What Is Rockism ?

I dont know about Robin, but I picked up the word from early 80s NME discourse, or rather from reading *about* early 80s NME discourse - it was used a lot by people writing about post-punk and the New Pop.

Other despicably rockist acts included using the words "album", "track" and "group" - better were "LP", "cut", and, oh, this last one I forget.

someone was rockist if they only listened to hard rock music: AC/DC, Black Crowes, Judas Priest/ Gun/ Tesla/ Guns N Roses/Little Angels/ King Swamp/The Almighty/ Def Leppard etc

and their favoutite music night - was "rock nite" - with long hair/leather jacket/ Guns N Roses patches/ jack daniels/ headbanging/ skinny black jeans - ie all the rock cliches - I am not going there it is to rockist

I used to refer in a derogatory manner to someone in University in the late 80s for being to rockist, i.e they use to read only Raw magazine and their music tastes were too rockist.

While I listened to a wider variety of music Talk Talk/Spacemen 3/ Cocteau Twins/ Yello/Colourbox/ The Fall/ Happy Mondays/ My Bloody Valentine/ arkane/ Front 242/ Husker Du/ Mary Margaret O'Hara/ Kate Bush/Detroit techno/ Wire/ Lowlife/That Petrol Emotion/ Throwing Muses/ Sonic Youth/Phillip Boa & the Voodoo Club/ The Young Gods/ The Chameleons/ Blue Nile/ Voivod/ Sisters of Mercy/ Skinny Puppy/New Order/Killing Joke etc

If I were to take the term literally and think "music that males with children listen to", I would think dad-rock would be Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Pink Floyd, Sting and Chris DeBurgh (at least around here). But I don't get the feeling that that's what you're referring to.

is Reef, Paul Weller, Cast, Oasis, Shed 7, Kula Shaker, Ocean Colour Scene - all retrogressive music - that took their influences from the sixities and early 70s - hence the old reference - of dad - i.e dadrock.

Dadrock - focuses on dull conformity of their retro influences, it refuses experimentation and new ideas.

Dadrock, was what brit pop morphed into from 1996 onwards.

Ocean Colour Scene - have often been labelled dadrock. For their ghastly plodding music. A truly disgusting horrible vile dadrock outfit, and the english equivalent of the bland Hootie & the Blowfish, Matchbox 20. Music so horrible- just hearing their music can induce vomitry.

Dadrock values are little englander, warm beer, laddish behaviour, loaded magazine, music conformity, waving the union jack while abroad looking for fights, conservatism, thinking Chris Evans is with it etc

in 2000 dadrock is on the slide - with only Toploader emerging, and they were utter shite.

Artists as diverse as Killing Joke, Six by Seven, Mogwai, Rico and Asian Dub Foundation - have been very critical of dadrock and the narrow cultural & musical agenda they promote.

DJ Martian - djmartian.blogspot.com the dadrock/britpop hater since 1994

Also, when the rockism debate started in the early 80s, who was getting praised by the anti-rockist side ? I'm hoping Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa, but guessing Spandau Ballet and the Human League (who were all right one song at a time on the radio, I guess).

And yes, as I understand it everyone you mentioned would have been anti-rockist. It was a term that let in chancers like Spandau Ballet, probably, though for three albums the Human League were at worst interesting and at best brilliant.

You can sneer at it, but it always seemed to me that the term rockist was pretty useful to describe a kind of person (mostly a kind of journalist) who saw their fundamental roots in rock music - white, male, serious, guitar-based - and other musics as an entertaining diversion. I remember thinking Jamming! - for example - was depressingly rockist because I wanted to see them write about reggae and funk alongside the Jasmine Minks. But Jamming! was much happier writing about Billy Bragg and the Alarm. And the Redskins, for that s- o-u-l flavour. Oh yes. I mean, I enjoyed Jamming! but considered it distinctly rockist.

Now I understand that I should expect niche-marketed narrowmindedness. I have learned that it is unreasonable to expect publications to contain a genuine babble of competing voices and tastes.

'Rockist!' was an insult used, it seems to me, to imply that the recipient had seen punk and post-punk as a shot in the arm for rock music, rather than pick up on the various threads of much more interesting music which seemed available at the time. To fall back into a Great Rock Heritage in the shape of, say, the Bunnymen, or U2, or even Magazine (who I love) still seems lazy and tasteless to me. Even though I no longer see either of those terms as valid. Hm.

There's still a great article on the hip hop wars to be written, by the way.

Is rockism the liking of rock or the preference for it? Should we distinguish between anti-rockism and pop separatism? ;)

A lot of the anti-rockism mentality seems to imply that the only way someone can possibly dislike, say, Destiny's Child, is by filtering their music through an outdated set of rock-dude values - I say it's entirely possible to listen to both DC and Television with the same open ears, come away prefering Television by miles, without being a ideologically-rigid pop-hating wet-blanket.

I'd kinda like to quote the original Pete Wylie interview in which the term arose, but you know what — I lent my copy of NME that week to Matt Black of Coldcut (then Matt Cohn of the Jazz Insects), because it contained a review of the first A Certain Ratio LP — and he THREW IT AWAY instead of returning it!! When I complained — noting that Ian Penman had written said review — Matt replied: "Mark, you ARE Ian Penman."

So can I be Everett True yet?

The origins of the term don’t matter too much. For me rockist means an approach – current irredeemable rockers include U2, Primal Scream, Manic Street Preachers, Pearl Jam. If you can air guitar to it, it’s rock. Whether you care for redemption is a separate issue.

Best definition of rock. Ever. :)

Who says ILM debates never get anywhere?

Surely this would mean that Smiths and Belle & Sebastian fans = rockists, and Rolling Stones fans = non-rockists ?

Stones = MOST INAUTHENTIC ROCK GROUP OF ALL TIME BAR NONE, and that's what's GRATE abt em of course. Rockists SAY they like em, but when you go deeper, it's all talk.

(Patrick, is that you moved and back and settled in? Or are you another anti-anti- rockist Patrick joined forces with the first?)

Did I get that right?

Albums over songs. "Feeling" over, uh, other stuff. Individual performance and "real" performance over the "fake" (think synths and drum machines). A focus on lyrics. Narrative. "Development".

says Josh.

AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH IT!

As a side point, I don't think that the world is rockist at all. It only turns into a rockist review when a reviewer who's only used to reviewing rock tries to review somethign else - not equipped with the tools maybe? If you're used to talking about how an album flows from song to song (which is often, for me, an element in the enjoyment of music) how do you cope if there's only 1 track? Or 12 indistinguisble tracks? How do you give a drum machine a mark out of ten for the drumming?

P.S. I'd like to append all of this by saying that I really don't knwo what I'm talking about. Thank you.

Privileging of received wisdom over new discourse
Privileging of credibility / authenticity
Privileging of numbers and categorisation / lists

Mythology making the arbitrary appear necessary / essential

Making the cultural appear natural by making it appear to be invisible

The pursuit of objectivity

in america some seem to appreciate the post-punk 79-81 'real uk independant scene that we in uK have 'misplaced'and are refinding - see the Messthetics albums - brill bootleg compilations...

sorry am rambling and losing the thread..

jimmy

yay van dover

I prefer k-punk's "romantics of production vs romantics of consumption"

In a funny way "romantics" captures something hard to define but essential about both rockism and popism in a way that "authenticity" doesn't - at a stretch I'd call it their emotionally charged inconsistency.

Conversely, pop-discourse treats the pop star as the primary source of production, when in fact in reality many pop stars do not actually produce most of their own music beyond providing vocals - however if listeners ascribe to popism and/or pop discourse, they may choose to act as if the pop stars are the primary producers.

So rock involves a fantasy of consumption in order to preserve the primacy of production, whereas pop involves a fantasy of production in order to preserve the primacy of consumption.

It is irrelevant here that pop listeners "know" that their favourite pop star is not actually writing the songs, just as it is irrelevant that the rock listeners know that they have not actually seen their favourite hot new band live yet, or listened to their album on vinyl in a room. It's the acting as if these things are true in the face of knowledge to the contrary which is the very essence of the fantasies.

I seriously disagree with this, Tim. Rock-discourse actually values an album after it's been listened to repeatedly; masterpieces "hold up" after three dozen listens.

obviously one can listen to an album in one go many times over the course of a lifetime.

OK, I getcha.

Hmm...ideas for future Teena Marie album liner notes.

I mean that, in 2006, it is not "natural social behaviour" to listen to an album in one go on vinyl in a room, but it IS to listen to MP3s in bits on the bus. The rockist constructs false environments in which to consume rock because rock needs to be consumed "properly", that's how it's designed - the popist consumes pop whenever and wherever he/she can, because that's what pop is for. Ergo the consumption of pop is more authentic, because it doesn't require falsely-constructed environments, and I would argue that, say, Lex (as definitive strawman popist!) would see it as a positive thing that people listen to Ciara on the bus, because that(consumption)'s authentic, and who gives too figs whether the music was made "because Ciara was feeling it, man, and needed to express it", or because some producer had a tune and some A&R man had a face for the tune (which is inauthentic, because it is manipulative.

And we all know how rock is (supposedly) produced - friends-from-childhood in the garage.

So, pop manipulates you when it is produced, because of the (supposed) unnaturalness of it's production, but not when it's consumed, cos you can consume it whenever and wherever you like. Rock manipulates you when it is consumed, because it ought to be live, or all in one go, but not when it's produced because kids in garages with cheap guitars is "natural".

Of course, pop lies about it's autheticity of consumption just as much as rock lies about it's authenticity of production; the lies necessary tools in the pop playbook in order to construct myths which fit the music into the right slot in order to attract the pre-ordained fanbase necessary for it to succeed. Which is why Scritti Politti "fail" at pop and The Kooks "fail" at rock.

this is just wild, unsupported assumption stated as fact, on the basis that there is such a quantifiable thing as 'natural' social behaviour in the first place. social behaviour is in no way homogenous, and both can be seen as as 'natural' as each other. there's nothing unusual about the fact that many people who are into music can and do engage in both of these activites, albeit not usually at the same time. there's nowhere to plug in your turntable on the N73.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1663591,00.html

no chillax no cred

"Rockite: A member of an Irish organization associated with agrarian disorders in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. Also Rockism."

Not online yet then.

sheeeeit.

that's big.

GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT

So is this thread ground zero?

I like how most of the other words there are only used by corny nitwits as well

I used to refer in a derogatory manner to someone in University in the late 80s for being to rockist, i.e they use to read only Raw magazine and their music tastes were too rockist.

While I listened to a wider variety of music Talk Talk/Spacemen 3/ Cocteau Twins/ Yello/Colourbox/ The Fall/ Happy Mondays/ My Bloody Valentine/ arkane/ Front 242/ Husker Du/ Mary Margaret O'Hara/ Kate Bush/Detroit techno/ Wire/ Lowlife/That Petrol Emotion/ Throwing Muses/ Sonic Youth/Phillip Boa & the Voodoo Club/ The Young Gods/ The Chameleons/ Blue Nile/ Voivod/ Sisters of Mercy/ Skinny Puppy/New Order/Killing Joke etc

-- DJ Martian, Thursday, 14 December 2000 01:00 (6 years ago) Bookmark Link

you couldn't make it up.

you have to read 'slash' out loud

BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL BUZZKILL

I enjoy a bit of rockism now and again, I don't take it too seriously of course.

Rockism was a meaningful word when originally used by people such as Paul Morley back in the 80s, to defend acts that were taking their music just as seriously, only with synths rather than guitars being their main instrument.

When used to defend corporate teenyboppers unable to write their own material, and with outside people deciding their musical style, it is pointless.

^^^ban

Think you Morley's ideas arse over tit there, you crazy bastard, Hongro. Still love you loads tho, babe. xxx

*Think you got

sorry, I'm hungover

A love hangover for Geiry-boy.

Geir of the dog

Geirsy would never let one of these "outside people" decide his musical style.

Worst and most unlistenable genres/eras ever:
1. 12 tone music (1920-1940)
2. Hip-Hop (1979-present)
3. Funk/disco (late 60s-around 1980)
4. "Contemporary R&B" (Early 90s - present)
5. Bop (1940s)

-- Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 24 April 2003 08:09 (4 years ago)

Goddamn, Martian stole my record collection in 1989.

holmes is on point re. 12-tone.

It's no 2-tone, that's fer sure.

Is it six times better?

Worst bands ever:

1 Oasis
2 Kula Shaker
3 Oasis
4 Kula Shaker
5 Oasis
6 Kula Shaker
7 Oasis
8 Kula shaker
9 Oasis
10 Skrewdriver

I am weary and my brain is malfunctioning and WHY HAS THIS THREAD NOT BEEN HURLED INTO SPACE

11 Mansun

THEY CAN GO TOO

why does this feel like a Friday

12 Oasis

13. Tupac

14. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (ask yer dad)

15 Tupac Shaker

16 Oasis

I hate Pink for her fake "real-ness" but I love Rachel Stevens for her real fakeness. Does this make me a Rockist?

everything's a joke now guys, so just chill ;)

What is Really Real?

Vic Stenger

"Reality Check" in Skeptical Briefs September, 2003

Since I have been writing a column called "Reality Check" for several years now, perhaps it is time for me to say what I think is really real. The best definition I can think of is inspired by a comment made by Samuel Johnson in 1763. As described in Boswell's Life of Johnson,

We stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I shall never forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, "I refute it thus."

