that's just what insecure people do with it. There are some really awesome TV shows based around the "it's awesome because it's cheesy" thing too.. I was watching Garth Marenghi's Darkplace only last night.. and the dukes of hazard movie is a masterpiece (whatever). It's also not dissimilar to people on this board going on about the cultural significance of Britney's brand, and how awesome it is (see the Spears thread from a few months ago)

muser said:

I think what makes something defined as cheesey is pretty dependent on cultural aspects and on own personal taste.

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bang on. cheesy is just whatever a particular generation has been overexposed to... and I think that's precisely why so many people find pleasure in enjoying stuff despite finding it cheesy - it's like a nostalgic comfort blanket. Reminding you of some more innocent bygone era.

I really don't get all the hatred towards people who might enjoy certain things in a camp or ironic way.

"Oh you fucking hipster/pomo/ironic twats, you don't have any real feelings or opinions or care about anything, people like you are destroying our beautiful planet and oppressing the proletariat."

It's just a case of broadening your aesthetic horizons, you like different things for different reasons. Surely a good sense of humour shows that you are more empathic and thoughtful, if anything. Why does everything have to be spelled out in a tediously obvious and groaningly earnest way?

swears said:

I really don't get all the hatred towards people who might enjoy certain things in a camp or ironic way.

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The feeling I normally get around people enjoying things ironically is that whatever cultural product they have chosen as their ostensible motivation actually means rather little to them - there is no real connect.

The ironic attitude is an enabling attitude to have, as one can put oneself in a range of social contexts without becoming properly implicated (one refuses to identify) nor affected (one refuses to submit).

UFO over easy said:

yeah but again this assumes that people are only capable of liking things in one way, or maybe in this case your being around them in too many of those kind of situations.

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Well, you can like things to various degrees and for different reasons, but it seems to me that the ironic stance makes too much play of 'what there is to be liked' and 'what there isn't to be liked' - it comes with its mind fundamentally made up.

Cheesy music is normally music that appears to come with its stall set out - obviously generic or just painfully familiar - it's music that you can have an opinion about before engaging with it properly (for instance, by looking at the detail in the superficially formulaic or listening attentively to what you have merely overheard inattentively a thousand times before).

I just find it more interesting to enjoy sincerely the bits you like and ignore the bits you don't, rather than making a fuss of the tension between them in your noddle.

Rhubarb rhubarb.

mixed_biscuits said:

I just find it more interesting to enjoy sincerely the bits you like and ignore the bits you don't, rather than making a fuss of the tension between them in your noddle.

Rhubarb rhubarb.

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lol yeah for sure... but that's something different than what was going on earlier which was more of an "if you take pleasure in things ironically you're a jerk" thing

UFO over easy said:

lol yeah for sure... but that's something different than what was going on earlier which was more of an "if you take pleasure in things ironically you're a jerk" thing

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I think I think, 'Put in a bit of effort and find something you actually like.'

well I think just ignoring the things you don't like is a pretty good way to become quite isolated

mms said:

i think cheesy is cheapened emotion really, like limp biskit style wining or warbling divas, 50 cent moaning about how a lady wouldn't love him if he wasn't rich etc.

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This is spot on. A cheesy tune is one that uses obvious cliches in attempt to evoke a response from the listener. Syrupy synths in love songs. Pan pipes and acoustic guitars in conscious reggae. Wobble bass in dubstep. Pianos and snare rushes in hardcore.

The thing is - these features can all work brilliantly when done well. Stuff like Omni Trios' vocal tunes, 'Super Sharp Shooter from Hype, Whitney Hustons' version of 'I will always love you', Garnett Silk...

Theres good cheese and bad cheese.