YAY KELEFA!

ah well, the smart ones'll find us anyway - guess that rules out rockists, ho ho

Yeah, way to pre-empt the criticism that'll come your way, dude.

but dude, that's his point

xpost

very good article, but it's weird reading it in 2004.

I do think he glosses over the entirely plausible, even attractive reasons for the rockist worldview, those both socio-political (autonomy rules) and metaphysical (death to simulacra); he largely makes rockism seem like a rather empty bias, nostalgia, old fogeyism. I mean, it often *is* that but it's not *just* that.

otherwise a very good article, and i'm happy to see derogatis outed as an idiot in the NYT.

God bless him for it, too. ;-)

anyway, i thought that picking into the music as the counterpart of "rapper's delight" was totally OTMFM wr2 what kelefa was getting at. into the music is a perfect example of the sort of record that diehard rockists would hurl in the faces of anti-rockists/pro-popists/whatever -- as an example of an artist "in touch w/ his soul/muse," getting to the roots of what "rock is all about," the artist not caring for crass commercialism, or that favorite shibboleth "they're playing REAL INSTRUMENTS and van morrison is SINGING REAL SONGS in an AUTHENTIC VOICE" (another inspired mention would've been for 1979 was the height of giorgio moroder-esque synths in disco, as well as the beginning of synth-pop [kerefa could've dropped a mention of the man-machine or better still, gary numan's "cars" or the buggles' "video killed the radio star" to replace "rapper's delight"). lost in the shuffle, of course, is whether into the music is any GOOD to a particular listener.

A lot of people won't get past the "outrage" portion, whereas others (ILM'ers, for example) will appreciate the sentiments in the entire sentence. It works on both levels (which is true of the entire article, not just this one sentence).

eisbar is so a lawyer!

Yes, but most of the writers were criticizing those albums in rockist terms: the albums in question were often decried as being pretentious, phony, self-indulgent, overly mellow, fakely political, etc.

I'm having trouble putting this in words that satisfy me, but I think you can say it without sounding rockist. You could say that "Yes attempted to incoporate highfalutin ideas into their music but ended up sounded really pretentious and self-indulgent, whereas acts with kinda sorta similar aspirations like Henry Cow or Harmonia or Eno or Gong or Zappa actually achieved what Yes tried to without sounding pretentious and self-indulgent."

xposts

(more intelligently: focus on what it is about the music that makes it pretentious. ergo the rick wakeman crack -- was it really necessary, even for a band like yes that was trying to get highfalutin', to have an assclown showing off on his synths and thereby detracting from what they were trying to do?)

I think maybe the problem is that most rock critics need to state a strong opinion when they are writing, otherwise their writing can be boring, and a lot of critics, in stating those strong opinions, tend to disparage other artists or genres of music in propping up the things they like, or they commend other artists and genres of music in ripping the things they hate. I think almost every critic, no matter how good or esteemed they are, does that from time to time. But for the average person like myself who reads what critics have to say about music in order to learn more about music, they tend to come off as either rockist or anti-rockist. There seems to be very little middle ground. Which I guess is the "challenge" that Kelefa Sanneh refers to in his piece.

Very well put. This helps me understand it a little more. It's more about just focusing on the album and music in and of itself, its high points or its flaws, in drawing your conclusions, instead of just comparing it to other albums or bands. Right?

I totally understand and agree with this. But at the same time, don't you listen to albums sometimes and think that the band IS obviously ripping off stuff and not adding anything original to it? Can't you think that way without being a "rockist?" There are albums I hear all the time that sound just like other stuff I've heard, I mean blatant ripoffs, but that doesn't mean I hate all new music and think only the old stuff is great. Seems like this rockist thing is a minefield.

I don't mean to sound flippant here, but have you looked at the winners of Pazz & Jop lately?

And if you want to make fun of the NYT for being late to the game in the rockism debate (which Kelefa acknowledges has been brewing for decades), care to point out other mass circulation publications of national scope that have been quicker on the uptake?

is this shuffle hypothetical or what? because i don't recall that record being a lightning rod for severe rockist criticism or anything. not that many people know the record, really.

i don't want to get into a debate about this particular van morrison album (which is very good but no deathless classic). i just think maybe there could have been a more apposite/less jarring example.

a minor point, though. as i wrote above, i thought the article was very good. maybe a bit too conversational in tone for me, but that's sort of the common style in the NYT arts pages these days. that's to say, i get the feeling the author is very talented and could have written it persuasively in a number of styles.

for what it's worth, i think "rockism" is a catchall term that refers to a way of thinking about music-as-social-object. it doesn't seem like a very useful word if you're trying to describe a taste. and so i don't really think it can be said to have a "canon." it doesn't even have a very coherent set of preferred musical gestures. i think it mostly refers to extramusical ideas that have manifested themselves differently across time and many records.

and: i think maybe we can agree that "pretentious" and "self-indulgent" are definite candidates for USE OTHER WORDS, PLEASE.

??

what i wanted to say and perhaps botched is that i don't recall reading much criticism that used I.T.M. as a stick to beat non-rock/pop/disco/whatever with. i mostly recall reading about it in terms of van morrison's oeuvre, etc. and a debate about whether it was at the top of his ouevre/whether it was a comeback/etc. not the most exciting criticism in the world but neither was it rockism in any concentrated form.

of course maybe the support this album got back in 1979 was of a decidedly rockist stripe. ("into the music beats donna summer senseless"??) but it still seemed a funny, obscure example to me.

again, a minor minor minor point. just trying to clarify.

True -- which sort of makes one wonder why anyone is even bothering with a fight so clearly won.

which brings me to...

re. WILCO, see the problem i have with so many similar threads on ROCKISM is that it's not clear if calling a band "rockist" is just an observation (i.e. noting what values they uphold, based on public statements; and how they are received and celebrated) or an insult. i think often people make a fairly un-pejorative declaration ("wilco is a rockist band") and because of the slipperiness of the term, everyone assumes they are making a putdown and start piling on.

because i agree that wilco is "rockist" in some basic sense BUT inevitably the situation is more complicated if you want to look closely THEREFORE/AND i think there is interesting stuff going on in their music and i like them.

i don't think that it's rockist per se to say that they evolved in a bad way post-ian. i mean, a critic who really feels that way (but wants to avoid thinking in rockist cliches) may just say that they preferred joy division's more guitar-driven sound, or martin hannett's production style (as opposed to, say, shep pettibone's tweeking for NO). (for some reason, saying so that bluntly gets marked off as "bad criticism.") they could even focus on what he believes to be drop-off in lyrical quality -- calling someone out for dumb lyrics also isn't rockist per se.

i think that what's really at issue here are ways of arguing and thinking, and a lazy reliance upon them.