So, I define something as real when it kicks back after you kick it. In simple terms, this describes the processes of everyday observations, but also the most sophisticated scientific experiments. When we look at an object with our naked eyes, light from some source bounces off the object into our eyes. Or, the object itself may emit light. In either case, the object and the light receptors in our eyes recoil from the momentum that is transferred in the process and generates an electrical signal that is analyzed by our brains.

Scientific observations are basically the same. Not only visible light, but the whole electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays are available to joggle reality, along with sensors far more precise than the human eye to detect the jiggles that are returned. What's more, other particles, such as electrons and neutrinos, are also available as probes and computers are utilized to supplement the analytic capability of our brains. In short, science is not some special method of learning about the world. It is an enhancement of the only method by which we humans, in fact, learn about the world--empirical observation. The stuff of reality that kicks back when you kick it is called matter. And, that's all there is.

I think it's something to do with doric columns.

Rockism is a ham hock in your corn flakes.

how great is it

fuck off

This stupid word.

Sorry, PEW, you picked the wrong thread to revive.

so if it's really Wagemann, why is he still posting....

He's not anymore. We've had our eyes on him for a few days, he was sort of amusing to observe in a "lol nobody knows I'm me, gree heee heeee" sort of way.

TERMINATED

i knew it was him from the off

his albini post was just pasted from his myspace
as someone linked to http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:haCwizOgTkcJ:blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm%3Ffuseaction%3Dblog.viewcustom%26friendId%3D66316956%26blogId%3D426783246%26swapped%3Dtrue+Why+is+Steve+Albini+so+full+of+shit%3F%3F%3F&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

how great is it

― EdKranepool69, Monday, April 26, 2010 11:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fuck off

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Monday, April 26, 2010 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

http://rynosseros.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/pigh-cover.JPG

Ha!

― EdKranepool69

As signoffs go, that's not bad.

How is this thread so short???

Weren't there a ton of rockism threads, though?

each one a little nativity scene all its own.

There were at least three going at one time, all headaches.

what exactly is rockism?

― sarahel, Friday, June 17, 2011 3:26 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark

rockismo

Rockism is a ham hock in your corn flakes.

― Sara Sara Sara, Monday, March 31, 2008 10:32 AM (3 years ago)

Rockism is a word invented by people who want an excuse for liking manufactured hit factory pap.

Lol

"rockist" was a term coined by Melody Maker journalists in the early 80s to denote a sort of attitude that is obsessed with authenticity, worships the canon (ie only likes things if they have/will "stand the test of time", favours albums over singles, mind over body, moralism over materialism.

This sounds like a good definition, and let me add, those attitudes are good ones, and it makes rockism look like a positive thing.

It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with "rock" though, mind you. For instance, I would say that "Rio" by Duran Duran fits with the criteria about. Even though some older "rockists" may have claimed it wouldn't last in 1982.

hi geir, you didn't let us know what you thought of this proto-rockist 19th c piano masterpiece in The Geir Hongro listening club

Rockism = everyone should like what I like because what I like is OBJECTIVELY great.

This sounds more like a definition of positivism.

You're a moron.

geir otm

Rockism is "Mojo" magazine. Rockism is Geir Hongro. Rockism is your dad's favorite radio station. Rockism is Jim DeRogatis, usually. "Rockism" is to ILM as "fascism" is to, say, democraticunderground. And no, Geir, I'm not calling you a fascist.

it's okay if you call Geir a fascist

yeah, end of the line is back there

What is Rock Hardyism?

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/310323_10150317602878443_579683442_8036789_68960966_n.jpg

pretty glad public enemy and run dmc can be classed as classic rock now, so i don't have to feel bad about listening to them

needs a uk version. noone listens to shite like kiss here!

that was posted on the facebook wall of 2 friends of mine both in the uk.
i wish people in the UK actually did listen to more Kiss.

also, not rockist. it has some women, some gays, and some black people.

Oh, wait. I didn't even see the caption!

it's just generally retarded

i worked at a KISS gig at the SECC in Glasgow 2 years ago. people in the UK do listen to KISS. And they dress themselves and their kids accordingly.

Whenever this thread is revived, my first thought is 'lol W@gem@nn's back'

xxp: yeah, it's pretty bad. I was just looking to meaninglessly scrap about rockism.

actually i do know some kiss fans. but still.

The Clash and The Misfits are classic rock?

it's called classic rock because it's rock that's classic, duh.

especially when it's also hip-hop.

The Clash is definitely, definitely classic rock, but we called it "new wave" back then.

are all those bands on the poster Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame honorees except Foghat?

ah and misfits. also not sure about humble pie or canned heat.

foghat isn't in the rock-n-roll hall of fame?

http://www.nextmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/jim-carrey-hippie-mtv-movie-awards-220.jpg

WHAT THE F--K?

Damn, is that what chuck eddy looks like?

Still not dead! Thanks Michael Des Barres!

http://www.thewrap.com/music/blog-post/rock-and-roll-not-energy-drink-or-kardashian-55631

http://www.thewrap.com/music/sites/default/files/imagecache/image_640x150/banner/DesBarres.hollyblog.jpg

Boys and girls smoked grass and hashish, dropped acid, experimented with each other’s bodies, read Arthur Rimbaud, Lord Byron, Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Henry Miller and Krishnamurti.

"Me, I just got wasted, dude."

>Let’s move to the unprocessed and unaltered spontaneity of authenticity.

This sentence makes me want to pluck out my eyes with salad tongs.

Your eyes or his?

Mine for having read it.

BRING ROCK BACK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kupMnltNcf8

read Arthur Rimbaud, Lord Byron, Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Henry Miller and Krishnamurti.

Rockers were reading dudes, huh?

I was holding it together okay until he referenced CHEETOS.

Whenever this thread is revived, my first thought is 'lol W@gem@nn's back'

― D. Boon Pickens (WmC), Saturday, October 29, 2011 3:22 PM (10 months ago)

dropping acid will make you like henry miller, dropping ecstacy will make you like spiderman. got it.

Being lectured on RAWK by a guy whose biggest accomplishment was marrying Miss Pamela of "I'm With The Band" fame? Yeah, I don't think so.

Men suddenly had bangs.

So where does that put you, Mr. DesBarres?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tcexWRFTp0

In the beginning God gave us musicians and vocalists - then came vocorders, harmonizers and mellotrons, which begat click tracks, drum machines, and sampling, which begat auto-tune and quantizing. Today, a degree in programming and Internet marketing trumps the God-given talent that is music. I hunger for the days of VOX amps with frayed cabinets and sweat stained Stratocasters. You were part of the dream back then Michael, and I am so grateful that your return is clothed in the cape of rock glory. That's all the bling you need. Rock on brother. Carnaby Street is an amazing work

Yes, the Marquis has little need for bling.

Take me to your vocorder.

Old boring white man, please ignore.

We're back! Kinda?

http://thequietus.com/articles/22389-rockism-poptimism

https://www.funpic.us/funny/were_trapped-1522/

https://media.tenor.co/images/044f83a239b94e5a4e0c527118f65434/tenor.gif

lol tim

y'd u do it bud

y'd u quote ilx in the comment section

I read that article because I love Ned.

Nedism is an obscure belief but I'll allow it.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_msHZhK8UVUE/SqFIbpYCqqI/AAAAAAAAAlA/9jYs743ngEE/s1600-h/ned.jpg

o ffs

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_msHZhK8UVUE/SqFIbpYCqqI/AAAAAAAAAlA/9jYs743ngEE/s1600-h/ned.jpg

i hate everyone

^^^ sadist

So THAT'S what poptimism is. I had always read the term around here, but every time I asked what it meant I got mocked. #TheMoreYouKnow

this article is a) simultaneously long and under-developed on every point b) entirely built on its own preconception, which is that pop music is, by default, bad and that anyone who likes or analyzes it must be cynical or lying c) part of the reason I never, ever trust anyone who compliments my work, given how the first half is a rundown of how shit various takes are that ends with "but I commission them anyway." I'm sure the writers of those takes heard how great their pieces were

^^^ this. My conclusion after reading it, "He's lying or he's one cynical guy or he hated having to publish all those Dylan pieces once upon a long ago."

like, we all know writers are sometimes commissioned because they're monetizable and are told they're good in order to keep the monetization going, but it's very demoralizing to hear someone cop to it

s/sometimes/always, I mean, *any* commission is done for monetization but ideally the recipe has at least a dash of "and we think these are good, useful thoughts"

woke snrub: force for good y/n

Poptimism has its own sacred cows, which are beyond challenge:

*The solo release by the member of a manufactured group is no longer the sad addendum to the imperial years; it is a profound statement of artistic integrity.


*The surprise release by the big-name act is in itself, a revolutionary act.


*To not care about Taylor Swift or Beyoncé or Lady Gaga or Zayn Malik is in itself questionable. It reveals not your taste in music, but your prejudices. In the worst-case scenario, you may be revealing your unconscious racism and sexism. At best, you're trolling.


*Commercial success, in and of itself, should be taken as at least one of the markers of quality. After all, 50m Elvis fans can't be wrong.


this is heinously, grotesquely wrong – it's like a Lincoln critic reducing the Gettysburg Address to, "We're so grateful you fucking turncoats are dead."

i haven't read the piece and don't plan to, but the guardian is a super-fucked up paper in terms of its judgments what to commission and whatnot -- can easily imagine its down-tier editors come out badly jaded and disorientated, given the pressures on them from above

lol my first post in this thread was 17 years ago, let me resist the urge to read that also

when i'm puffin mad ism and rockin out to a sick uriah heep jam

I don't see a thing wrong with this piece, and this--

"Most people aren't rockists or poptimists; they just listen to music, and they like it or they don't"

--is obvious. The illusory divide between so-called rockists and poptimists reminds me of that episode of The Simpsons where Lisa defiantly shows up for football tryouts and says “That’s right! A girl wants to play football. How about that?” to which coach Flanders says “Well, that’s super-duper, Lisa! Heck, we already have four girls on the team!”

Aside from the increasingly sad and tragic person parodied in things like this, my feeling is that the rockist boogieman doesn't actually exist, at least not in any capacity that might in any way threaten the pop / hip-hop / r&b hegemony.

If there's anything that rankles me about the modern pop critic, it's a total lack of discrimination: pop always good, earnest dudes with guitars always bad. But, really, who cares what the "modern pop critic" thinks, anyway?

I don't mean to pick on the Guardian, it's a large swath, very possibly all, of music publications.

xp: I would consider myself a modern pop critic, I do not like everything, and since all this goes on in public you can verify that easily.

If there's anything that rankles me about the modern pop critic, it's a total lack of discrimination: pop always good, earnest dudes with guitars always bad.

I've never met this person. Every critic I know, as katherine points out, writes honestly about music he or she likes, is lukewarm about, or hates. The writer conflates two ideas: taking pop seriously and market forces/SEO forcing the commissioning of pieces on pop stars. Based on my own observations and experience (having bee assigned some of these pieces), Radiohead, Jack White, the late Prince and Bowie all got CLICK ON THIS treatment.

I mean, I have met variations on that person, but none of them would describe themselves as pop critics, or pop anything; they view themselves as entertainment writers, which they are.

author is an ilxor fyi

it all makes sense now

this display name for one post only, enjoy

Like I said before, there is no true poptimism right now.

An actual poptimist critic would be riding for the pop music that America actually, actively embraces and enjoys like the Chainsmokers, Meghan Trainor, Twenty One Pilots, Lukas Graham, Flo Rida, Mike Posner, Shawn Mendes, etc.

Instead artists who work in the pop genre just started releasing albums and "statements" like rock musicians do and we look at them through that rockist lens because there's no fucking rock bands any more. The end.

I thought people DID ride for Flo Rida, at least.

http://www.southendpunk.com/images/books/punkbo25l.jpg

pub.1 jan 1978: ground zero dudes

My House was the 14th most popular song of 2016. Not one critic voted for it in Pazz and Jop. Everyone can blow the posturing jerk-off lie of modern "poptimism" out of their asses

there's no fucking rock bands any more.

there are a zillion great rock bands fyi

sorry, forgot about Imagine Dragons

a bit of a massive stretch to say America (or the UK, in this case) doesn't actively embrace and enjoy multiple No. 1 hitmakers and noted click factories Taylor Swift and Harry Styles

Hey everybody, come on, Robert Pollard just enjoyed his 93rd Magnet cover feature, rock is clearly alive and well

sorry, forgot about Imagine Dragons

― Jay Elettronica Viva (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, May 11, 2017 12:58 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you're not attached to some dumb alternative rock nation idea that rock bands need to be popular or relevant or "cool" or whatever, yes there are more interesting rock band album than i can find time to listen to, also fyi heavy metal is rock music so judging by that thread there's like 5 albums a week worth checking out

i'm listening to this new slowdive album it's great!

i finally bought sheer mag EPs i-iii off bandcamp that's great!

have their been any good articles explicitly about poptimism that weren't responses to other bad articles about it

Save your Jute Gyte posts for I Love Gaming or whatever, we're talking about pop music

basically, every reference to "poptimism" could be replaced with "celebrity fandom" and be more accurate, or accurate at all.

