Minimalism

As regular readers know, I have a deep interest in simplicity and complexity. I even wrote a book about it. And being a writer, I'm also very interested in words and phrases. Every once in a while, a particular phrase catches my eye, and I just came across one I had to comment on. [note: pardon me for using a preposition to end a sentence with].

Anyway, it happened while I was listening to Pandora the other day. In the "about the music" pane, one of the musicians was praised for their "understated minimalism."

Understated minimalism? Really?

As opposed to overstated minimalism, I suppose? What would that look like? ("Boy, he really overdid that minimalism, didn't he?") Maybe the reviewer was being ironic, by redundantly describing a minimalist approach... or maybe they were just being pretentious. Anyway, I googled "understated minimalism" and doggone if that phrase isn't used quite a lot on the ole interweb.

Huh...