YES

that's what i wanted to say but couldn't.

it's not a set of tastes or a group of albums, but a mode of thinking, a set of

thank you tad

[[btw i'm listening to "into the music" now and one thing it DOES herald is the sort of trembly, anemic production that became a de rigeur signifier of "rootsiness" in decades to come. i always sort of liked it DESPITE that production. his singing is so good on it for one thing.]]

why are parts of my posts disappearing????

"a set of PRESUMPTIONS"

Similarly, DeRo's comment (I'm paraphrasing) "it's OK to like Avril because she knows how to play guitar" is asshattery because he's implying that if you know how to play guitar then you're inherently more worthy of praise.

I'm curious how "self-indulgent" can be used merely descriptively and not perjoratively. I'm not sure I can see how that's possible.

one can indulge oneself with positive results! it seems to refer to the act of creation. it implies t he opposite of rigor and discipline. well, good albums have been made w/rigor and discipline, and very bad ones too. likewise self-indulgence.

XPOST

one possibly confusing and maybe controversial point: despite the EVILS OF ROCKISM, i think maybe we can also agree that there has been very good rockist criticism--not just IN SPITE OF but BECAUSE OF its rockism (to some extent)

?????????

HOWEVER jim derogatis has never written any interesting criticism IN HIS LIFE and should be working as a bank teller

So in other words, critics, if they want to be any good, should step back from being a "rockist" or an "anti-rockist" and just focus on the music at hand and judge it for what it is, in the moment?

If that is the case, then that would suggest that formalism is the preferred mode of critiquing art?

so, i think maybe "formalist" criticism is warranted but i'm not it's as narrow as you imply/are wondering if we're calling for.

-- dingdong (frankenfurte...), October 31st, 2004.

again, rockism is not so much a set of proclivities toward certain musical gestures/elements as much as a stance vis-a-vis music-as-social-object. so IF wilco are rockist it's because they prize things like authenticity, a personal basis for the creation of art, etc. (i'm stating these badly).

but maybe it's better to say that wilco are a touchstone for "rockist' criticism much more than a "rockist band"

WHAT JAYMC SAYS

i think wilco are so successfully (one might say lamentably) ensconced in a "rockist' concept of artistic creation (i'm talking about their public profile not their personal opinions) that ANYTHING they did, from disco to hip-hop or whatever, would be considered in rockist terms.

= THE IRON CAGE OF ROCKISM

OK, that makes sense. Forgive me for being a little stymied by elements of this conversation! I guess that's tied into the disdain for a guy like DeRogatis and the fact that he's a rockist and champions Wilco.

I guess the bottom line is what do people here think makes for the best kind of music criticism? i know there are a lot of ways someone can approach writing about music, and a lot of those ways make people angry (i.e. "rockism"). And I think I know what kind of criticism I like to read and how I separate good from bad (which, for the most part, is people providing defensible details and examples instead of just making blanket statements about something without backing it up), but I'm wondering what people here thinks makes for the best STYLE/APPROACH to criticism.

The slightly disconnected, piano-led "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," is delicately laced with noise, whistles and percussive clutter, like some great grandson of "A Day in the Life."

also to dingdong: there is no "BEST KIND OF CRITICISM"; there is good criticism and bad criticism. i happen to think much good criticism is criticism that evinces some curiosity about how music works *as* music, i.e. as a set of sounds organized in a compelling way. but not all good criticism evinces this.

gypsy that's insightful/astute but do you think anyone might like wilco's music not just for what it strives for but for what it achieves? i think people do. some of it (some of the music) anyway.

What if you just think Wilco have written a few pretty good songs? I really like "How To Fight Loneliness" and a couple other songs off Summer Teeth. I don't think about them in terms of some big pursuit of Greatness. I just think they are good songs. Do you think a lot of critics forget that, in their search for Greater Meaning?

maybe we need a new word for rockism???

"derogatism"????

I think this is definitely part of rockism -- the prizing of deep, everlasting meaning over superficial, ephemeral pleasure.

It seems like all the best critics are the ones who stick to the music of the particular album they are reviewing, and try not to stray into contextual generalities? I don't know, that's just what seems the best way to approach criticism.

I'd like to think there is room for both but it seems like critics usually choose one or the other.

Good critics are good listeners, and the problem with rockism is that it gets in the way of listening. If you're waiting for some song that conjures up soul or honesty or grit or rebellion, you might miss out on Ciara's ecstatic electro-pop, or Alan Jackson's sly country ballads, or Lloyd Banks's felonious purr.

"psuedo-sociological" isn't the right term, but you know what i mean.

xpost

what matos said, including the part where he quotes me

There's LOTS of "rockism" in techno and rap writing, if "rockism" is an obsession with "authenticity" and external, non-musical elements.

exactly. the whole focus of certain rap writers/artists/fans on "keepin' it real" = JUST AS ROCKIST as anything derogatis has ever written. and the techno mindset sometimes approaches what i'd call "reverse rockism" (is this one of the reasons why certain folks in that camp so despise folks like aphex twin, prodigy, and moby?)

certain musical gestures have become associated with such things as authencity, etc.

exactly (ergo, my citing of kraftwerk, gary numan, and the buggles as viable contemporary surrogates for "rapper's delight"). even now, the "synth pierrot" (to steal that phrase from momus) is rockist boogeyman!

i think there is a place for other sorts of musings, indeed there has been some (not much) good criticism written in a psuedo-sociological vein. and ultimately a REALLY GOOD bit of rock criticism would write about music with a profound knowledge of the proximate contexts/expectations/etc.

I guess I just don't read enough good criticism that does these things. Can you point me to a couple of good pieces, in your opinion, that do this successfully?

I don't know if this is possible in the sense you mean - there will always be some sort of network of presuppositions at work holding together any sort of judgment you might make about music ("judgment" includes "description" and "analysis" for my purposes here).

The issue with rockism is not so much that its an ideology but that insofar as it functions as an ideology it is tired, sapped of its critical value as a result of its own numbing repetition, dissemination and sedimentation into unthinking orthodoxy. I can accept that there has been good rockist criticism in the past but I find it hard to imagine good rockist criticism in the future for that reason.

The function of good criticism should be the creation of new critical concepts, new models for explaining the way that music functions and affects us. This is why I'm sympathetic to amateurist's hunt for a new formalism, but more for its potential to widen the scope of things that can be said about music and the way they can be said than because I believe it's "right".

I like the essay fine, but it strikes me as weird the same way some of Christgau's reviews strike me as weird: it's so specifically addressed to such a small group of people that it's odd for it to be appearing in a daily with a million-plus circulation (or, in Christgau's case, a smaller circ number, but you get the picture). On the other hand, the only way Kelefa's gonna get any of the people he's trying to reach (like, um, Jon Pareles?) to listen to him is by writing it in the New York Times.