(a lot of this is related to Top 40 radio's relative lack of said celebrities. huge number of factors there, but the result is a weird inverted looking glass, where someone like Shawn Mendes or Meghan Trainor is viewed as more disposable because they primarily are known for music)

Also, Harry Styles just made a rock record, come on, katherine

Save your Jute Gyte posts for I Love Gaming or whatever, we're talking about pop music

― Jay Elettronica Viva (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, May 11, 2017 1:02 PM (thirty-two seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't post to ilg and who or what is jute gyte?

i want to know about the best rock records of recent vintage because i feel like i miss them. i mean i like Big Thief, does that count?

the new oxbow is incredible

jute gyte are like a less commerical take on yowie

ah, popism

this is close enough to ed sheeran to qualify as pop under whatever definition of pop this thread is working off now imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uD6s-X3590

now i'm listening jute gyte is p intense

Whiney OTM.

i know people talk a big game about "poptimism" but outside of trans women who like carly rae jepsen i don't really run into a lot of it

poptimism for me kinda meant it was "safe" to like actually good pop music or guilty pleasure type shit that was actually well crafted but idk. also that it was safe to say that such music was better than acclaimed music like Wilco or whatever.

that's all it was ^^^

I can imagine this said in the voice of Peter Fonda in The Limey.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LqqfBlJaT58/T-RwnukPY3I/AAAAAAAAADc/dh6y7GJqG6w/s1600/1The+Limey.1999.DVDRip.XviD-VLiS.gif

xxp given the source this is unsurprising, and it probably was a response, but tom ewing had written something, which I now cannot find for the life of me, about 20 ways of writing about pop music

this?

http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7848-poptimist-32/

i think for all everyone moans about feeling pressured to like certain pop music, i've never felt more pressure than when i was told that the greatest album in forever was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and after some initial straining to like it as much as Being There or whatever all i heard was an understandable business decision by Warner Bros.

not that one, it was more recent

there's something about making (wholly unsubstantiated) claims that poptimists are somehow "as bad as" rockists that reminds me of people who are really upset about reverse racism. yeah i'm sure spoon and muse are the victims of outrageous amounts of disrespect from poptimists, totally.

i think it's similar in that after years of lots of people just writing and talking about and praising nothing but rock music, suddenly people who do the same for pop is a bridge too far.

For that analogy to make sense to me, I'd have to be able to believe that 'pop music' was the object of years of slavery, segregation, and oppression at the hands of 'rock music'. xp

https://media2.giphy.com/media/rUMEf0ZDHamwE/giphy.gif

There's so much music out there yet all we talk about is [insert genre(s) here].

there's something about making (wholly unsubstantiated) claims that poptimists are somehow "as bad as" rockists that reminds me of people who are really upset about reverse racism. yeah i'm sure spoon and muse are the victims of outrageous amounts of disrespect from poptimists, totally.

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, May 11, 2017 1:19 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's actually more like poptimists=white conservative pundits who ignore the fact that their "side" controls the entire government and most of the economy but like, some dude's speaking engagement at a small private college in connecticut got canceled

ever since the british invasion "rock music" has been more or less overtly defined as music by and for white men.

UMS OTM

i mean as far as i know taylor swift isn't _actually_ alt-right

again, read what i actually posted. it's not saying pop music is alt right.

yah i know i'm just saying it's like i don't think rhianna or future are sitting around giving a shit that somebody at rate your music thinks muse is way better.

pop music is not oppressed in any way, it's more popular and successful and well known than like wilco or whatever

worrying about real estate getting a better review than pop music is like "oh no they had to take down a statute of jesus in dayton ohio"

this argument is so fucking stupid

dudes

there are tonnes of rockers
writing tunes with guitars
performing to a small base
playing the local art space

theyll never leave the scene
wont appear on yr fave zine
you can go see them rock out
dressed punk, nerdy or drugged out

but the best thing is
you can have a brewskie
and be all cheeky

"how can we make this already-rapidly-losing-all-remaining-coherence concept more coherent?" "I know, let's make analogies to 2017 politics"

it has produced literally no good writing on any kind of music

snrub just otm-ed whiney, which i think shd make us all look p fucking hard at ourselves

i drove across the country last month and occasionally turned on the radio to see what was going on there. a lot of country music out in kansas, a lot of "classic rock" out in kansas. not a lot of pop music. there may be two or three people at the top of the charts getting paid, but you don't actually have a better chance of "making it" as a pop musician than you do as a rock musician. the idea that contemporary pop music is some insuperable and dominant cultural force because rihanna has a navy or whatever, i'm not really buying it.

will ponder this one a while:

there's no fucking rock bands any more. The end.

― Jay Elettronica Viva (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, May 11, 2017 10:48 AM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can we at least agree that pop is currently the default and therefore dominant paradigm?

What do the music critics in Kansas write about?

the monoculture is dead

ever since the british invasion "rock music" has been more or less overtly defined as music by and for white men.

I mean, way before the British Invasion, the 'pop' charts were overtly distinct from the 'race' (later R&B) and 'hillbilly' (later country and Western) charts. I just looked up a bunch of random Billboard year-end charts from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and they're all topped by white people.

xp

killed by insecticides

oh come on, try setting foot in a kansas middle or high school (actually, please don't, but) and then talk about there not being a lot of pop music

it's like framing any response to anything this way instantly injects a fvckton of unprocessable garbage into yr brain, whether yr k-punk or lord custos

kind of amazed nobody here has brought up Miley's MOR pivot

Mark S also OTM. So Yowie is like a mersh Jute Gyte? I should look into that.

"simultaneously long and under-developed on every point" is pretty much the Quietus's editorial philosophy, it seems to me.

Also, personal anecdote: One of their editors reached out to see if I wanted to review the last Metallica album, but only if I could promise them a negative review. I couldn't, and he got someone who could.

https://skingraftrecords.bandcamp.com/album/synchromysticism

So there already. This is good stuff.

but only if I could promise them a negative review. I couldn't, and he got someone who could.

this is how everyone assigns reviews

(obviously it's more often "only if I could promise them a *positive* review" but)

Can we at least agree that pop is currently the default and therefore dominant paradigm?

― pomenitul, Thursday, May 11, 2017 11:38 AM (five minutes ago)

this is not true. the industry often operates as if pop is the dominant paradigm even when it isn't, to its own detriment.

the monoculture is dead

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, May 11, 2017 11:39 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is true.

this is how everyone assigns reviews

Not in my experience. I've been doing this since 1996 and that was literally the first time that ever happened to me.

anyway i am off to watch the eurovision semis bcz i am the hegemony (all of it)

The death of monoculture doesn't preclude the idea of a dominant paradigm.

in my experience there is almost always an understanding, spoken or not, that your verdict will not differ substantially from the verdict the editor wants to commission. it's why most major publications do not assign reviews unheard

(or if they do it is generally because they have a longstanding enough relationship with the writer that they can make a guess at what the verdict will be.)

the other day i was walking by this house they are building on the next block, anyway the carpenters were working on finish the roof of the garage, and in general in Minnesota you expect KQRS (our longtime classic rock station) to be the soundtrack to any blue collar worksite but these guys were probably late 20s and playing generic EDM type stuff, and was kind of a neat the times they are a changin' moment

even in a strictly market/commercial sense pop is not the dominant paradigm in 2017 and it will cede even more space to other genres of music in the near future

from the early 90s onward the top 40 brand of supposedly 'mass-market' pop has frequently been commercially subservient to other segments of the industry (usually for a few years at a time)

y'd u quote ilx in the comment section

― i n f i n i t y (∞), Thursday, 11 May 2017 16:57 (two hours ago)

Was hoping for an influx of dunderheads but I realise now I needn't have bothered.

xp & while i would like to be sympathetic to the argument that those parts of the industry (like dance, hip-hop, r&b) are also pop, critics tend not to treat them as such -- and the rockism/poptimism debate is inherently about criticism.

xxxp

the new economy

they probs majored in ancient concrete poetry in post-cleopatra modern day egypt

even in a strictly market/commercial sense pop is not the dominant paradigm in 2017 and it will cede even more space to other genres of music in the near future

from the early 90s onward the top 40 brand of supposedly 'mass-market' pop has frequently been commercially subservient to other segments of the industry (usually for a few years at a time)

― dyl, Thursday, May 11, 2017 3:11 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Help me understand this then: http://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2016/top-billboard-200-albums

ha tim

and the rockism/poptimism debate is inherently about criticism.

i agree w/this you probably have to know who robert christgau is to be really invested in the debate

well glad we had our bi-annual shitting on pop critics

siding with UMS on this one for the most part. and with that ilx post quoted in that comment. (didn't actually read the article but i'm assuming it made some decent points clumsily)

(didn't actually read the article but i'm assuming it made some decent points clumsily)

It did not.

The thing is, the argument this article, and about a million virtually identically tepid takes beforehand, make is actually dated now. Something changed/broke with the Sheeranocalypse a couple of months ago and mass clowning on the biggest pop star in the country is positively encouraged now.

never let a little nuance get in the way of confirming your biases

xp

I mean it's not as if Ed Sheeran and Drake were not respectively a) clowned on from day one b) at least, like, one to two years into a backlash

i would have put my house on my pnj ballot if it had 20 spots. few songs last year gave me as much of a sugar rush. also i like mike posner :(

it's never Twenty-One Pilots, DJ Khaled, the Chainsmokers, and Posner who get grief from pieces like this – it's Swift and Beyonce.

it goes back to the celebrity thing -- these people's real problem is with celebrity journalism, not with poptimism, but they don't see or make a distinction.

i think that's probably true

21 Pilots grew on me.

and goodness what about those Kendrick essay commissioned in 2015 (not many this year). Is The Quietus offended by those?

it's absolutely true. and the choice of targets is even more striking given the way women don't really exist in the hot 100's upper echelons right now. like, what are you arguing against here?

"you" = writers of these pieces

Help me understand this then: http://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2016/top-billboard-200-albums

― pomenitul, Thursday, May 11, 2017 12:15 PM (two minutes ago)

what's most interesting about this list is that a lot of these albums are successful despite LACK OF support from the segments of the industry that prop up 'pop'/top 40 music. looking at the top 10 on the list:

- 3 generated zero major hits in the top 40 sphere (hamilton, chris stapleton, lemonade)
- 3 were from artists whose songs were crossing over to, not breaking at, pop radio (drake, rihanna, 21 pilots). drake and rihanna also managed to get major hits that charted well despite being largely ignored by top 40 radio ("needed me", "controlla"). it's interesting and somewhat telling imo that rihanna, who has been a straight-ahead top 40 artist for the vast majority of her career, opted for the urban-crossover route this time around.
- 1 album was by an artist delivering pop hits and crossover r&b hits in roughly equal measure (the weeknd)
- 3 are straightforward top 40 albums (bieber, one direction, adele -- who's actually an adult contemporary artist, but sure)

3 non-crossover pop albums out of the top 10 and 3 albums with no pop radio hits at all does not exactly speak to the hegemony of pop. and the scales are going to tip even further away from pop as the dominant commercial force in the coming years, to be displaced by more edm and 'urban' (i hate that euphemism) music. just watch!

well, streaming... complicates that

it does. tbh i would be excitedly cheering along the incoming shifts if they weren't also damaging to women artists.

it's never Twenty-One Pilots, DJ Khaled, the Chainsmokers, and Posner who get grief from pieces like this – it's Swift and Beyonce.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 11, 2017 2:44 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

BTW: I literally googles "Chainsmokers bad" and there seems to actually be quite a few articles about them sucking including one that comes up w/the dreaded Nickelback comparison

https://www.google.com/search?q=chainsmokers+bad&rlz=1C1NHXL_enUS736US736&oq=chainsmokers+bad&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2145j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

what's most interesting about this list is that a lot of these albums are successful despite LACK OF support from the segments of the industry that prop up 'pop'/top 40 music. looking at the top 10 on the list:

- 3 generated zero major hits in the top 40 sphere (hamilton, chris stapleton, lemonade)
- 3 were from artists whose songs were crossing over to, not breaking at, pop radio (drake, rihanna, 21 pilots). drake and rihanna also managed to get major hits that charted well despite being largely ignored by top 40 radio ("needed me", "controlla"). it's interesting and somewhat telling imo that rihanna, who has been a straight-ahead top 40 artist for the vast majority of her career, opted for the urban-crossover route this time around.
- 1 album was by an artist delivering pop hits and crossover r&b hits in roughly equal measure (the weeknd)
- 3 are straightforward top 40 albums (bieber, one direction, adele -- who's actually an adult contemporary artist, but sure)

3 non-crossover pop albums out of the top 10 and 3 albums with no pop radio hits at all does not exactly speak to the hegemony of pop. and the scales are going to tip even further away from pop as the dominant commercial force in the coming years, to be displaced by more edm and 'urban' (i hate that euphemism) music. just watch!

― dyl, Thursday, May 11, 2017 3:50 PM (twenty seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That makes sense to some extent but I think my definition of 'pop' encompasses more subgenres than yours. To be fair, I also tend to think of rock as pop, so in and of itself the rockist/popist divide strikes me as moot to begin with.

Ultimately I'm more interested in the antagonism between 'pop(ular) vs. less popular' music.

their music is awful, the singer is a cute douche, and commercially they're a much bigger deal than Beyonce.

i take your word for it they suck! i'm just saying the press does seem to target them too

ok, i see what you mean then. again i think critics tend to treat those subgenres differently but i might be wrong b/c i don't really pay that much attention to the critical sphere.

xp

like I said upthread, they're viewed as more disposable because they're not celebrities, they just make music, which is some very weird through-the-looking-glass stuff. (it doesn't help that EDM artists only have a 50-50 shot of crediting their vocalists, who are a) the up-and-coming pop stars who are supposed to be boosted by these collaborations b) women)

commercially they're a much bigger deal than Beyonce.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 11, 2017 3:56 PM (six minutes ago)

Is this really true? Maybe I'm not looking in the right places but I can't find anything to corroborate that.

