Reply To: JoCo Elevator Pitch
S-s-s-t! Back on topic! 😉
Nice fix, awryone! (I’ll fight for “sincerest of ironists,” though — maybe drop the plurals on “situations” and “subjects” instead, leaving us one whole character to work with. “He’s the sincerest of ironists, most offbeat when describing the mundanest situation, most heartfelt when singing of the quirkiest subject.” Or maybe better, sub “earnest” for “heartfelt”.)
I don’t think three08’s was so hard to parse, myself:
He writes contemporary light rock with folky inflections
Granted, if you don’t recognize the musical genres, that part’s a little difficult.
which occasionally uses novel subject matter
Yep, plenty of unusual and original subjects in the JoCoeuvre.
to soften the impact of emotionally dense and complex narratives,
Exactly! I’m not sure if the quirky subjects are done with the intent of softening the impact, but they certainly have that effect, which I believe was three08’s meaning (please correct me if I’m wrong). As for the latter part, almost all JoCo songs have a story to them, yet it’s rare that the story is about exactly what it appears to be, hence “dense and complex.”
and does a wide range of high-quality style parodies.
“Parodies” is a good way of communicating JoCo’s amusement at trying on different musical styles, even though I don’t really find them to be, by and large, parodic in intent. (The styles he consciously adopts, whether bluegrass, ballad, or bossa nova, often add to the joke, but they’re not the whole joke.)
In short, I disagree with the assertion that ignorance of musical styles reduces three08’s pitch, which is one of my favorites so far this thread, to incomprehensibility.