I've always thought Pareles was exceptionally good at hearing lots of music on its own terms myself, but--and I'm prepared to hear that I'm kidding myself here--I don't think it's just a matter of a handful of people caring about it. This stuff gets handed down--it becomes part of the culture at large. If someone says "Avril is OK because she plays guitar and Britney is not OK because she doesn't" in the newspaper, people are gonna read it and quote it and it's going to become part of their vocabulary in dealing with pop music. I'm under no illusions that it's going to spark debate or incite riots; in fact, it won't, it'll just become part of the furniture, and that's precisely the point. I think Sanneh's argument is valuable in a lot of ways because it questions the furniture's placement--and points out that it is furniture, and can be moved around, and isn't actually the only possible way to furnish things. < /lousy metaphor>

the terms on which authenticity is questioned/upheld are totally different!!!

Can you point me to a couple of good pieces, in your opinion, that do this successfully?

dingdong: not really!! it's more a criticism that i imagine in my head than one that actually exists. i do know of film criticism that fits here. see my formalist criticism thread for more musings on t hese issues. news at 11.

XPOST

i think sanneh's piece is really welcome because it'll spread questions about this kind of thing far and wide--even if only 200 of the NYT's readers actually read & think about it.

Here is one of my main things: DeRogatis is a critic as a major newspaper and writes books and everything, but it seems like any 5-year-old can figure out that just because someone doesn't write their own music doesn't mean they aren't good (what about all the singers in the 30's 40's and 50's that sang standards but put their own spin on it and were immensely talented?) or just because someone plays guitar means that they create more listenable, enjoyable things than someone who samples.

So how does someone like this ascend to a place where he can write criticism that is read by millions and writes books that people buy? He's not the only one like this.

and here we have the reason that jim derogatis's very existence troubles me

i guess he makes friends easily? or maybe this sort of reductive-to-the-point-of-adsurdity rockism really has a welcoming audience?!?! (among editors if not people in general.) i mean why is rush limbaugh on the air????

That's what I got mostly from Kelefa's piece. That ultimately we should just judge music on whether we simply like it, if it moves us or makes us happy or has a cool guitar riff or a catchy melody rather than worry about if it's made by guitars or samplers or whether the singer wrote it or not. That's what I meant earlier about formalist criticism seeming like the best criticism, because it focuses on the "guts" of the music and whether it works or not and is enjoyable and accomplished and interesting or not (at least in that critic's opinion). As opposed to a lot of other ways of critiquing things (i.e. rockism) that seem not as relevant or, worse, tired and formulaic and accepted as fact (i.e. furniture, like someone above pointed out above). Apologies if I am rambling and/or being too obvious - I am just trying to make sense of this all!

Until their rockist parents point it out:

Kim Gordon to her daughter Coco, upon learning of the latter's interest in pop: "I told her Britney Spears can't really sing ... And I said older men write her songs. That was a real turnoff for her."

(1) the stuff that he likes appeals to the readers of the papers for which he writes. (2) said readers just like the stuff that derogatis likes, dislike the stuff that he dislikes, and therefore find it easier to swallow some of his more questionable opinions and mental tics. (3) "serious," high-falutin' papers/journals etc. have serious issues themselves wr2 unexamined assumptions concerning art in general, and popular culture in particular. you can fit bob dylan, the beatles, springsteen, wilco, even certain rappers (not just outkast and the roots but also jay-z) etc. into that paradigm more easily than, say, fifty-cent, christina aguilera, tim mcgraw, etc. (4) these papers/journals probably don't turn a profit on their arts pages, and may not give much of a fuck WHO writes for them (i suspect that THIS may be the real driver, god bless america and all that).

Hahahahaha

I guess sometimes I feel guilty for not liking something like Britney Spears, like I should like it because it's OK to like disposable pop and whatever. And I do like some radio pop songs that don't aspire to be anything more than a good catchy fun disposable song. But I don't like Britney because I don't like her voice and I'm not crazy about the pop style she works within, generally. But not because other people write her songs or all those external reasons. I've just never gotten into her music.

Never underestimate people's needs to have others repeat/confirm what they want to hear. Surely a lot of people take comfort that all is right with the world when they see a DeRo article and he writes that yes indeedy, we are all justified in listening to Avril Lavigne's music, because I have observed her with guitar in hand.

It's weird how this whole topic goes back and forth. In that you have some people who say it's ok to like disposable teen pop like Avril and do what they can to justify it (like derogatis) and then you have other people who say that she's a poser and writes bad music. I don't like her music, I don't care if she plays guitar or not.

(xpost, yes, as long as Nick Hornby is the one writing op-ed pieces on rock bands like Mirah, then all is OK)

in 1918 i would have been one of those revolutionaries saying that we shouldn't knock down the bolshoi.

i think eisbar's last point about the editors of the sun-times being basically indifferent to who writes for their arts pages is the most revelant. well that and the fact that derogatis probably fits a not-too-bright editor's conception of what a "rock critic" is.

You'd be right! And you'd also probably be wondering why exactly this band, of all bands, has inspired books, movies, and a bizarre kind of hushed reverentiality in certain corners of criticism. Which I don't even hold against Wilco, really -- it's obvious that there's a throne there someone built, and it has to be occupied, and once Radiohead sort of sublimated themselves, Wilco were next in line (could've been worse, could've been Flaming Lips).

And to Matos...
've always thought Pareles was exceptionally good at hearing lots of music on its own terms

He's not horrible, he's just always struck me as a Dave Marsh wannabe.And his on-again, off-again efforts to come to grips with hip-hop rendered him deeply uninteresting to me. But I know he hired Ann Powers, which was a good move, and if he had anything to do with getting Kelefa in there, he gets my thanks if not always my respect.

This stuff gets handed down--it becomes part of the culture at large.

Yeah, that's true, and it's what I meant by the significance of him writing it in the New York Times -- the actual immediate audience for it is small (what percentage of NYT readers read its pop music writing, much less take it seriously?), but because it's the NYT and not just some post on kelefa.com, it still ends up meaning something to the people who care and take their cues from it. Of course, this isn't the first time Sanneh has dealt with rockism, it's just his longest and most detailed contemplation of it.

Lyrically and imagewise, Spears remains a tanned, belly-button-baring cipher -- a blank screen ready to project whatever sexual fantasies she thinks will sell her music. At 21, she's too old to play the Lolita role any more -- she's no longer straddling the fence of "Not a girl, not yet a woman" -- so she's going more traditional supermodel/sexpot. In contrast, Pink, 24, is defiantly individualistic and proudly nonconformist, and her sex appeal stems from that attitude. ... Some teenyboppers' parents may be alarmed by this troublesome girl's sassy persona and liberal use of cuss words (you should hear her go off on a beau who stands her up in "Last to Know"). But face it: Your kids have heard all of these words, and they probably use them when you're out of earshot. And who would you rather laud as a role model: a strong example of take-no-crap self-empowerment or an X-rated Barbie doll?