To be fair, I also tend to think of rock as pop, so in and of itself the rockist/popist divide strikes me as moot to begin with.

OTM. Need to go back to when music was real, with musicians who could actually read playing real unamplified instruments under the direction of conductors who were really feeling it.

Is this really true? Maybe I'm not looking in the right places but I can't find anything to corroborate that.

― pomenitul, Thursday, May 11, 2017 4:03 PM

check out Beyonce's streaming and single sales of Lemonade compared to Drake and the Chainsmokers.

God awmighty if the R word upsets you you're the problem irrespective of technical stupidity

OTM. Need to go back to when music was real, with musicians who could actually read playing real unamplified instruments under the direction of conductors who were really feeling it.

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Thursday, May 11, 2017 4:08 PM (forty-one seconds ago)

Not good enough. If your flute isn't a hand-carved femur, I don't want to hear it.

Based on presentations in my music tech classes, Chainsmokers are definitely a big deal.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--fEBZZaDe--/c_fill,fl_progressive,g_center,h_900,q_80,w_1600/c8ciauhwifa2djnf5coq.jpg

it's never Twenty-One Pilots, DJ Khaled, the Chainsmokers, and Posner who get grief from pieces like this – it's Swift and Beyonce.

because the perception is that pop critics don't rep for these musicians like they do Taylor Swift & Beyonce. it's almost as though Taylor Swift & Beyonce have, like, star power or something

yeah this is kind of my point, the bros of summer, who got to where they are because of halsey and phoebe ryan and emily warren

(the latter of whose PR sends me about two emails a week pleading with me to acknowledge her existence, because the chainsmokers barely are)

Not good enough. If your flute isn't a hand-carved femur, I don't want to hear it.

Neanderthalist

that billboard cover is horrifying

Take sides: Neanderthalism or Australopithecism?

how has m@tt never posted on ILG before aren't you a professional nerd?

how has m@tt never posted on ILG before aren't you a professional nerd?

― flopson, Thursday, May 11, 2017 3:28 PM (two seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess i could now cuz i'm not anymore but i didn't want to leave a "paper trail" for reddit weirdos or neogaf junior gaming journalism sleuths to dig up because i tend to jest a lot on ilx

also i guess i felt like if i had thoughts abt games i should have written them for the site or mag

I don't post on ILG either, I mean

lol gamers

whiney OTM that the strain of poptimism currently in vogue is a rockist abomination of the poptimistic ideal of a race-to-the-bottom to contraristan for the lowest common denom pop trash.

call it 'market poptimism' because that's what it is — a response to the internet allowing the market's id to turn into a dictator

imo it's a 'teach a man to fish' type of thing. poptimists eight years ago were like 'it's okay to like Beyoncé!!!' but instead of internalizing the more general lesson of openmindedness to the beauty and craft of lcd pop and awareness of our bias against it, ppl just became rockists who also like Beyoncé now

who?

or are you paraphrasing the article?

OTM. Need to go back to when music was real, with musicians who could actually read playing real unamplified instruments under the direction of conductors who were really feeling it.

joking but true. there was a time when music only existed on paper, when every house had a piano, when you could get a job in a local orchestra, when pop music culture intertwined with folk culture and family traditions. recorded music killed so much.

a time when songs were alive, dynamic, constantly morphing, taking in regional differences, changing with the times. now songs are dead, a deceased corpse legally defined and restricted to one official version and only officially-approved variations

You and your grave robbery

there was a time when music only existed on paper, when every house had a piano, when you could get a job in a local orchestra, when pop music culture intertwined with folk culture and family traditions. recorded music killed so much.

When I interviewed Derek Bailey, he went on a tangent about all the different jobs he'd had as a working musician - playing for burlesque dancers, playing at factory workers' picnics, playing in a million different social contexts that required music. He was a pro before he was the God of Improvisation, and he was a pro before there were jukeboxes in every bar. I wish I still had the full recording, but it was on a long-lost microcassette that I never digitized.

xps- haven't read the article but i agree with what whiney said:

Like I said before, there is no true poptimism right now.

An actual poptimist critic would be riding for the pop music that America actually, actively embraces and enjoys like the Chainsmokers, Meghan Trainor, Twenty One Pilots, Lukas Graham, Flo Rida, Mike Posner, Shawn Mendes, etc.

Instead artists who work in the pop genre just started releasing albums and "statements" like rock musicians do and we look at them through that rockist lens.

feel like a true poptimist critic would best be drawn from the ranks of out-of-work conservative pundits. how do you "criticize" something that has essentially no intellectual component whatsoever?

...

trump

feel like a true poptimist critic would best be drawn from the ranks of out-of-work conservative pundits. how do you "criticize" something that has essentially no intellectual component whatsoever?

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, May 11, 2017

certainly you troll as well as somebody in NRO World.

ok, i'll walk it back. i guess there's as much need and value for flo rida thinkpieces as there is for nickelback thinkpieces.

Criticism and "need" have had nothing do with each other in a capitalist society.

whiney OTM that the strain of poptimism currently in vogue is a rockist abomination of the poptimistic ideal of a race-to-the-bottom to contraristan for the lowest common denom pop trash.

okay but are beyonce and taylor swift and harry styles really making "the lowest common denom pop trash"? are all the critics who loved Lemonade or 1989 or whatnot just deluded? cynical? lying? are those really the worst records in all of pop?

like, this is my exact problem with the article, as soon as one makes the tiniest puncture of conditions in music writing then all the old shit floods back in, because it never went anywhere in the first place.

also if it was really rockist then writers would give more of a shit about the music and its writers/performers but we're still stuck in "who is Max Martin?" baby land

those artists aren't lcd pop trash, they're perceived as a cut above and make Prestige statement releases, that's the point

tbh, aside from maybe rolling teenybopper thread 2006, im not sure poptimists ever lived up to the ideal

Criticism and "need" have had nothing do with each other in a capitalist society.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

for that matter art and "need" have nothing to do with each other in a capitalist society. so... the whole thread is rearranging deck chairs, no?

That Ned Raggett on rockism thread was a good one.

It was! And now your comment's been immortalized again.

for that matter art and "need" have nothing to do with each other in a capitalist society. so... the whole thread is rearranging deck chairs, no?

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, May 11, 2017

It's your ship.

Criticism is art.

Says the critic.

https://media.tenor.co/images/80a1533cd59f394429938ffa9bb83417/tenor.gif

criticism of any art form is the real lowest denom trash

There's at least an extended essay's worth of thoughtful commentary on this topic strewn across a dozen ILX threads, over nearly seventeen years - you could probably assemble the definitive examination of the issue by curating and collating them.

So it's a bit deflating that every time these conversations are revived it's like we're starting on the ground floor again.

as Mike Rutherford wrote, every generation blames the one before

What is rockism?
I don't know, huh!
Rockism is a hamhock in your cornflakes, yeah

What is rockism? Hehhehheh
I don't know
Huh
Rockism, rockism is the ring around your bathtub

What is rockism?
I don't know
Huh, uh
Rockism is a joint rolled in toilet paper

it's particularly deflating being on the writer's side of it, when every year or so comes a brand new indictment about how you (collectively) are terrible and ruining music writing

also has anyone posted the guardian's "nine lives may be a film about kevin spacey being turned into a cat, but it speaks directly to donald trump" headline in here

xpost I have no hard evidence for this but I'd be willing to bet that it was "poptimists" like you, Maura etc. who were the first to actually diagnose how clickbait-driven celebrity journalism is negatively impacting on music criticism.

i.e. it's the people who are invested in thinking and writing interestingly about pop music who are the first to see and call out the external developments which interfere with that, rather than the revanchists who take every development as more proof that they were right to be boring and inflexible thinkers all along.

also has anyone posted the guardian's "nine lives may be a film about kevin spacey being turned into a cat, but it speaks directly to donald trump" headline in here

the twitter thread that article was based on was funny imo, its adaptation into a guardian article seemed a less successful but I can't really begrudge that guy getting some money and exposure though

I've been putting this off for a while, but it's time we had a serious talk about the most important film for understanding Trump's America. pic.twitter.com/gCqj1BuLrv

— Jack Bernhardt (@jackbern23) May 3, 2017

It's your ship.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

why did you put the guy who's trying to sink the ship in charge of it

the best music critics i've known have been other musicians, specifically in whatever music scene i happened to be in

musicians don't necessarily need outsiders who most of the time are literally music-illiterate analyzing their music, maybe this only applies to jazz, but i guess since rock musicians generally can't read music either, it turns into a free for all

it's not like musicians aren't expected to develop thick skin and put up with all the negativity either, so to quote gloria estefan, it cuts both ways

now conga baby

words get in the way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrIiLvg58SY

my highfalutin thoughts fellas

reductive as all hell, but this feels like a music criticism relocation of the Adorno-Benjamin back-and-forth about taking "trash culture" seriously that Alex Ross revisited a few years ago

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/naysayers

i'm all on the side of "poptimism" here, but i will say that (good) criticism of such poptimism is just as necessary. this isn't that, obviously, and Tim's right to point out that good critiques of pop writing are more likely to come from people well-versed in the form.

also, i will that in this piece it seems like there's a general lack of understanding of the structure of the bubblegum pop economy? pieces like this one seem to assume that all bubblegum (or whatever it thinks is "pop") gets popular, but if you listen to Who? Weekly or simply follow something like Popjustice (or The Singles Jukebox), you'll know that there's plenty of "good bubblegum" that doesn't get the time of day because of the whims of the economy and industry. isn't rectifying (or, at the very least, pointing out) imbalances that emerge because of that the literal job of good criticism?

The problem with poptimism as taxonomy and theory is that any critic who writes about popular music has written about music that tops the charts (lest I be misunderstood, I exclude genre specialists). Why does a term exist now for a phenomenon that's existed since the late '60s? It's a redundancy. Critics who write about acts who want to sell records will listen to good records, OK ones, and bad ones. The nature of criticism is to examine. Assuming that good criticism of popular music accepts the hegemony of Beyonce, unexamined as if by PR department fiat, is the article's most crippling flaw.

Writing for The Singles Jukebox, I never know for example what's katherine's going to say about a Harry Styles single; each week is a fascinating motley. And we Jukeboxers who write for other publications, we think, don't write for Sony's PR department.

hard agree. more broadly, i understand and support the critical project of seeking and highlighting art that does more than reinscribe aesthetic and commercial boundaries, but i don't understand why, in stuff like this, that always has to be complicit in a fetish for authenticity that feels itself regressive, even if it's become detached from the folk/bard-derived man with a guitar archetype.

What particularly bugs me about the Beyoncé example is that when she was just a pop star she was largely disliked by critics - too professional, too ambitious, too "cold" etc.

The milestones that have contributed to her critical rehabilitation and eventual dominance are, if anything, a weird marriage-of-opposites between celebrity culture and quite rockist-flavoured authenticity narratives.

I don't really see how critics falling in love with an artist who makes "visual albums" liberally quoting Warsan Shire is a sign that the pendulum has swung too far away from rockist ideas.

how will those critics respond when Twenty-One Pilots releases their recitations of Wallace Stevens poems over harmoniums

You laugh now, but.

Tim F gets it, thank you

can people stop bringing up Twenty One Pilots, I'd rather they not exist

you was stressed out

The problem with poptimism as taxonomy and theory is that any critic who writes about popular music has written about music that tops the charts (lest I be misunderstood, I exclude genre specialists). Why does a term exist now for a phenomenon that's existed since the late '60s?

I don't know. I'm not familiar enough with black music criticism from the period. Black music was covered in rock outlets like Rolling Stone, but only to a certain extent and if you look at the top pop hits of every year from the early '70s, there's plenty of stuff there outside of their purview.

Although, looking now, Christgau seems to have reviewed everything.

Here's the discussion on reddit if you dare look at that echo chamber:

https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/6akg8f/is_poptimism_now_as_blinkered_as_the_rockism_it/

Half of the top comments didn't read the article at all.

that went from "this is the same train of thought of this thread" to "oh, a hillary/bernie debate" pretty fast

these threads serve an important function in allowing me to update my butthurt rockist dorks spreadsheet

I think there's several overlapping problems with this article:

1. The understanding that there's a clear distinction between "rockist" and "poptimist" positions and their objects. (That is, its possible to appreciate Beyonce say from a highly rockist perspective that values "authenticity", the crafting of an idiosyncratic authorial position, etc.)

2. The assertion that poptimists ultimately believe in the market-as-arbiter with respect to taste.

While I do think its fair to say that poptimism appeared as an odd appendage of the rise of 90s third-way-ism (it can't be denied, I think, that buried in poptimism's central assumptions, is the idea of the marketplace as a filthy playground for inventiveness, free of the constraints of artistic aspirations). Poptimism does seem to simultaneously foreground and dismiss the proximity of cultural and capitalist production with respect to pop music, both as a way of deflating loftier rockist discourses, but also in a somewhat celebratory sense. If you look at the poptimist canon though, I think this has never been an embrace of the power of the market to decide. My sense of the poptimist canon, Cassie, Girls Aloud, Britney's "Blackout," etc. Is that it is full of "minor" works. There's a general sense that these are things that are artifacts that are tarnished by the market, that wear some aspect of the cruder dimensions of capitalist involvement in pop-production as key to their meanings. I don't see Adele, Lemonade, bloody Ed Sheeran, or an of the other big name pop stars around as really having much to do with this. Apart from the fact that they seem to me to be so dreary whenever they get foisted on me at work (often). I don't think this is about poptimism's ascendance to hegemeony, but rather, as has been pointed out, the convergence of a poptimist rhetorical line with celebrity-driven clicktainment and the absorption of rockist "prestige," into an easy line that collapses the distinction between criticism and marketing.

