Is PCM a parody? Discussion thread

I don't think the line between "genuine" and "satirical" is as well defined as people think. To me PC Music is more self-aware, which can lead to some satirical or parodic elements cause you're basically knowing that what you're doing is silly. The fact that A.G., Danny & Sophie are all Tim & Eric fans is telling, cause it places them firmly outside New Sincerity (irony is for people with dead souls) and Poptimism (pop culture is actually really important and should be revered). Tim & Eric's humor, especially Awesome Show Great Job, is based a lot around taking low-class, trashy, or just bizarre elements of modern life and using them as a vehicle for absurd humor. It's not a stretch to see a gentler version of that in PC Music.

That said, I think PCM's comedic stuff is more all-out humorous than just ironic. GFOTY, Spinee, and Lipgloss Twins are probably the most obviously silly in terms of their image. GFOTY's early songs are the only ones that I would say strike me as outright parody. A.G. also has some funny lines in his music like the Odyssey Pt 2 rap....

Lemonade & Hard by Sophie also struck me as satirical right off the bat, at least in the sense that they play modern pop conventions to their extremely absurdist ends - the "lemonade le le lemonade" chant is pretty similar to the Milkshake/My Humps trend of a few years ago when songs were basically aiming to be as dumb and repetitive as possible, and Hard takes the whole sexy-woman-rapping/moaning-about-sex trope, turns it up past the point of making sense ("I just get so hard!!") and makes it this bonkers slapstick BDSM track that is sexual without being erotic.
But that's where the whole undefined line thing comes in cause even if those elements were intentional, they're still absolutely killer pop songs, all hooks and brilliantly produced. 

And then there is QT but my post is already way too long and QT could be 3 more paragraphs 

I feel like I've ranted about this before, so sorry if I repeat anything I've said in the past, but I think about this a lot.

This is one of the things that is so striking about sophie's stuff and a lot of PCM. It is sexual without being erotic. That is kind of mind blowing. There is an asexual quality to it that is really interesting to me. A sort of child like innocence without really poking fun at it. 

lol @ "well these ppl from PCM enjoy x, y & z SO that totally 100 percent means __________________________________________________________________________." so presumptuous & SUCH a reach.. >.<;; 

What sort of presumptive shit for brains discusses artists' stated influences in a thread labelled "discussion thread"..... >.<;;;;; indeed.

Sure, but this discussion is centered on whether or not PC Music is a parody of contemporary pop music culture, and in the broader cultural scheme of things, it would be kinda disingenuous not to acknowledge e.g. both T&E and JPop as sort of...niche interests. Although each, yes, has appeal to a lot of people, they still exist as influences, and can be characterized as much by what distances them from the total mainstream as by how "extremely popular" they are, as you put it. Especially when those distinctive properties have so much apparent overlap with those of PCM.
Are SOPHIE, Cook et al. capable of accessing a wide range of tones and intents through their music, of their own will? Totally! But it's not wrong, I don't think, to grasp at the philosophies behind their multiple influences, and then to triangulate from there what statements their music is making, from some basic-and-not-really-overreaching surface-level observations.
And sometimes there might not be anything to really analyze in that way, you're right. Sometimes there might not be any statement behind a PCM song! but again, the very nature of aesthetic-first-commentary-later content becomes a commonality shared between the music and Tim & Eric's comedy, and -- since this discussion is about categorization and how to categorize PC Music -- that information is useful.