That is absolutely true. That happens a lot actually - I'm frequently mystified when some band gets pushed onto that throne and then gets both the ass-kissing and the backlash. I usually feel sorry for the band, they usually don't ask to be put on that perch.

this is a very, very, very good point. i had forgotten about the book and t he movie etc.

i forget how much STOCK wilco has as a SERIOUS BAND beacuse

(a) on ILX they are typically only invoked to be ridiculed
(b) i don't have any close friends IRL who are slavishly devoted to them (not many who even like them)

XPOST

DEROGATIS YOU IDIOT A SCREEN DOESN'T PROJECT, YOU PROJECT SOMETHING *ON* A SCREEN

NUMSKULL

XPOST

But in this instance he seems to be "anti-rockist" in the sense that Britney represents the establishment (the typical supermodel/sexpot) whereas Pink is the "revolutionary." How does that work into the whole Derogatis-as-a-rockist world?

derogatis's mental thickness is such that i suspect he is ill, like diagnosably ill

i mean that seriously

kenan--where are you? kenan has actually met derogatis.

Imagine a pornographic version of a doll that, when you pull its string, says things like, "Ooh, don't stop, because I'm halfway there," rather than, "I love you, Mommy".

Gotta hand it to him there, I laughed.

what derogatis is doing makes no logical sense? he is defending someone who goes against the rockist mentality in a rockist way. he is contradicting his own mindset.

i love how in trying to hew the rockist line derogatis unwittingly exposes (a) some of its contradictions [i.e. defending non-guitar-playing P!nk, being opposed to using protools to correct pitch as in brian wilson but not to alter pitch as in wilco] (b) some of his own weirdness (like, sexual tastes and stuff--he is a little too eager to go into detail when denouncing such-and-such starlet's sexual appeal).

No, he's saying "Pink is a REAL artist because she writes GRR HARD lyrics from her soul about her deepest, truest feelings and uses bad words to tell off boys and therefore she's a role model. OTOH, Britney is just a semi-porn pop tart".

OK that makes more sense! It just seems like if Derogatis was a rockist, then he would defend britney because she represents the ages-old "talentless pop-tart" paradigm where pink is (allegedly) challenging that system. but then at the same time britney is the champion of the "anti-rockist" because she doesn't play or write her own music, etc. so how can someone like derogatis even approach talking about britney spears (a paradox) without contradicting the very nature of his critical foundation (i.e. being a paradox himself)?

Does this keep Derogatis up all night? Or just me.

no, I just think she says some really stupid things. there's a slight difference.

and we really just need to ignore DeRogatis. It should be EASY! just don't read the sun-times. Ain't hard!

Hahaha...hey, wait. Lay off Steve Earle!

It is kinda funny how all these fights -- in the larger cultural context -- happen inside a fundamentally liberal/progressive subculture. I guarantee you none of the rockists named above are voting for Bush (see Springsteen for more information). I always think of Jane Dark's call-to-arms against Norah Jones, like there was some kind of war going on. Most of the Norah Jones fans I know are pro-gay-marriage fair-trade environmentalists...They might be cliches, but I'm not sure they're actually the enemy.

ROCKISM IS BAD BECAUSE IT ALLOWS JIM DEROGATIS TO WRITE CRITICISM WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING AT ALL

Christ, I need to go to bed.

How did this happen? I've been thinking about it a lot. I think it has a lot to do with wanting other people to be as transformed/obsessed with music as I have been. "Music changed my life" has been one of my central myths forever, and I always wanted the music I loved to change other people's lives. That's why I started to write about it...well, that and the free discs. (Remember how pissed off people here were about "Here listen to the Shins, they'll change your life"?)

When I was a teacher in NYC, it was very easy to be up on what was hip, because I was bombarded with hip all the time. The students I knew actually KNEW some of the big hitmakers -- some of them, anyway. But then I "moved on," and got my music from albums rather than singles, and bob's yer uncle.

I still reserve the right to be somewhat rockist when I feel like it. But this joint has shaken me up, and I'm back to the omnivore scavenger I used to be. No more salad forks for this kid: I eat with my hands now, and it all tastes SO MUCH BETTER.

oh baloney -- what techno mindsetters really hate is Phoney Trance Music. They are rockist to the core.

Also, 50 Cent love way more rockist than fountains of wayne or shins or maybe even wilco love when you get down to it. but kelefah wants to pretend only rap groups "who act like rock groups" deserve mention here. he totally misses the bus on that one.

so get right down to it and explain that comment if you please.

i mean this whole silly misinterpretation of "rockism" as just plain "liking rock music" really has to stop you know. it's a gross oversimplification, and k.s. kinda sorta falls for it.

boy was that guy off

boy was that guy off

Dude, you should see the spit and venom flying over at I Love Rockism.

The thing is - MOST critics promote The Roots as the best and most progressive that hip-hop has to offer, and that's not really true at all; so he uses the Roots appreciation as an example simply because more major critics are worshipping them instead of 50 Cent.

Should read:

The thing is - MOST critics promote The Roots as the best and most progressive that hip-hop has to offer, and they justify this using arguments about "real instruments" or "incorporating rock music"; so he uses the Roots appreciation as an example simply because more major critics are worshipping them instead of 50 Cent.

keep in mind i'm not defending the consumer-guide ethos at all, or the majority of rock critics, either -- but i think 'the continued focus on the album by critics' is a different argument, and one that deserves to be hashed out apart from the whole idea of 'rockism.' and no, i'm not saying the album should be defended to the death, but i just wonder if the constancy of the album as a critical context isn't a problem that is, in a large way, borne of the realities of the market.

(also, making fun of derogatis: so, so very tired, and like there are many critics who are worse offenders out there)

ASnd if youy want to visit I Love Rockism, here's the address:

http://www.oli.tudelft.nl/jc84/

My problem with the anti-rockist stance is, just as rockists will prop up their favourite artists on the basis of authenticity, etc., anti-rockists attach significance to artists/songs by virtue of their mass popularity - which makes sense on some levels, but would they also defend McDonald's as the best producers of hamburgers or Walmart as the best store, simply because they sell the most?

No, St. Uber, you're missing the point too. Bands and sounds are not inherently "rockist," its the way people APPROACH those bands that is rockist - if someone says "The Strokes suck because they sound like the Velvet Underground" or "Jessica Simpson sucks because she's covering Berlin" it is rockist.

I don't know any rockists who like something solely because it is popular. That's a rather backwords way to look at music obviously. You should be reacting to how the music sounds, not how it is recieved. Which, incidently, is what anti-rockists are arguing.

