Elegant

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What good is elegant music? What sort of music is elegant? Is elegance something you look for in music?

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 23 January 2004 13:14 (twenty-two years ago)

i can appreciate elegance in physical form so i can do it in music too i think. it suggests to me strings mainly and an overall very polished sound - risking accusations of blandness perhaps - i think i am describing Zero 7 here

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 23 January 2004 13:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Elegant doesn't have to mean bland, just not sludgy and swampy.

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Friday, 23 January 2004 13:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I have a lot of time for it. Basically what Steve said, with also a sense of effortlessness. Sade comes immediately to mind.

― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Friday, 23 January 2004 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Sinatra, Smokey Robinson and Al Green came to my mind first, but I'm old.

For a counter-intuitive example, I think the early singles by The Who are quite elegant as they're very crisp and airy.

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Friday, 23 January 2004 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

When I think elegant I think clarity of line (so no dirty/lo fi production) and lack of sweat/blood -whatever that means.

― Jedmond, Friday, 23 January 2004 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Webern

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 23 January 2004 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I think a lot of sophisto-pop aims for elegant, but its one of the hardest things to fake in music. It's kind of an elevated crispness. I'd say that some of Bunton's recent stuff is close to elegant, if not quite there.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 23 January 2004 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I dunno, waltz-pah-pah with a violin leading a melody over it usually strikes me as elegant.

Though I guess it wouldn't be if the violin-melody was, say, one of Samla Mammas Manna's 3/4 pieces.

I don't think I've ever heard a rock band really play anything that has struck me as elegant. It's just not flowing enough, I guess.

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought the Jessica Simpson song "The Sweetest Sin," which ended up on my top 10 last yr, defined a certain strain of elegance, even though I think that sound (expensive, shimmering) is fairly anomalous in pop music right now. I also think of Roxy Music's '80s output and Dusty Springfield's "Nothing Has Been Proved." Elegance is expensive and (relatively speaking) sweat-free, though not lazy or unambitious. Grand pianos and glossy digital production. (Another song that strikes me as elegant: Dusty Springfield's "Nothing Has Been Proved.")

― s woods, Friday, 23 January 2004 15:25 (twenty-two years ago)

woah, I really need to re-read my posts before submitting...

― s woods, Friday, 23 January 2004 15:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm so glad somebody else liked "Sweetest Sin"!

I prefer Dusty's "In Private" - elegance under strain, something Neil Tennant is rather good at (cf "I Get Along")

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:28 (twenty-two years ago)

ACtually, I took up "Sweetest Sin" on yr recommendation.

I should check out "In Private"--don't know that one. I was going to say that a lot of Pet Shop Boys stuff has an elegant finish, but it's something they can't possibly ultimately achieve with Neil Tennant (who I love of course) on vocals. Maybe they achieve it more on outside projects--Dusty, Liza, et al.??

― s woods, Friday, 23 January 2004 15:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I like this word for Herbert's Bodily Functions, and certainly the last Luomo album. If a song lacks any sort of "grit," it better have some elegance or else it gets a little boring. To use simple terms I think of music as elegant when it's v. pretty but in an adult way, with a bit of remove.

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:32 (twenty-two years ago)

"Moments in Love"?

― s woods, Friday, 23 January 2004 15:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Goldfrapp's non-dancey numbers

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 23 January 2004 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Off the top of me head...

I Don't Wanna Hear It Anymore - Dusty Springfield
Just My Imagination - The Temptations (definitive elegance)
Summer Breeze - The Isley Brothers (even though it has a hulking great guitar solo at the end the whole thing floats like a butterfly)
Tears - Frankie Knuckles
Long Hot Summer - The Style Council
Appetite - Prefab Sprout
Protection - Massive Attack

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Friday, 23 January 2004 16:00 (twenty-two years ago)

George Gershwin owns

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 23 January 2004 16:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, and

"Faithless" and "The Sweetest Girl" by Scritti Politti

― LondonLee (LondonLee), Friday, 23 January 2004 16:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Agreed, but the utltimate in Scritti Elegance (Scritti-gance?) has to be "A Little Knowledge."

― s woods, Friday, 23 January 2004 16:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Sam Phillips' "Martinis and Bikinis", my favourite LP of the 1990s.

― Scott Bloomfield, Saturday, 24 January 2004 08:54 (twenty-two years ago)

late model la buena vida, filled with sweeping strings, unhurried and cool, all of the songs are in spanish too so it adds to their allure and mystery.

― keith m (keithmcl), Sunday, 25 January 2004 01:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Elegant to me:

Burger/Ink - Las Vegas (and most of Wolfgang Voight's more ambient work, frankly)
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden (less so, Laughing Stock)
The first track on each Neu! album

― Clarke B., Sunday, 25 January 2004 01:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I like what I find to be elegance in pop.

A word that I might be more liable to use about things that I love or like is -- Grace.

Tico's question is good. It is like the old Tico, before he was Tico, in a way.

Possible examples of elegance: Deacon Blue, Prefab Sprout, Dionne Warwick, the Smiths, Danny Wilson.

― The Pinefox (Jerrynipper), Sunday, 25 January 2004 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Elegance is certainly something that appeals to me in music, though it is usually not in the "sophisticated" or "suave" sense, but more in the sense of possessing some sort of ineffable grace or clarity of expression.

― Clarke B., Sunday, 25 January 2004 02:15 (twenty-two years ago)

when the ema derton record finally comes out it will be elegant, it will likely be the greatest thing ever.

― keith m (keithmcl), Sunday, 25 January 2004 02:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Nat King Cole

― pete s, Sunday, 25 January 2004 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

more possible examples: glenn gould playing the goldberg variations, hopkinson smith playing weiss, pamela berry singing familiar

in my mind elegance is distinct from grace in that it can be learned and is associated with awareness. maybe it's too contemplative in the end, but that's why i prefer it. clarity, too. that's good.

― youn, Sunday, 25 January 2004 03:09 (twenty-two years ago)

pete s OTM. That guy had a voice for the ages.

― Dr. Annabel Lies (Michael Kelly), Sunday, 25 January 2004 04:28 (twenty-two years ago)

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