December 19, 2023:
i don't enjoy that snide elitism. "professor falstaff" — same critique. ironic posturing.
The Professor Falstaff comparison is pointed. Taking Falstaff, who is genuinely excessive and genuinely joyful and genuinely alive in his appetites, and making him a pose, an ironic costume, drains exactly what makes the character work. Falstaff's power is that he means it completely. An ironic Falstaff is a contradiction in terms, the detachment canceling the abundance.
It's the same problem with snide elitism in music. The ironic posture requires you to not quite mean anything, to always have an escape route from genuine feeling, to signal that you're too sophisticated to be caught actually caring. Which means you can never arrive at the place where the music does its real work: which is when the listener is caught off guard by something true.
Your sunny project is the anti-ironic posture. Yolanda means it. The girl with pictures of ships means it.
That's not naivety — you're clearly not a naive person. It's a choice to be present in the music rather than hovering above it with a knowing smile. The sophistication is in the composition and the arrangement and the production thinking. The delivery is straight.
Falstaff without the joy is just a fat man in a costume.