Twenty One Pilots fandom is part of my poptimism

Great post plaxico

I think an implicit presupposition of poptimism is that market forces are always already infecting narratives of distinction, such that it's better to acknowledge them rather than strive for a fake purity.

That inevitably introduces the risk that "acknowledging market forces" elides into "uncritically accepting market forces as an arbiter of value". But all music criticism is at risk of collapsing into intellectual laziness.

When I think of the critics who have given market forces the greatest prominence in their writing - Tom with Popular, Chris Molanphy, Maura, Carl Wilson - there is a mixture of deep scepticism and thoughtfulness which directly contradicts the notion that acknowledgement leads to uncritical celebration.

There's a whole bunch of stuff in the article I disagree with, for example:

Poptimists argued, once, that the disposal and the shiny were as valuable as the self-consciously worthy. They argued that the single was as worthwhile as the album.

The idea that "the single" actually even is a construct is silly in itself. As is the idea that poptimists are the only ones who'd argue in its favour. Albums are made of songs.

That said - if the general thrust of the piece is "it is tiresome to have to keep reading deeply fawning or grandiose critical takes on the work of massively popular, powerful, omnipresent people" then yeah, agreed. It is suffocating. But it's prob not the fault of anything other than social media churning all this stuff up constantly.

I never find it particularly stifling tho because nobody comes round my house and forces me to read cold takes at gunpoint

true - but if you use twitter it is genuinely hard to avoid even tweets that link to cold takes.

NV OTM.

there's a weird thing sometimes on ILX when a lot of us are into the same new album e.g. the last Kendrick and you kinda feel "this thread is just a bunch of unnecessary gushing now" but I still think unnecessary gushing is less of a grind than "let me blow your mind by telling you I don't like this thing that a load of people like. at length. repeatedly."

xp yeah LG I know what you mean about the shoving it in your faceness of Twitter, Facebook etc

kind of feel like almost every version of "this thing that you like is shit and here's why" is less instructive/interesting/entertaining than some form of praise, maybe because the former comes from a place of less engagement, maybe cos it feels easier, maybe cos fuck a hater idk

(it can't be denied, I think, that buried in poptimism's central assumptions, is the idea of the marketplace as a filthy playground for inventiveness, free of the constraints of artistic aspirations).

I might have a go at denying that! Or at least refining it - I'd be more inclined to say that poptimism* places greater emphasis on artistic affect than artistic aspirations, and tends to interrogate the assumption that artistic affect is more likely to be found in those places where the artists are expected to be more self-consciously serious.

Artistic aspirations can be found all over the place, and a playground for inventiveness is a really good place to look for them.

*usual "it's not one thing" caveats apply here; it's not one thing, any more than pop or rock or art is one thing, and (as you say, Plaxico) one of the main failings of the article is a failure to tease out the different strains of poptimism.

xpost NV otm as usual. Also: if you've gotta dorklist I wanna be on it.

They argued that the single was as worthwhile as the album

^^^this was specifically an argument punk brought to the picnic

"being forced to read" is the (not-unjustified) whine of the professional editor -- you have to keep up with stuff, check the competition, you also have to proof the garbage you're handed by your contributors (needn't be garbage but if you're bad at choosing yr contributors it will, and others keep pitching things), plus, if yr a down-tier editor, as music-section editors on papers like the guardian always will be, yr probably being pressured a lot to cover stuff you really don't want to personally (which can be corroding over the years)

but I still think unnecessary gushing is less of a grind than "let me blow your mind by telling you I don't like this thing that a load of people like. at length. repeatedly."

agree 100 per cent.

i guess i sort of feel... it's easy for people to imagine a bunch of critics are all saying the same thing, all bludgeoning you to death by hyping an artist that you've already heard hyped a thousand times, in the same way. it's probably an illusion or an assumption. but that is generally how we all felt about your mojo/q etc whenever this place first got going. it's not bad to acknowledge where the power might lie, or to undermine that or run away from it.

kind of feel like almost every version of "this thing that you like is shit and here's why" is less instructive/interesting/entertaining than some form of praise

this is exactly my critical philosophy. many negative reviews are just someone misunderstanding something, you can compare the language used even.

(ps when i was an editor i did none of these things, and spent most of my time rewriting my contributors' copy so that it was actually more or less publishably ok)

For me Rockism manifests itself most egregiously in the open contempt for the musical tastes of young women and complete lack of interest in the musical tastes of POC, and that's still everywhere. Imagining that it's all in the past now because it's fashionable to like Lemonade is just utter head in the sand nonsense.

xp Tim

I wonder if the problem for poptimism is that it took the existence of the marketplace too much for granted. Contextually this made sense, particularly as a way of dismantling the self-valorising semantics of rock criticism. But Poptimism can seem a realist perspective that sortof closes the loop. In becoming so entirely pragmatic about markets, it makes it impossible to think about, as an example, folk traditions and cultural production that emerges from a more communitarian or even utilitarian context.

Hm - I took your post above to be saying that poptimists were not entirely pragmatic about the market, in so far as they, as a tendency, don't tend to be terribly interested in Sheeran and Adele...?

Poptimism, in whatever form, has not made it impossible to think about anything. Which isn't to say that all poptimists think well about everything.

No, sorry, I'm doing what I was criticising the article of doing in an effort to be brisk.

I think poptimism introduces a certain pragmatism wrt to the marketplace. It introduces and foreground the idea of the marketplace as a contextual marker which is part of the meaning-making of certain types of pop music. So rock music tries to present itself as free from the exigencies of marketing, sales, etc. but becomes boring, stable and hegemonic. Whereas there's a certain stream of wicked pop inventiveness that navigates the precariousness of marketplace and has to become incredibly inventive in this context. These are the "cheap tacky souvenirs" that poptimism gets very excited about.

There is definitely an abundance of "Beyonce's new album is Black Lives Matter," type of thing all over the internet now. Stuff which defined by an unquestioning pragmatism regarding the market, rockism's "prestige" rhetorics, and some poptimism-derived social justice concerns. (recast as entirely aesthetic questions of "representation" or "cultural appropriation," set free from any concern for the material bases of these ideas and in particular their relationship to said markets)

So what's hard is that poptimism, does have a sortof legacy, in that it's been cannibalised by this other content-industry which preserves certain of its features if not their intents.

Poptimism, in whatever form, has not made it impossible to think about anything. Which isn't to say that all poptimists think well about everything.

this is more or less the beginning and end of the argument, or at least the "waaah Poptimism is the new orthodoxy stop making me listen to music I don't like" bit of the argument

I'd be more inclined to say that poptimism* places greater emphasis on artistic affect than artistic aspirations, and tends to interrogate the assumption that artistic affect is more likely to be found in those places where the artists are expected to be more self-consciously serious.

^^ excellent. Perhaps "greater emphasis on artistic effect" too!

there's definitely an element of poptimism - which I wouldn't necessarily use to describe all "rockism is silly" discourse but here we are - that ties in with my own aesthetic feelings about the whole notion of the aesthetic belonging to the perceiving subject rather than innately within the object of perception

xp to Plaxico: If the effect of Poptimism is to say that the politics in Beyoncé's work is treated with the same seriousness* as (say) the politics in The Clash's work, EVEN WITH the acceptance that the art is being made inside and with a full knowledge and acceptance of the entertainment arm of capital, then I'm all for it.

*NB: I don't think it is, yet, although I hardly have an extensive overview of pop coverage these days.

thinking about what plax said I feel like that kind of PR gush has always been with us, there's always been that branch of semi-advertorial unquestioning promotion of the popular because it's popular, it's just a question of the internet bringing us too much of everything

For me Rockism manifests itself most egregiously in the open contempt for the musical tastes of young women and complete lack of interest in the musical tastes of POC, and that's still everywhere.
― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Friday, May 12, 2017 5:31 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Again, who are these people and where do they hang out? Not anywhere I go. Are you talking about my sexagenarian twice-divorced uncle who chain smokes Camels and longs for the halcyon days of seeing Blue Oyster Cult for only four dollars and getting three cartoons and a few shorts before the movie even started, maaaan? Because he's more relic than rockist and wouldn't know Adele from Enya

wish I lived in a utopian commune of freethinkers

it's not as if on one side we have pop music and on the other everything else. pop is hardly some free open world that promotes us living as we choose.

who are these people and where do they hang out?

i think both sides should answer this question, to be honest: actually *name* some active poptimists who behave as charged? and ditto rockists, among ppl who have critical heft among us -- this vaguely handwaving of "those ppl over there do a bad thing which makes them reactionaries" is the fkn epitome of bad critical thinking politics

(rockists is always easier bcz bob lefsetz, but let's agree he doesn't really count)

there's a distinction between working journalists and my mates down the pub who think I'm taking the piss when I tell them I like Sean Paul I guess

Wimmels's uncle sounds OTM.

i think both sides should answer this question, to be honest: actually *name* some active poptimists who behave as charged? and ditto rockists, among ppl who have critical heft among us -- this vaguely handwaving of "those ppl over there do a bad thing which makes them reactionaries" is the fkn epitome of bad critical thinking politics

agreed.

hard to name names as i don't keep tabs on critics i don't like, and this is more of an aggregative phenomenon than the fault of any specific group of writers

an imagined fear, in other words

poptimism's central assumptions, is the idea of the marketplace as a filthy playground for inventiveness, free of the constraints of artistic aspirations

this is beautifully put. the freedom of pop's cynicism-nihilism-relativism is a huge point of attraction, for this poptimist, at least

the halcyon days of seeing Blue Oyster Cult for only four dollars

never experienced these days directly but i long for them too

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/oct/22/crush-week-why-i-love-beyonce

you can see Blue Oyster Cult for $5 beers when I karaoke "Burnin' For You" next Saturday

The most notable rockist critical arguments I can think of now are happening actually in rap, and frequently on YouTube not in writing - guys like Lord Jamar, Ebro, Joe Budden etc and the debate over mumble rap, Lil Yachty not respecting Biggie, trying to make these kids freestyle over the Gangstarr Mass Appeal beat...I think rock - or at least any rock music that's worth listening to - has gone so underground for so long it's really not pop music, it's an adjacent and related, but largely separate, world... Like jazz has been for a long time

Perhaps it's time to stop calling it 'rockism' then. This debate is terminologically muddled.

an imagined fear, in other words

while I understand the defensiveness on the part of professional critics and editors, is it really so controversial to say, rather than overturning rockism once and for all, poptimism won the battle but lost the war? it would be very unlikely for us to win, ever! the power of rockist prestige to elevate, that the market leverages to sell artists to a different segment of listeners, rests on the existence and distinction between the beyond-the-pale lcd pop that poptimism tells us to reconsider

is it really so controversial to ask for people making these two very similar arguments to point out concrete examples of them in action?

I don't have any names to list off, to tell the truth I only know the names of a handful of music critics, and couldn't tell you that much about any of them. I might be alone in here in never having done any professional music writing, though I do read quite a bit of it.

The point I was trying to make, perhaps clumsily, is that there is a huge spectrum of commentary between respected critics at one end at NV's mates down the pub at the other, and for most of this spectrum the attitude I'm describing is absolutely present. Poptimism, on the other hand - basically I only ever encounter it on here and a couple of other places. Celebrity journalism is everywhere of course, but that's hardly the same thing.

Do I need to give an example of the patronizing way so many writers talk about the music tastes of teenage girls? Not on here, sure, but ILM is in this respect not at all representative.

I might be alone in here in never having done any professional music writing

new board desc obv

Do I need to give an example of the patronizing way so many writers talk about the music tastes of teenage girls?

I think mark's point is yes?

i would seriously like to see a list of the two schools drawn up, preferably w.attention paid to the best writers on each side (hence not lefsetz)

i think it might move the conversation on a bit: 17 years is a ridiculously long time to be pawing at the same bald spot

i continue to think it's a deeply stupid way to frame the discussion -- maura's arguments are to me far more germane, abt the practical pressures from newspapers and magazines and websites making decisions about content, and how these imagined economics affects the writers that can adapt and (even more) the writers not really prepared to

celebrity culture has been with us for decades; bad writing has been with us a LOT longer -- speaking as an editor (more aggressive here than defensive) repurposing the latter as a squabble abt the genres covered is the worst way to tackle a decline in quality; some actual concrete examples would be a lot more useful

adding: most of the worst writing i've had to deal professionally has been writing about the avant garde, which continues to be still far more badly served than rock (whatever it now is) or rap or pop

Afraid I don't have the resources, time or bookmarks required to search out the best examples, sorry.