"but what if music is less like buildings, and more like food?" (which doesn't quite work as an answer to the mcdonalds questions, which i think is flawed, because anti-rockism really asks for the elimination of prejudice, not the automatic embrace of whatever's at the top of the charts - the critical object is still open to scrutiny and debate, as long as its 'failings' arent subject to the system that priviledges certain false, or at least questionable, notions of meaning and authenticity etc etc)

From: Jim DeRogatis
To: ksanneh@nytimes.com
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 11:45 AM
Subject: Hi Kelefa

I am not sure, but I think you fingered me today as a poster boy for rockism, and I found your example odd: I critiqued dear Avril as a rock artist because she IS one -- and a good one, too! -- and I have said the same in print of Ashlee Simpson as well as Hillary Duff. But then I have a very, very broad definition of "rock" based on the fact that, sociological intrigues aside, I am generally more interested as a critic in charting the commonalities between many of the best artists through the last four or five decades than in narrowly slicing, dicing, and confining them to ever-narrowing sub-sub-subgenres. This is to say that on my list, the Velvet Underground, Public Enemy, Kanye West, the White Stripes, the Aphex Twin, the Ramones, the Flaming Lips, Common, Eno, and myriad others are all great "rock 'n' rollers", which has more to do with the spirit that their music shares than it does the relative trivialities of who plays rhythm guitar and who works a sampler, or who raps, who sings, and who lip-syncs. This attitude is inspired by Lester Bangs, by the way, almost universally cited as the big daddy of all rockists whenever the subject is raised, though it wasn't true at all -- you know, he loved John Coltrane and Bob Denver as much as Lou Reed, for not dissimilar reasons, and without getting hung up much on the distinctions, either.

Anyway, I admire much of your work, and would loved to have met you when you were in town for the opening of Best of Both Worlds (R.I.P.). But I had to find a back door into that show, since I was not exactly welcome; I imagine you had a much better seat!

By the way, the killer kicker of your piece -- "We should stop taking it for granted that music isn't as good as it used to be, and it means we should stop being shocked that the rock rules of the 1970's are no longer the law of the land. No doubt our current obsessions and comparisons will come to seem hopelessly blinkered as popular music mutates some more - listeners and critics alike can't do much more than struggle to keep up. But let's stop trying to hammer young stars into old categories. We have lots of new music to choose from - we deserve some new prejudices, too." -- is something that I have written again and again and again, almost verbatim, countless times throughout my years in this rock-crit (damn, even the name is rockist! Though my byline actually says "pop music critic") racket, ever since I first started scribbling for fanzines in the '80s. In fact, it has pretty much been the thrust of my entire career -- and I have the scars from the endless tussles with nostalgia-obsessed Baby Boomers to prove it -- so you and I may have much more in common than you think.

All the best --

JIM

//www.jimdero.com// //www.soundopinions.net//

xpost that suddenly seems completely unimportant

No. Being anti-rockist MEANS listening to music for what it is and judging it on its own merits! Anti-rockist does not mean the inverse of rockism with regards to rock music, people.

Also, Jim Dero doesn't really seem to have a point does he?

OK, got it. I was getting the sense from the way some people were using the term on here that it was the inverse of rockism, that it meant rejecting the old "supposedly serious, made with real instruments" stuff in favor of embracing what's new, and new forms of music, and saying that that stuff is just as valid, if not more so.

I got it now.

If that was the aim of the artist. Just as artists shouldn't have to fall into certain slots in terms of their approach to creating music (writing their own songs, etc), a predetermined notion of "This Is How Music Should Be Packaged And Enjoyed" is...lame. The first example to come to mind is Kristin Hersh's new band 50' Wave, which initially planned on only releasing EPs, but then learned that it couldn't market itself that way. Music is fluid and can't be catagorized/defined -- and should be treated like that in all regards, without people applying different restraints to it. In oooother words...the "success" of an artist and their music should only be gauged on what they were attempting and whether they succeeded in bringing it out. As others have said here.

And that spirit is the template of "rock music" that makes him a rockist, even though he is making the idiotic argument that "Public Enemy and Aphex Twin can be rock too!" which is the ultimate rockist statement. What a moron.

If Lester liked Coltrane and Bob Denver (wow, real wild, out-there stretches huh?) it was because he brought them into the world of rock, saying that Coltrane could be a "rock star" as opposed to one of those obscure experimental "jazz guys" ... he didn't make a distinction between that jazz guy and a rock guy because he brought the jazz guy into HIS line of what was valid and wasn't (with Coltrane, probably based on the fact that since he transcended the jazz world in terms of universal popularity, he was no longer a jazz guy but a rock guy). That IS rockist.

Isn't finding "commonalities" essentially trying to group a lot of supposedly different artists together in some template you've self-determined (i.e. they are all "rock")? Isn't Derogatis saying that basically (subconsciously?) defending himself as a rockist, even though he's insisting he's not?

Kim Gordon criticized someone's singing?!

Kelefa's piece made all the points I would have made, except that it sort of left the political and postmodernist implications hanging between the lines. For instance, the references to disco might have been taken further into an examination of the relationship between anti-rockism and 'gayness'. The reference to rock becoming a verb of approbation in the phrase 'women who rock!' could have been taken further into an examination of what kind of feminism approves of women only on condition that they 'rock as hard as the men'. The Beastie Boys reference was a wry comment on the weird inversion that happens when white boys criticize black gangsta in rockist terms for not being authentic enough, although it could pass for a rockist criticism of the Beastie Boys. I liked the bit about Nirvana knocking Mariah off the top spot: 'Why did the changing of the guard sound so much like a sexual assault?' and I liked 'Rockism is imperial'. It's telling that this article comes from someone with a non-white sounding name (Kelefah Sanneh).

I disagree with: 'This, of course, is one of the most pernicious things about rockism: it finds a way to make rock 'n' roll seem boring.' Rock seems quite capable of being boring without rockism's help on the speechwriting.

And I half disagree with: 'You literally can't fight rockism, because the language of righteous struggle is the language of rockism itself.' That sort of pins the whole thing about 'you can't attack authenticity without staking some new claim to some alternative authenticity, even an 'authenticity of fakeness''. But it is possible just to walk away from the whole question of authenticity without any drama queen tantrums whatsoever. And the end of Sanneh's article, with its description of the way people now consume music in ways that make authenticity irrelevant, makes that look easy.

'The challenge isn't merely to replace the old list of Great Rock Albums with a new list of Great Pop Songs - although that would, at the very least, be a nice change of pace. It's to find a way to think about a fluid musical world where it's impossible to separate classics from guilty pleasures. The challenge is to acknowledge that music videos and reality shows and glamorous layouts can be as interesting - and as influential - as an old-fashioned album.'

Wow, no distinction between high and low, surface and depth, authenticity and performance -- postmodernism reaches America! Someone tell Derrid-! Oh.

uh, this is exactly Kelefah's point: To Jim's mind, the "best artists" are those that can be squeezed under the tag of "rock". (and based on his writing, for "rockist" reasons.)

As I have said elsewhere, but the difference between hip hop-centric rockism (let's call it the "search for authenticity") and broader rockism is that the former is rather strictly circumscribed to hip hop itself eg. rappers like Coldplay but they don't (or at least haven't to my knowledge) attempted to explain this in a way that validates Coldplay from a hip hop perspective - Chris Martin hasn't been shot once! There seems to be an acknowledgment that there is other music outside of hip hop that works according to different rules (and thus different rules of authenticity).

Whereas when the mainstream (read: "rock") press praise Outkast or The Roots, they're fairly unsubtle about validating the record according to rock's (alleged) standards. It is this imperial colonisation (which Kelefa labels quite accurately) which is at times most objectionable about the rockism of the mainstream press: their rockism as applied to power-pop or folky singer-songwriters is only mildly jarring, but attempting to judge hip hop or dance music via these criteria is just painful.

I'd argue that the search for authenticity in specific hip hop or dance music press still gets a hell of a lot of things wrong (eg. dismissing trance out of hand; putting too much emphasis on whether a rapper's real life experience accords with and justifies their raps) but not nearly to the same extent as the search for rock-authenticity as applied to these areas of music.

and this is nothing new of course

not judging from pazz and jop they aren't

Compare the amount of sales of 50 Cents to The Roots and then compare the amount of relative media coverage. I'm not advocating media coverage based on sales but I think it's pretty obvious that The Roots get a disproportionate amount of media exposure.

except in reality hiphop no more "works according to its own rules" (and ditto dance music in re: dance music's supposed rules) than according to rock's rules. so rock's rules certainly no LESS valid

The former, while still incorrect, at least tries to accomodate an appreciation of much of the stuff made within that broad area of music. The latter can *only* celebrate the exceptions to the rule, because it works on the assumptions that the rules at work make for a fundamentally inferior style of music.

yeah but what if you substitute maroon 5 or hoobastank for 50 and the shins or wilco for roots in the above sentence? no difference, except the gap between sales and attention is if anything even wider. so maybe it's unfair to judge maroon + hooba by rock's rules too (as if rock even only had one set of rules.) note that dero's biggest and dumbest tyrades have been reserved not for pop or rap or techno stars but third eye blind...

Yeah this is right and I agree that I'd rather see one good piece on Maroon 5 than a seventy-fourth piece on Wilco.

Hootie got a lot of love from Rolling Stone though didn't they?

its important to remember sanneh's piece is an excellent introduction to all of... um, this.

Yeah, I'd have to agree. I'd also have to say nearly all of us here are not the target audience. Is the excitement solely because it appeared in the Times and therefore the idea has achieved some form of pop entryism? (Paul Morley would be proud.)

matos: "If someone says "Avril is OK because she plays guitar and Britney is not OK because she doesn't" in the newspaper, people are gonna read it and quote it and it's going to become part of their vocabulary in dealing with pop music. I'm under no illusions that it's going to spark debate or incite riots; in fact, it won't, it'll just become part of the furniture, and that's precisely the point."

lovebug starski: "For civilians, the rockism argument was pretty much settled in the early 80s. The subsequent mainstream-ing of synth-pop, MTV, hip-hop, even suburban country and urban dance music indicates (to me) that most music consumers aren't really bothered by categories. Since rock criticism is (still!)controlled by 60s-obsessed baby boomers and their proteges, it makes sense that rockism is still an active prejudice/knee-jerk reaction among most music writers."

I'd go a little further than Matos here, saying something like "avril = sorta ok cos guitar; britney = not ok cos no guitar" IN PRINT is possible because the idea is already out there. it's not a statement that is so much digested by its audience, but that places THE CRITIC in relation to how those two performers are situated in the public mind.

why i think this piece is great is indicated by lovebug's statement: rockism's chokehold on music writing is becoming an increasing disservice to its public because it's closing off criticism's ability to plumb into WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. ie "civilians" are (as a whole, if you can make them one) less rockist in practice than the critics, but they still expect their critics to say rock-criticky type shit!!

so yeah, what I'd LOVE to see come about here is i think a "new degeneracy" of rock writing where the insight/care/rigor/wit that went into old-guard rockwriting gets applied to the stuff rockism still dismisses. and, in a difft tack from amst's Formalism, a style that peers into all the Evil Industry Machinations that put this stuff together, really digs into those (ahem) discursive practices as constitutive of the song's shape & placement, instead of ignoring/misunderstanding them on vague ideological grounds while simultaneously damning the resulting products for being made by them.

ie if you wanna say "oh well jesus the fucking STYLIST is more important here than the singer" ok...tell me who the fucking stylist is then! who else did she work on? do yr fkn homework man!

(the preceding post brought to you by norman fairclough and bruce benderson...)

He seems to think I'm not giving Christina Aguilera and Usher enough of a chance -- the problem is that I give them too many chances. I always scan pop and rap radio in the hopes of finding something good, and occasionally, very rarely, I do. I like Missy, I like Jay-Z, but I don't feel the need to force feed myself the other shitty 99.9% of today's pop music in order to avoid the label of "rockist."

I do think that music was generally better 30 years ago, and I'm sticking to that belief. I think the 80s were an all time low, and I'm sticking to that belief. And I also don't think an artist consciously questioning the idea of authenticity is the same thing as taking a pop star's mediocre sister and cynically molding her like play-doh.

Most of what I listen to isn't rock -- I listen to more jazz, folk, rap, international stuff, country etc.. And I also don't have any prejudice against electronic music, or against stuff not written by the performer. I believe in judging music as an end product, not by the process by which it was made. But if I also share some of the beliefs that "rockists" supposedly share, so be it.

And if you believe in judging music as an end product, why does it matter if an artist consciously questioning the idea of authenticity isn't the same thing as taking a pop star's mediocre sister and cynically molding her like play-doh?

The reason I don't like the 80s has nothing to do with rockism -- I just hate the way everything sounded. I like synths sometimes, just not in 80s music. But that's part of my problem with the article -- that it implies that in order to avoid "rockism" you have to open your ears and notice the subtlties of stuff that just strikes you as crap, that your reasons for disliking that music probably aren't legitimate -- because you're just buying into outdated myths.

Making statements like this is neither rockist nor not-rockist. It means nothing. It's making a value judgement without explanation. What can you do with that? Try to elicit more information from the person who said it is the only thing I can think of that doesn't devolve into yes-it-is no-it-isn't.

Maye as Will said, there's nothing rockist or non-rockist about that. The article implies that there is.

i repeat: THE IRON CAGE OF ROCKISM

we all know that "popism" in its reductionist form is just as irritating as rockism in its reductionist form, maybe more so.

and debates where people seem to be simply taking veiled versions of reductionist/archetypal rockist/popist concepts are extremely annoying too.

i don't think "antirockism" is really an idea though.

yeah, but then again so is hip-hop or dance people telling non-hop-hop or non-dance people that there is only one proper way to judge their music. which happens a lot. but maybe i already sort of said that.

by the way, i'm pretty sure bob denver played gilligan on gilligan's island. so i'm not sure what dero means about bangs liking bob's music, unless he means bingo bango bango and irving that is.