Would any of these count?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockism_and_poptimism#References

phony poptimism has bitten the daaaaahst

http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a55035/harry-styles-is-the-next-frank-sinatra/

possibly, pomenitul, but you've got to make a bit more effort than that if you want to persuade me this is in any sense a worthwhile avenue

I suppose I'm confused as to the degree of 'extremism' these putative pieces are meant to exhibit. Are we looking for perfect, Platonic exemplars of each position (which would probably flirt would Poe's law anyhow), or does, say, Michael Hann's Quietus article already fit bill? Or Kelefa Sanneh's, for that matter?

oh man I glanced at that Saul Austerlitz article from 2014.

my rule of thumb is that no high-profile article yet written about the face-off between the two schools can have been much good, as we're still stuck at the same place

what i'm asking for is examples from each of the two schools, preferably ones which are well written -- ideally with some analysis of why their strengths are actually undermined, either by their rockism or their poptimism

I'll bite.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/7423962/taylor-swift-feminism-impact

ok, in defense of using this as an example, part of the point is the sheer glut of this stuff and the attendant lack of quality. This is content. But the bizarre connections it makes between pop music and denuded social justice concepts, completely decontextualised, is a defining feature of a lot of this stuff that gets tossed in front of my eyeballs. I'm precisely not saying this is poptimism, or even really journalism, but there's a lot of it and it's everywhere (theguardian.com sidebar I feel is always pushing this kind of pop criticism) and I definitely think that some of its assumptions are the corrupted legacy of poptimism. By the way, I've been working in a school with autistic children and I've heard shake it off by taylor swift at least once a day, every day, since september, and part of my antipathy towards this kind of stuff comes from that.

How about this one? I've brought it up repeatedly, but no one ever deigns to touch it:

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/what-if-you-dont-like-beyonces-album/

wait, that is not in response to mark s, my line itt is pretty unrelated to what you are saying in your last post.

it is, i'm not arguing with everyone in the thread (yet)

puzzled why you think that is well written, pomenitul -- it seems a very feeble bit of badge-polishing to me

It's not, I hadn't realized good writing is a sine qua non criterion in this little game.

It’s exhausting to be in a constant state of awe. It’s not as fun as watching the train wreck that is Miley Cyrus. Beyoncé’s sexuality is polished and sophisticated, with none of the edgy vulgarity offered by Rihanna. There’s such a thing as being too well put together, and Beyoncé briefly crossed over into that space for me.

1. I would argue that the de-hegemonization of the album as musical form is as much due to technological factors as it is to creative backlash.

2. If we define "poptimism" as an opposition to the "authenticity" narrative, does this make THEESatisfaction, who openly flaunt their authenticity, rockist?

3. Poptimism is not populism.

4. The difference between "rockism" and "poptimism" is not a matter of critical approach, which is nearly always too sophisticated to fall into either camp, but refers primarily to the tribal affinities of music listeners.

If you don’t like the new Beyoncé album, reevaluate what you want out of music

This shit is what drives me crazy. The idea, basically, that there is no music but Big Pop. If pop music criticism could exalt the virtues of well-done pop while allowing for the idea that other, very different types of music do exist and are also very good on their own terms, that might be something I'd be interested in reading. Say, if someone analyzed a Beyoncé record alongside an Ambrose Akinmusire record as two contemporaneous facets of 21st century African-American music. But who's doing that besides, say, Greg Tate?

that statement, while it is prima facie idiotic, isn't actually exclusionary in the sense that you read it - it doesn't say that one can _only_ like beyonce, but that one _has_ to like beyonce. it's ridiculous hyperbole, which is well established as part of the critical tradition.

4. The difference between "rockism" and "poptimism" is not a matter of critical approach, which is nearly always too sophisticated to fall into either camp, but refers primarily to the tribal affinities of music listeners.

This is not how I've heard almost anyone use these terms, nor how they are primarily definedhere or even in the Sanneh. In all of these cases, people are mostly talking about critics, not about Wimmels's uncle.

I think the name poptimism is itself very clever, and speaks to some sort of magpie aspect of poptimisms outlook, finding something recuperable out of the ruinous pop landscape of talent-show rejects, reality-stars vanity projects and novelty songs.

Isn't "you MUST like this music" just a hallmark of bad music writing rather than of any particular ideological stance?

Why not both?

it's pretty clearly just "bad writing is bad"

If you don’t like the new Beyoncé album, reevaluate what you want out of music, because she’s giving us the exact type of commitment we so often demand of our artists.

It's the final clause that makes it rockist

This is not how I've heard almost anyone use these terms, nor how they are primarily definedhere or even in the Sanneh. In all of these cases, people are mostly talking about critics, not about Wimmels's uncle.

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r)

honestly i mean no offence by this but the only people i've ever heard talk about rock critics are other rock critics.

Isn't the entire article the confession of someone who feels forced to reevaluate what they want out of music so as not to appear out of touch with the Zeitgeist? Sounds ideological to me.

I mean maybe my take on this is not right, I feel like "rockism" vs "poptimism" is not so much about whether guitars are involved, it's about whether you think "for a pop song to merit serious criticism we have to see it as a work of art produced by a genius who stands above their peers" vs "one way to think about pop songs is as massively multi-authored industrial products which we can admire and write criticism about just as we would a really fucking amazing toaster"

Valuing or demanding authenticity, commitment, 'real talent', making statements, great works of art - none of these things began with rock music or rock criticism. At one time, they were often used against rock. If "rockism" means anything useful at all (which I have doubts about), it has to mean something more than this.

And yes, that piece is also rockist in the broadest sense of the term.

Sund4r OTM

honestly i mean no offence by this but the only people i've ever heard talk about rock critics are other rock critics.

I'm not offended at all, especially given that I'm not a rock critic, but these are also the only people I've heard talk about rockism and poptimism.

I think a trite confused term is fine for a quick summary dismissal of a trite confused attitude

Ha, I guess my last post is self-contradictory.

the more might be this, sund4r: not those ideals so much as the the importing of all of those ideals into discussions of a pop form -- rock! -- which was most interesting because at first it seemed to it challenge or complicate or refuse them, for example

(it originally had the same relationship sexism had to sex, it wasn't anti-rock at all: just anti some ways of talking about it)

If you don’t like the new Beyoncé album, reevaluate what you want out of music, because she’s giving us the exact type of commitment we so often demand of our artists.

It's the final clause that makes it rockist

It's the word "we" in the final clause that makes it rockist! :)

"rockism", as a derogatory term, seems to me an indictment of whatever the interlocutor feels are the toxic qualities of rock. which vary from person to person. so for instance i'm unimpressed with the singer-songwriter cult and rock's deification of the white male, but others may find different qualities, such as its embrace of "authenticity", to criticize.

it seems that a term which has never attained a generally-agreed-upon definition would be useless, but here we are.

we will never agree on anything as we agreed on elvis. so i won't bother saying goodbye to his corpse. i will say goodbye to you

It's the word "we" in the final clause that makes it rockist! :)

― Tim

"is that the royal we or the schizophrenic we", my dad always used to say.

elvis is dead?

Every time this topic comes up it feels like a dialogue of the deaf. About music, no less.

well at least it's not about architecture

we will never agree on anything again than when we agreed that Elvis is dead.

I think mark s is asking for something which might not exist: "well-written" pieces undermined by their rockism or poptimism.

Does anyone really mind a think piece steeped in rockist (or poptimist) that is thoughtful, nuanced, insightful (i.e. well-written) as regards its subject matter? I certainly don't. Rockism is often quite a useful frame for thinking about music if the writer/thinker writes well.

The issue for me back in the day was always that ideological slanting encouraged or at least permitted bad writing and gave it a platform so long as it was consistent with certain shared assumptions between the platform and its audience. I could still pull up any number of truly awful Pitchfork reviews of pop and dance albums from 1999 to 2001 if it was necessary - but they're not "well-written", they're intellectual lazy.

The main difference now perhaps is that clickbait culture encourages writers to be intellectually lazy about everything. So, yes, there's a lot of bad writing that looks like "poptimism", but I think the badness of the writing is symptomatic of a much bigger than problem than "so who ultimately won the rockism wars?"

The reason there is no good piece on this is because no human being who doesn't have an ILX account gives a shit about any of this, which is why every single piece has to begin with a Nolan Ryan fucking windup "IN 2004 ROCK CRITIC KELEFAH SANNEH SAID BEEP BOOP MEEP MOOP"

Never forget the time notoriously head-up-the-internet's-ass content sluice the Fader commissioned the worst infographic in the history of time for their take on poptimism

http://thefader-res.cloudinary.com/images/w_2400,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best/poptimism-other-means_xobkl6/poptimism-kelefa-sanneh-interview.jpg

A 'shame' this subreddit no longer exists:

https://www.reddit.com/r/realmusicmasterrace/

I think at least we can all agree that "Wimmels's uncle" should be adopted as a new synonym for "man on the street" "John Q Public" etc.

Heh, I'm reminded of this Morton Feldman anecdote:

My teacher Stefan Wolpe was a Marxist and he felt my music was too esoteric at the time. And he had his studio on a proletarian street, on Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. . . . He was on the second floor and we were looking out the window, and he said, "What about the man on the street?" At that moment . . . Jackson Pollock was crossing the street.

lol

"The main difference now perhaps is that clickbait culture encourages writers to be intellectually lazy about everything."

^^^^^

Like the problem is that the imperative to create capital-C Content has forced critical writing (whether good or bad) to rub up against dipshitty SEO-baiting pieces that usually are barely worthy of Bustle, and that are drenched in celebrity-press breathlessness and cynical attempts to mimic whatever slang is big on the internet at that moment. This could be another effect of print's diminishment; lots of magazines ran both, but they were delinated by section (and even at times design). Now the flattening of Content and the way people source and surface news means that everything looks the same, so of course lowest-common-denominator stuff wins out, because it's easier to produce and has a higher ROI.

Also it really sucks that every music citation in that Wiki post upthread is from a piece written by a man, although I guess it also speaks to the overarching binary that results in this discussion inevitably tripping into a mud pit of at best unexamined, at worst bad-faith arguments nearly every time.

And finally I'm going to push back on Whiney upthread and say that poptimist critics shouldn't "ride for" the Chainsmokers et al, because that's just a perpetuation of the celeb-press ideal. But they should examine their music and take it seriously, and not shove off any surprising reactions they might have to their songs.

(Full disclosure: Whiney assigned me that two-star Chainsmokers review I wrote a few weeks back.)

I felt like this comment on the NYT John Mayer interview from a few weeks ago was a great indictment of the root causes of rockism:

"If he were a woman, someone would have told him already if he wants to stay popular, just shut up, sing and look pretty. That interviewers keep going to John Mayer for deep thoughts is perfect example of white male privilege. We don't expect deep thoughts from Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Usher, Selena Gomez. We expect to entertained. Interviewers need to stop trying to make John Mayer seem like a philosopher. Describe what he's wearing, what he ate for dinner, how he gets his hair to look so great. Would make for a better read."

Like think about how many shitty male artists get the "secret genius" pass, and how women who have similar worldviews are treated like ditzes. Etc.

But as long as men are framing the discussion it's going to be about how Beyoncé is actually an oppressor. Nice work if you can get it.

it'd require a lot of things:

- tackle this from the top down, not the bottom up. you are not going to improve music writing by endlessly haranguing freelancers who can't go to their landlord and say "sorry, I only have $150 in my bank account right now, but at least I'm not ruining poptimism."

get rid of executive cynicism, if that's even possible. get rid of editor cynicism, which is. the "deep thoughts" problem exists at the assigning level -- those Deep Thoughts Interviewers aren't "going to" major-label artists on their own volition, they were commissioned. (and in keeping with magazine writing byline distribution, those writers are usually male.) those Deep Thoughts Interviewers are then praise for being the deserving ones, writing about the deserving subjects.

meanwhile the Selena Gomez pieces are assigned to a bunch of 21-year-olds that the entire career advice industrial complex, if not their editors directly, are urging to believe in their own work, buy their own hype, don't be afraid to answer those calls for pitches about smart, incisive writing about pop music, et cetera. but of course nobody believes in their work, certainly expects nothing of it, crapshoot whether it's even edited, let alone edited for writing style or rhetorical clarity. getting out toward the more cynical end bad takes might even be encouraged, either because they bring in the clicks or because "it needed to be said, it doesn't have to be good" (I have actually heard this). then those writers are shat on endlessly, via twitter or via 2000-word Saul Austerlitz piece, about how bad they are and how much they are ruining, when they're reaching the low ceiling that was set for them.

tl;dr: if you're putting shit on the menu, don't be surprised when people start developing a taste for shit

look, if there's shit on the menu i'm still not ordering it, that would be crazy

I don't see you leaving the restaurant.

(not that I am arguing that having the contempt up front is the solution; it didn't make me a better writer to be told that there was nothing wrong with pieces that there was clearly a lot wrong with, but it sure as shit didn't make me a better writer to be told I don't have a voice, there's no reason anyone would read my work over anyone else's. and don't bother trying to change that.

but, stay with me here, what if there was... not contempt)

yeah, if the journalism industry wasn't largely populated by miserable sons-of-bitches whose self-loathing extends as far as everybody they work with things would be better. what's the enforcement mechanism? what makes this a policy rather than "wouldn't it be nice if people were nice?"

never said this was enforceable, or doable really

i don't like half the music writing i even agree w/sometimes because the nastiness and contempt extends into the pieces themselves...

[halo]on RYM I only review my 5-star albums[/halo]

i mean maybe if journalism as a career wasn't precariat in perpetuum journalists wouldn't be constantly miserable?

lol @ john mayer and him being a philosopher

gis'd john mayer fans

http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/jm1__oPt.jpg

https://peopledotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/john-mayer-300-4.jpg

yep makes sense

HIS BODY IS A WONDERMAN

welcome to the real world

she said to me

this thread discussion has actually been good!!