If you want to know what I don't like about the 80s sound(s) it's hard to describe -- coldness? Glassiness? Mechanical-ness? Harshness?

Inevitably, you can read some kind of bias into these terms, as in "He dislikes things that sound 'manufactured' because they're not 'authentic'." I don't think that's true, because I do like some electronic music.

Whoa, that's not what we've been saying at all. Read what I (and others)
wroteagain.

So isn't it also possible to not be a rockist and NOT like pop music? Isn't it possible that when people gripe about commercialism, manufactured pop stars, etc, that they're really groping for an explanation as to why they just don't like something on a gut level?

"Saying that NO weren't as "deep" or "serious" or whatever compared to JD is a perfectly legitimate stance. But saying that NO's music is lacking because it's not as "deep" or "serious" as JD, and implying that NO's music should have aspired to be "deep" and "serious" and because it didn't, therefore NO's music isn't as worthy as JD's -- THAT is lazy and bad criticism in my book."

To summarise: it's possible that NO are not as "serious" or "deep", but it is not a valid criticism of their music to say so. Have I got that right? Well my point stands. The judgemental criteria have changed. Certain types of judgements should no longer be made, while others may now be made. There are "right" criteria and "wrong" criteria. Hence my point that anti-rockism will eventually become the thing it despises.

But saying that NO's music is lacking because it's not as "deep" or "serious" as JD, and implying that NO's music should have aspired to be "deep" and "serious" and because it didn't, therefore NO's music isn't as worthy as JD's.

Good thing Halloween candy is on sale.

interesting too that this attitude was once (like in the '50s and early '60s or whenever) a fairly predominant criticism OF rock by old people who hated rock. so to pretend it's an aesthetic that rock somehow created (or it's even "the rock aesthetic" period) is kind of wrong. in some ways, the aesthetic has nothing to do with rock at all. it's certainly not an attitude that rock has ever been dependent on for its (rock's) existence, even though vocal anti-rockists seem to think so sometimes. (certainly some subcategories of rock have depended on it now and then, but definitely not all of them.)

Yeah, I think I follow that. It is bad criticism to imply that a band should necessarily be "deep", and then call it out for not being "deep". But I don't see how that changes the point I was making, which was that we're still talking about replacing one set of critical criteria for another, and that some value judgement about those sets of criteria must be being made when we do that. And that we therefore don't escape the vicious circle of "right" and "wrong" ways to critically approach music.

Couldn't one say the "anti-rockist" argument is at least a more generous way of critically approaching music, by not pre-supposing certain music is more "deep" or "authentic."

Hurting:
"Well, I grew up in the 80s, so it's not like I was a sour old man who said "Meh. Things ain't what they used to be." But even when I was pretty young I always gravitated toward classic rock radio.
If you want to know what I don't like about the 80s sound(s) it's hard to describe -- coldness? Glassiness? Mechanical-ness? Harshness?"

Hurting, are just talking about New Wave synth-pop that got on commercial radio? There were lots of styles of rock in the '80s from Us hardcore punk to hair metal to post-punk ala Mission of Burma to REM and on and on, and I haven't even mention rap or r'n'b or reggae or roots rock or country or whatever.

Do you dislike all those styles of '80s rock or other genres as well?
Are they cold, glassy, mechanical and harsh? None of them have artists who embody the characteristics of the classic rock artists you like???? What classic-rock artists are you talking about anyway?

Probably. I'm not entirely sure what I think to be honest. But I suspect anti-rockism will end up just as much of a critical straitjacket, and I'm also suspicious of the philosophical underpinnings. I didn't see much counter-argument here so I thought I'd throw in my 2 euros' worth...

The idea behind anti-rockism is ELIMINATING straightjackets, not creating new ones. Just disagreeing with one random set of rockist ideology (i.e. disagreeing with the assertion that prog is great because it is complex) and forsaking it for another ideology ("real" punk is more authentic and true to the "spirit" of rock) is still rockism. You are confusing changing ideologies with arguing against ideology altogether.

not really, the folkies were purists of a different stripe. i think you're expanding the concept of "rockism" to the breaking point really.

Totally agreed. I had a long discussion about this with a stridently feminist friend last night, and allowing for varying schools of thought within feminist theory, her point, which she made very adamantly, was that just because Xtina flaunts her body and is "in control of her sexuality" doesn't make her a feminist icon, or particularly someone who is challenging the status quo in any real, relevant way. Mostly, she says, she's feeding into the prevalent "women-as-sex-object" mentality to sell records, tickets, and merchandise. Certainly, we both agreed, that if idiot, horny guys are conned into handing her money then more power to her, but that shouldn't be mistaken for classic feminism.

And to Hurting: No one says that you have to like pop music, but to make blanket statements like "all 80s music sucks" is blatantly ignorant, since an entire decade of music can't be boiled down to asymmetrical haircuts and Yamaha DX7 synths. There was rock, jazz, hip-hop, electronic, country, folk, industrial, funk, and every other kind of music going on all at once. If you were a real music fan you would give everything a chance with no preconceived prejudices. Doesn't mean you have to like everything but you seem to discount things completely out of hand based on some weird standards, which makes you a rockist.

Do you find any female performer who gets on MTV " feminist,shape shifting, or relevant"? Do you just find indie-rock female performers "feminist, shape shifting or relevent" ? Other genres? The whole point of this anti-rockist thing is just to judge songs individually without phony-purist ideology, right? I agree with you on Christina. I don't find Christina's bombastic voice or her songs entertaining. But don't mess with Tweet or Missy Elliot or many others.

I think Ashlee was deceitful in what she tried to do on Saturday Night Live, and showed a lack of integrity in blaming her band, but I still like that catchy "Pieces of Me" single when I hear it on the radio or see the video(and I know that producers and whomever might have helped make her voice sound the way it does, blah blah blah- who cares).

Is the "Christina Aguilera as a feminist role model" a big part of the rockism discussion? I don't think so, but shouldn't she be discounted based more upon her songs and not her fashion?

Well, it is and it isn't. Kelefa was the one who brought it up as an example in his piece, so I was reacting to that. What I wrote before is a tangent, though, I agree.

As far as Xtina goes, her fashion/style/extraneous approach turns me off but I have given her the benefit of the doubt in terms of trying to forget all of that and focus on her songs. I think she has a fabulous voice but I think her lyrics are trite and her music is fairly generic and doesn't have enough hooks or melodies that compel me enough to become a fan. Couple that with her whole image and I can't stand her. That's not to say that all pop stars are crap, I take it on a case by case basis.