"actually, it's good" - d-40, poptimist

I wonder if the problem for poptimism is that it took the existence of the marketplace too much for granted. Contextually this made sense, particularly as a way of dismantling the self-valorising semantics of rock criticism. But Poptimism can seem a realist perspective that sortof closes the loop. In becoming so entirely pragmatic about markets, it makes it impossible to think about, as an example, folk traditions and cultural production that emerges from a more communitarian or even utilitarian context.

― plax (ico), Friday, May 12, 2017 4:38 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This post is 10000000x right. We can talk about good poptimism and bad poptimism all day, but i feel like ive been waiting a decade plus for the conversation to have advanced enough where we can talk about (where i can properly articulate) a problem w/ the poptimist ... not consensus, but what it leaves out. historically on here i think a lot of the convo was so focused on bringing ppl up to speed on the notions of authenticity & etc that you just found common cause w/ most ilx poptimists (save maybe lex on occasion) bc the alternative was stone ages rockism & bc the poptimists here tended to be the most thoughtful

but i think the current wave of socio-political concerns actually does underline a shortcoming poptimism has had for years—and I mean both good & bad poptimists, like, common to 21 year olds and even tim f's approach (which tends to be close in many ways to my own way of thinking). which is to look at music not just as a product for you, the consumer, which has come to u naturally through those objective capitalist forces—to see The Market as a force that happens to often coincide w/ innovation.

basically i think a major shortcoming of poptimism is readily apparent when we look at a highly developed poptimist industry, and its creative output: why is K Pop so terrible? the answer is that popular music, by and large, is still driven by a post-colonial & post slave dynamic that puts black america at the cutting edge of innovation in pop music, and that poptimism inadvertently elides the ways in which the music industry co-opts those creative forces and turns them into polished accomplishments

an auteur like Prince for example (i could use recent rappers but then the thread would devolve into controversy from ppl who haven't paid attention to rap since Bush I) was ripped off left & right (likewise there was a counter-pressure from the Jam & Lewis-produced electro R&B of the era which was also ripped off) so people in the music industry made lots of money. Pointing to the fact that Prince is seen an "auteur" isn't to suggest we should buy into some uncritical cheerleading narrative (which tbh is the status quo right now lol but i dont mind) but also points to his centrality to the musical conversation and the way that it drives the entire *economy* of pop. And there are other examples who never achieve his level of fame, who toil in the industry and are ripped off but through the objective nihilism playground (or w/e) of that industry are under- or never recognized for their contributions. Much of my experience has been that the further i go into writing about music, the more i'm trying to identify those tributaries where innovation and trends really take place, and how they flow, and what inspires them; and explaining the context for it, because no one from The Industry managed to swoop in and A&R than innovation so that you didn't *need* context to "get it."

This isn't so much a critique of poptimism as a "but also...."

as katherine and maura have already discussed this debate is way more about the changing nature of journalism and its inability to monetise the internet than the particular music that critics like

there's def a big irony in that we live in a mega-auteurist age now - vast swathes of pop, both popular and not, are still dismissed as frivolous or meaningless or dumb. but then a lot of the big pop megastars have always forced critics to Take Them Seriously just by dint of sticking around, i guess.

(save maybe lex on occasion)

!

i feel like 90% of the debate about poptimism over the years has been based on misunderstanding what it is and how deep it's meant to be. precisely zero "poptimist" critics have ever focused solely on pop as genre or pop as success

haha not a diss i just never came around on paris hilton

still time tbh

there's def a big irony in that we live in a mega-auteurist age now - vast swathes of pop, both popular and not, are still dismissed as frivolous or meaningless or dumb. but then a lot of the big pop megastars have always forced critics to Take Them Seriously just by dint of sticking around, i guess.

― lex pretend, Friday, May 12, 2017 1:51 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for what its worth the POV im articulating above is *also* critical of this—i'm suggesting lots of 'innovators' are marginalized by the Fame Industry for various reasons

Taking the existence and the exigencies of the marketplace for granted strikes rather too close to home -- critics who deal with pop as libs or, in the eyes of rockists, cynics.

well, sure, there is a broad, almost tautological assumption that music only becomes worthy of consideration when touched by a celebrity, so the exact same song is treated as unremarkable pop sluice when recorded by Bonnie McKee or Wynter Gordon and then a masterpiece when recorded by Katy Perry or Beyonce. sometimes you'll get a blithe statement of "it's how they inhabited it, it's their conveniently unrefutable presence," but it always comes off as justification after the fact

but this is at least 102-level stuff. the discussion hasn't even gotten past the pre-101 tautology of "pop music is bad." I haven't heard the Harry Styles record beyond the two singles, which are okay, but nevertheless: why *can't* it be good? "Because it's a boy band member trying on classic-rock clothes." OK, but what if it's still good? "Because the market rewards Harry Styles writing to the exclusion of Hardworking Busker Misty." OK, but that still does not prevent the Harry Styles record from being good. Nothing answers this question but the tautology: "because it's pop music, of course it's bad."

innovator is perhaps too narrow a term for what i mean but you get it

i think a major shortcoming of poptimism is readily apparent when we look at a highly developed poptimist industry, and its creative output: why is K Pop so terrible? the answer is that popular music, by and large, is still driven by a post-colonial & post slave dynamic that puts black america at the cutting edge of innovation in pop music, and that poptimism inadvertently elides the ways in which the music industry co-opts those creative forces and turns them into polished accomplishments

deej, you've got a conference pitch for next year. Start polishing.

"well, sure, there is a broad, almost tautological assumption that music only becomes worthy of consideration when touched by a celebrity, so the exact same song is treated as unremarkable pop sluice when recorded by Bonnie McKee or Wynter Gordon and then a masterpiece when recorded by Katy Perry or Beyonce. sometimes you'll get a blithe statement of "it's how they inhabited it, it's their conveniently unrefutable presence," but it always comes off as justification after the fact"

isn't this part of the theater of pop music though? Stars are canvases for our anxieties & neuroses and uhhh the good stuff too

have to disagree with the premise re: K-Pop

i am suspicious of the current vogue for Celebrity but dont want to throw the baby out w/ the bathwater, is what i mean

xp

I feel the line between using the star as canvas to project on to (with all the...magic??? that entails) and assessing them for what they actually are is not one writers currently show much self-awareness of

though maybe seeing 30yo buzzfeed staffers desperately mimicking tumblr teenspeak every day on twitter has got to me a bit

This has been a tendency in criticism about Hollywood film too.

Also, whenever the star-as-canvas line comes up someone in the audience inevitably goes, "Yeah, well, she means nothing to me" and it's the star-sucking population that's deluded. In 2017 this person is a man in skinny jeans who likes egg foam on everything.

i made a thread about that jpop documentary that talks about how toxic it is (k-pop is relevant to this i think) and no one budged

I feel the line between using the star as canvas to project on to (with all the...magic??? that entails) and assessing them for what they actually are is not one writers currently show much self-awareness of

― lex pretend, Friday, May 12, 2017 2:00 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes agree

there's a distinction between "using the star as canvas to project onto" = "writing about one's subjective experiences" (excellent, when done well; banal, when not) and "using the star as canvas to project onto" = "absorbing the stew of memevertising and PR and tabloid journalism and Wikipedia credits as truth" (terrible, everpresent, nearly impossible to dislodge)

Yeah. And sometimes a blank canvas remains a blank canvas with gelled hair drawn (Posner, Chainsmokers, Twenty-One Pilots) yet they don't inspire 1200-word essays.

The son of a friend of mine who starts college in August told me last xmas that his favorite band was Twenty-One Pilots. I almost encouraged him to write a 600-word defense on his Tumblr lol.

sure but enjoying pop music requires a willingness to let it be 'fake' is my point—that ppl want to buy into beyonce over bonnie mckee is not as much an accident of history ( i dont know who mckee is so maybe i'm wrong w/ this example) as it is a temperature reading of america & what it looks for in its biggest pop stars... i dont think its *all* PR (although the stretch from PR to the "reality" of the pop song is a spectrum not absolutely separate i would imagine)

bonnie mckee is the writer of much of teenage dream

as far as what people "want to" buy into there's no hope unraveling that. like, people complain about the radio being all Ed Sheeran or Shawn Mendes or whatever but people also fucking love Ed Sheeran and Shawn Mendes, and actively reject alternatives (radio/playlisting analytic data, if you have access to it, bears this out). how much of this is PR, how much is fan adoption, how much is astroturfing turned fan adoption when everyone got used to it? no one is ever going to figure that out. but again, none of this necessarily has any correlation to the quality of the music. (nor is it just pop, this process in indie is well-ripped-into albeit by other people)

popularity is... like, why the hell has this gotten 136,000 views in the past month?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goRegJa8Nww

https://www.reddit.com/r/listentothis/comments/63knqa/osamu_kitajima_dragon_king_japanese_folkjazz/

xp

136k compared to what?

almost the entire world has access to youtube

136k is a small number (ie not popular)

compared to the 8,000 views in the same period of time of the other stuff he's posted. that subreddit is the same way - i sort by most recent and i get 1, 1, 1, 0, 98, 8, 0, 0... like, where the fuck does the "98" come from?

136K in a month is pretty popular

like, not Taylor Swift popular, but certainly jazz fusion popular

and then on the front page there's that parekh and singh video posted yesterday which has over 3,700, apparently because the video is a homage to wes anderson and people really like wes anderson? or something? god knows the music is wholly unremarkable.

Bonnie McKee is a great example. Why is she much less successful than Katy Perry when she writes so many of her songs and has a better singing voice? As far as I understand it's because (1) Katy Perry had a big novelty hit which got her in the public eye and had her pick of collaborators after that and (2) Bonnie McKee has one of those faces which, while attractive, just doesn't look particularly striking and therefore doesn't get the prerequisite clicks. None of that seems fair, but it sort of makes sense in its own way. What I don't understand is why nobody round here seems to get behind BM.

That dragon king shit is great!

usually I don't fuck w Japanese folk jazz fusion jawns that have less than a milli but I'll make an exception

or it's because Katy Perry's topline writers have a better grasp on tight melodies and the songwriting's less diffuse? when i listen to bonnie mckee i hear well-crafted pop songs that nevertheless feel a little more "cluttered," especially when held up against something like Teenage Dream. image crafting has something to do with the disparity in popularity, sure, but it's annoying to see people make these assumptions about pop listeners that imply they literally don't listen to the music.

if most clicks/views are coming from that subreddit i wouldn't say he is popular, but more like he, because of that dude posting the music to yt/reddit, has a niche following

popularity to me suggests mass appeal, and if you're referring to local fame as mass appeal, sure, he has it, but in terms of comparing popular mainstream music and non-mainstream, he seems to be pretty clearly on the niche side

there are yt vloggers with more views than this guy who appear to be nobodys

it is good shit, totally, but if i'm going to try to explain why that's up to 136k in a month and, say, sister irene o'connor's "fire", which i remember back from when wfmu featured it on their blog and which got upvoted to 750 when it was posted to /r/listentothis last week, is still only at 30,000 since january of 2014... i can't do it. it's completely and totally arbitrary. as far as i can tell the reddit zerg rush pushed something on youtube's back end where it started randomly recommending that record to people, and that's had a snowball effect, and sister irene o'connor never hit that trigger? god, the whole internet is a fucking invisible rube goldberg machine.

and yes i'm aware that audio-only posts of albums from 1979 don't compare in the number of clicks to man-babies cursing at video games.

I find cluttered often = rough edges, which is the appeal of a lot of music, surely? But yes, it's obvious on every level that she has much less monetary investment behind the writing / production (and marketing, etc.), but that's surely a symptom rather than a cause.

i just think of it in terms of my own experience

one year one of my bands made it into billboard's top 200 albums and top 100 requested songs in canada

nobody knew our first or last names or recognized us. metrics for our album/songs i'm going to assume were extremely low (no idea how we made it in, but apparently people were listening)

and this is a conventional measure (billboard) and it was over a decade ago

it's not something i studied or ever looked into but either something was rigged (i'm willing to go with this theory), the bar to make it into these billboard lists were extremely low or there was just a lot of bad music that year

do people know about d.a.'s "ready 'n' steady"? this was a record that appeared for three weeks in 1979 on billboard's "bubbling under" singles. problem was that while the song was recorded, it was never actually released anywhere. drove the whitburn junkies crazy for decades trying to find it! (it's a pretty good song!) in fairness to billboard, it is the only record to appear on their charts that was never actually released, which is a pretty good record all things considered, but man, the story of "ready 'n' steady" is so much of the story of popular music.

To Austinb's point, Father John Misty put out some "pop songs" on SoundCloud, just as an art prank (barff) to show how "easy" it was, and sure he's talented enough that he did a bunch of the au courant production tricks and got the surface level stuff pretty on I couldn't remember any of them the minute I flipped to the next thing

@Camaraderie: i think rough edges are part of the appeal for lots of music, but when you're trying to create a "pop hit" i feel like part of the point is to buff out those edges. it sounds "expensive" (to crib from Justin Bieber, pop critic), but it also just sounds more "perfect," which is where, i think, the concept of a "perfect pop song" comes from. the best pop, to me (subjectively speaking, as a listener) embraces its commodity status both structurally and in production.

or it's because Katy Perry's topline writers have a better grasp on tight melodies and the songwriting's less diffuse?

bonnie mckee IS katy perry's topline writer. dr. luke and benny blanco are producers.

i didn't know that, my bad @katherine. i shouldn't have collapsed all of her co-writers and producers in what i was saying.

an auteur like Prince for example (i could use recent rappers but then the thread would devolve into controversy from ppl who haven't paid attention to rap since Bush I) was ripped off left & right (likewise there was a counter-pressure from the Jam & Lewis-produced electro R&B of the era which was also ripped off) so people in the music industry made lots of money. Pointing to the fact that Prince is seen an "auteur" isn't to suggest we should buy into some uncritical cheerleading narrative (which tbh is the status quo right now lol but i dont mind) but also points to his centrality to the musical conversation and the way that it drives the entire *economy* of pop. And there are other examples who never achieve his level of fame, who toil in the industry and are ripped off but through the objective nihilism playground (or w/e) of that industry are under- or never recognized for their contributions. Much of my experience has been that the further i go into writing about music, the more i'm trying to identify those tributaries where innovation and trends really take place, and how they flow, and what inspires them; and explaining the context for it, because no one from The Industry managed to swoop in and A&R than innovation so that you didn't *need* context to "get it."

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, 12 May 2017 18:46 (three hours ago) Permalink

I think dance music criticism (or at least the kind that I tend to like) has frequently tried to be nuanced in its treatment of the "flow" of innovation between apparent leaders and followers - the primary difference being that how this happens within given sub-genre X tends to escape late capitalism's Eye of Sauron unless and until someone troubles the charts with it.

By the same token those scenes aren't as conducive to the deep investigative profiling work you like to do vis a vis rap.

as far as "buffing out those edges" I think this too is confirmation bias -- a lot of hits are messy, full of seams, rush jobs, etc. if you listen to them as songs. "expensive" and "perfect" are pretty indicative I think because they don't actually mean anything

i didn't know "ready 'n' steady" actually got recorded! just assumed it didn't exist at all. lemme search

that should have said "A&R that innovation so that you didn't need context to get it" but i'm assuming you guys read that correctly

I think dance music criticism (or at least the kind that I tend to like) has frequently tried to be nuanced in its treatment of the "flow" of innovation between apparent leaders and followers - the primary difference being that how this happens within given sub-genre X tends to escape late capitalism's Eye of Sauron unless and until someone troubles the charts with it.

By the same token those scenes aren't as conducive to the deep investigative profiling work you like to do vis a vis rap.

― Tim F, Friday, May 12, 2017 5:35 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which dance music do you mean here? the heyday of pop dance in the 80s/early 90s is a rich, rich text for examples of the poptimist stars banking off others innovations. (I of course don't think ilx poptimists are ignorant of Madonna's "inspirations"/co-options, nor do I think that they're wrong when they point out that she did something w/ those innovations that many of the innovators would not have thought to do. However, a poptimism that focuses on the story of madonna at the expense of jellybean benitez because he wasn't 'scalable' misunderstands the history of music. Madonna is a funny example, I guess, because appropriation is so baked into her story at this point, but i guess what i'm saying is that the logic of capitalism taking innovations and making them as big as possible isn't a neutral good

i feel like that last post im just saying stuff everyone already knows. i certainly don't think tim doesn't know these dynamics

but i have also watched people malign 'rap for rap's sake' in poptimist context that ignores that sometimes genre cornerstone artists have actually shaped the sound of things; there are multiple forms of genre-ism & its not all an authenticity chase, black american music has a weird path going from underground phenomenon to accent in a katy perry video and the many stages in between.

like there was def a phase where the critical apparatus of [major publication here] would fuck with rap that existed to counteract the dominant idea of 'ignorant' rap music, or would fuck with the insanely popular pop rap, but stuff that didn't fit into those two boxes was by & large ignored as for "purists" unless it hit the hipster fetishization jackpot

this works with songwriters too -- to pick one example, a lot of britney's topline writers, at least before the 2010s, were black women, the britney-before-britney was jessica folcker, etc

(and of course purists do exist, although they've largely become a phantom boogieman/strawman to help drive lil yachty's PR dreams)

this works with songwriters too -- to pick one example, a lot of britney's topline writers, at least before the 2010s, were black women, the britney-before-britney was jessica folcker, etc

― sick, fucking funny, and well tasty (katherine), Friday, May 12, 2017 6:52 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes—the entire industry is like this btw

i mean sometimes it makes sense, like I definitely think the Industry can often make smart decisions by looking at the bottom line, I'm not sure Skillz ever would have had a huge rap career even with tons of resources behind him, and it was very smart of Jive to not let Tribe put out "Georgie Porgie" lol

Lol @ "boogieman"

I mean there are plenty of white dude writers (certainly the majority of producers) so it isn't the *entire* industry

I don't really consider most writing about (any era of) Madonna to be dance music criticism precisely.

"pooh bear snapped" after the release of justin bieber's 'what do you mean' is my best tweet

I don't really consider most writing about (any era of) Madonna to be dance music criticism precisely.

― Tim F, Friday, May 12, 2017 7:08 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yah i dont disagree i think i went off on that tangent just cuz i was curious what you meant specifically. obv i don't think matos writing about kompakt for minneapolis city paper applies lol

Me trying to read this thread like:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRvMXOrCmaBd-VewLmVqH-2yPcUyqeBLDYIaPnogrwK4un5eTtoTg

The forum for that kind kind of trash contribution is twitter

Me trying to read Twitter like:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRvMXOrCmaBd-VewLmVqH-2yPcUyqeBLDYIaPnogrwK4un5eTtoTg

me trying to watch family guy like

lol

that osamu kitajima is fuckin great, tyvm rushomancy

My city often feels like Rockism HQ. http://www.startribune.com/7-reasons-to-love-chance-the-rapper-ahead-of-his-sold-out-xcel-center-concert/422014033/

he's one of the worst music writers in the world

How integral his personal story is to his music.

*barfs*

his everyman persona

Guys, guys. . . guys, do you, like. . . are you, like, into bands or. . . ?????. . . do you like, like, listening to records. . . or. . . ???????

who are you

I love all you music critic guys

Just a guy that's into bands and likes listening to records.

And posting words

Enh.

http://wiwibloggs.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Salvador-Sobral-wiwi-jury-festival-da-cancao-.jpg

and lock thread

lol

https://pitchfork.com/features/article/how-auto-tune-revolutionized-the-sound-of-popular-music/
^^this is a decent (if overlong) piece but can't help but wonder why meta-rockism can't stay out of defending new sounds as reinvented versions of old genres, like here:

One legitimate complaint about Auto-Tune could be that it has stripped the blues element out of popular music—all those slightly off-pitch but expressive elements in singing—in favor of a remorseless flawlessness (which is why so much pop and rock today feels closer to the musical theater tradition than to rock’n’roll). But Future goes the opposite direction. He’s reinvented blues for the 21 century, restoring it not just as a texture (raspy, rough-toned) or as a style of delivery (somewhere between speech and singing) but as a mode of feeling, an existential stance towards the world.

... or maybe it's just not blues and hey that's OK too

Wielding Auto-Tune like this century’s equivalent of the electric guitar

rly...

Auto-Tune and other vocal treatments serve for Thug a role similar to the wah-wah effects that Miles Davis applied to his trumpet during his wild ’70s phase of fevered fusion.

I find these comparisons hilarious and unnecessary

Can’t believe those old Melody Maker rockism articles from the 80s haven’t been posted or scanned or transcribed online. It’s only a matter of time before all that old paper deteriorates and then all that great influential writing will be gone forever.

Reynolds is far from the first person I’ve seen describe Future as a “blues singer”

“‘The Percocet and Stripper Joint’ is just a 21st century update of ‘Rollin’ Stone.’ My column...”

And this is not the first time I've seen vocal production compared to Miles Davis, and it's pretty apt. Why on earth would comparisons need to be 'necessary'?

To be clear, I’m not mocking the notion—he’s got a natural growl in his timbre that isn’t unlike a less theatrical version of Howlin Wolf, or something.

xp if you think it's a good comparison fine, I thought it was an attempt at legitimizing Thugger/AutoTune which is unnecessary

Both those quoted passages are interesting to me, FWIW

(Also it’s not as if Miles’ wah-wah trumpet is some universally beloved sound... he could have compared it to a gtr pedal if he were trying to rockist-ly “legitimize” it?)

Both passages otm

pleasantly surprised to see this piece acknowledge autotune used in African/Middle Eastern music

I think turrican has done a good job keeping rockism alive new

Scratch new

I read /r/guitarpedals pretty frequently and there's somewhat of a meme around there (and its sister /r/guitarpedalsjerk) of just how belittled women still are in the guitar / gear community. This video was posted recently and it's currently making the rounds. Not sure how this mentality factors into the rockism debate, but I think it's a pretty gross display.

"rock fundamentally has something to do with abrasion, attitude, and rebellion: It is the categorical opposite of doing your homework"

https://www.theringer.com/music/2018/10/19/17999516/greta-van-fleet-anthem-peaceful-army-band-review-rock-n-roll

maybe critics should talk to people outside their circles more

Not a bad article, tho. Funny bit:

Why does a band like Greta Van Fleet exist in 2018? (A friend recently joked, “Because it’s too expensive to clear the rights to Led Zeppelin songs.”)

From another article about these guys (in Kerrang!):

“Well, rock’n’roll post-1975 was pretty horrible a lot of the time,” says Sam. “I think people had stopped perceiving what rock’n’roll is.”[...]

“There’s a genuine element, there’s a truth to what we’re doing,” says Josh. “We’re not manufacturing this, because you can’t manufacture this. I think people appreciate that because now there’s so much manufactured music. You can’t manufacture emotion.”

maybe critics should talk to people outside their circles more

What, and run the risk that all the year-end critics' polls might not be the same 20 albums in slightly varied order?

It’s also interesting to me that The Ringer writer turns things on their head and criticizes these guys by claiming they’re not “rock” enough — because it’s not rock ‘n roll to slavishly play your daddy’s music, etc. I guess this shows some “flexibility” in the rock-centric attitude; or at least that it can be wielded in different ways.

(Or maybe just that she’s using a rhetorical technique of “hitting these guys where it hurts”... like they’ll take it as even more of a sick burn to be told they don’t truly have a “real” R&R attitude.)

Xxp

In the last few years ilx’s has also been a slight variation of that, though last year was slightly more varied

Maybe this is the year we finally break ilx in true rock n roll style

It’s also interesting to me that The Ringer writer turns things on their head and criticizes these guys by claiming they’re not “rock” enough — because it’s not rock ‘n roll to slavishly play your daddy’s music, etc. I guess this shows some “flexibility” in the rock-centric attitude; or at least that it can be wielded in different ways.

It makes me want to know what bands she does consider convincingly "rock," especially since the only new band she speaks of favorably in the piece is fucking Haim. It's a pretty ballsy move to accuse a band of being a bad example of a genre you yourself don't even actually like, but she's far from the only one to try it.

Yeah, and her critique falters when you think for even a bit about how many respected rock bands over the decade were all about “doing their homework.”

*decades

She doesn't necessarily respect any of those bands tbf but yeah, even Zep were p studious about blues and folk history.

She liked Perfect Pussy and St Vincent in 2014, at the least, apparently: https://pitchfork.com/staff/lindsay-zoladz/

What, and run the risk that all the year-end critics' polls might not be the same 20 albums in slightly varied order?

If there were still critics' polls...

are there people itt who think greta van fleet are something other than a fucking monstrosity or are y'all just being contrarian for the sake of it?

I just happened to hear about them for the first time earlier this week, on a podcast. The dis article makes me curious to check ‘em out and see if I agree that I’d rather hum Led Zep to myself.

i'd rather hum kingdom come to myself

the whole piece is predicated on “why would people like them” and a good way to find out is to ask

I hear them on the radio all the time. I think all three of our rock stations agree on them. They're OK; I wouldn't buy an album but I don't turn them off. I feel like Plant had more body to his voice than GvF dude does. I do find them interesting as a phenomenon. They weirdly remind me more of early 90s AOR radio more than they remind me of Zep themselves. xp

My mother-in-law says they've been her new favourite band since she saw them this summer btw. Maura OTM that she could probably answer Zolandz's question better than she does.

are there people itt who think greta van fleet are something other than a fucking monstrosity or are y'all just being contrarian for the sake of it?

They're bad, but they're not The Worst Band In The History Of Music. I would rather listen to them than, say, Young Jesus, a band whose new album is favorably reviewed on Pitchfork today and whose vocalist makes me want to tear my ears off.

Maura OTM that she could probably answer Zolandz's question better than she does.

I mean, that's assuming that the writer was actually looking for an answer when the premise was probably just a hook for writing a critical piece about the band.

I sometimes think that once poptimism essentially won, it swallowed rock as a category and reconstituted it as a small sub-niche of pop, so that for example on American Idol and similar shows you’d start to see these polished “rocker” singers that felt sort of like leads in a broadway rock musical. Even though Greta Van Fleet sounds like early 70s riff rock, there’s something about them that *feels* more like a pop group or boy band putting on a musical costume.

without listening to it i guarantee the recording/mastering is identical to the white stripes or the black keys which means i have no interest in hearing it.

p.s. i've heard more dope rock albums this year than any of the last 5 or 6.

There was plenty of that in the 70s too tbf. Even before reading the Zolandz piece, though, I did sort of think of GvF as something closer to a new version of the studious guys in the school jazz band. 2xp

(which tbh makes me want to like them more than I actually do)