All right, at XXX's request I'll give up my newly dignified pose and
share with you. I forwarded this to the writer with a nice note, and
he wrote me back, taking it in the spirit in which I hope those of
you who don't know me take it:

First of all, I don't like being defined as "Rockist" according to
this person's definition. I'm sure this writer would define me as
such, and that definition would ignore the fact that I simply see
things from a perspective that I believe in based on my particular
love for the broad genre of rock 'n roll. I don't know why anyone
should be judged for their inability to embrace all of rock and pop's
supposed riches. Any critic who pretends to see the good in
everything is probably a kiss ass, and for those few who seem
to "prove" themselves in their ability to see the good in most
everything, more power to them. Their sincerity will come through. I
can think of a couple of people on this list with tastes so wide
that, on first notice, the rock bully in me wants to shove them
against a locker, but you know what? These people come through and
earn my respect. They take their shots at me, but they don't spend 4
pages of NY Times printer-friendly space railing against anyone who
dares to see the rock world through their own particular tinted
horned-rim glasses without once demonstrating to me that they're
anything more than a hipster Gene Shalit. RTHers like Stewart and Dan
make it clear that they're operating by their own principles,
principles I may not yet be evolved enough to grasp, and they'll tell
me that. That's cool. Where does this Kelefa Sanneh stand on
ANYTHING? I've read articles by this person before, and they always
lead me to believe one thing...

PUSSY. Yes, this is the most rock bully thing I could probably say,
but hear me out. I get the sense this writer is a pussy. I just
verified that he is a man, and this strengthens my use of this odious
term in all its 5th-grade bully sense. Here are sort of statements I
object to and why. Consider this the gauntlet that I'm throwing down,
and should Mr. Sanneh get through it with dignity, I'll tip my cap to
him.

He says "Countless critics assail pop stars for not being rock 'n
roll enough, without stopping to wonder why this should be
everybody's goal..." Then he uses an idiotic quote praising Avril
Lavigne by candy-ass Jim DeRogatis to support his claim. Well, I
don't want to be lumped in with Jim DeRogatis, and if that's all
this "rockist" thing comes down to, then you have successfully shot a
duck in a barrel, Mr. Sanneh. My gut reaction to Sanneh's claim,
though, was "Tough!" What, I ask, is YOUR goal? Who or what, in this
world of pop, are you supporting? As the article progresses, the best
sense I get is that he's thankful to enjoy whatever little fruits
fall from the trees of the music industry. Isn't that sweet?

Then he gets into this entire beef about rockists only wanting
straight white men to make their rock music and all that tired jazz.
He follows this up by calling OutKast, the Roots, et al a form of
Rock Uncle Toms. I'm sure they appreciate being cast this way. I'm
sure he's fully qualified to know just how "black" or whatever anyone
else is. Bite my straight white ass, Sanneh!

Then he asks, "And when did we all agree that Nirvana's neo-punk was
more respectable than Ms. Carey's neo-disco?" Well, here I ask him
whether he objects to this statement. As usual, he takes no stand on
anything; he merely posits the fact that some people would disagree.
That's fine. Let me put Sanneh the Music Critic in another realm,
such as politics or food. Would he be so tolerant of Christian
Fundamentalists who back the most extreme portion of the Republican
Party? Would he, as a Food Critic, defend the right of someone to
believe that a slopbucket from Wendy's was a "respectable" as a
healthy meal from a 5-star restaurant in NYC? Of course not! But that
would mean he was not actually acting from the perspective of Kiss-
Ass Music Critic. My friend, 5 million Mariah Carey fans can't be
wrong, and they really don't need your support. They're not even
reading your work in the Times and the Village Voice, so if you want
to convince me or any of the people who do read your stuff, how 'bout
making a case for any merits these folks might possess beside a nice
set of pipes and a healthy rack?

I like this part: "Rock 'n' roll doesn't rule the world anymore, but
lots of writers still act as if it does." So??? Stop wasting your
time and our's and get back to covering whatever is ruling the world.
Don't come into my world, tell me that I'm worshipping a dead empire,
and give me NOTHING to challenge my views. Show me how you and your
fellow citizens under the new regime celebrate the highest examples
of your budding culture. I've read about some of the stuff you've
touted, and almost inevitably it doesn't interest me. You know what,
Sanneh, you're no more alive than me, and your hip and happening new
thing is no more alive than William Shakespeare. Art isn't about
what's new and what's available. It's not tied to The Moment, and as
soon as you believe that, The Moment has passed.

Here's one: "The problem with rockism is that it seems increasingly
far removed from the way most people actually listen to music."
Perhaps, just like most of what's taught in a university English
department, for instance, is far removed from what most people are
reading. Who the hell cares? Who, among those masses that prefer all
of today's critically questionable music, is reading shit like this
guy's article? Again, if he's so convinced that my interest in past
forms of music need to allow room for my trying other, newer forms of
music, then he should save his energy on making a case for me to
check out something new. Don't characterize me and judge me as
a "rockist" and then expect me to want to do anything but shove you
against a locker. When I listen to X's radio shows on X,
for instance (and this is not just me doing some RTH ass kissing), he
plays all kinds of stuff I would never listen to voluntarily. He
mixes it with stuff that I would. And he mixes it with stuff that I'm
usually iffy on. Sometimes, I still don't like some of the new things
I hear, but at least I give it the time of day. In the case of a guy
like Sanneh, however, I strongly suspect that the Norwegian pygmy
drum and bass stuff that he's touting alongside staples like the
latest from Kylie Minogue will mean no more to him in 3 years' time
than whatever he was touting alongside whatever Minogue was up to 3
years ago. And in all this time, a "rockist" like myself has never
once been taken by a supposed rockist hero like Ryan Adams.

He says, "you might miss out on Ciara's ecstatic electro-pop, or Alan
Jackson's sly country ballads..." Jesus Christ, in food terms, what
kind of pig could attempt to stuff all that crap down one's throat?
Does this guy like to mix beer, wine, and all colors of hard alcohol
when he's out drinking? Is he not satisfied with the adult varieties
of bisexuality? Sanneh must be the world's most prodigious music
gourmand. Perhaps it is I who should recoil when passing him in the
hallway!

Finally, he says, "But let's stop trying to hammer young stars into
old categories. We have lots of new music to choose from - we deserve
some new prejudices too." Come clean with them, then, or else I'm
holding onto my suspicion that you've got some music critic's version
of a NAMBLA defense in your back pocket!

Uh, yeah ... that makes sense.

that guy totally sounds like a new york POST reader. weird.

and yeah, conflict as "locker throwing" is way wierd. grow up dude!

Look, there are things I like from the 80s. I like 80s Police records. I like 80s Talking Heads. At times, I enjoy Devo. I even sort of like Men at Work. I have a strange thing for Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time." Of course I also like some hardcore stuff that came out in the 80s -- Minor Threat, Bad Brains -- but hardcore isn't really my thing. There was some great hip-hop in the 80s, no doubt. Regarding another post, I can't say I know much about 80s reggae. But what I can't stand is the music that has come to be representative of the 80s -- The Cure, New Order, Joy Division, The Smiths, most synth pop, Madonna, most Michael Jackson. And I've also found that much music in genres I otherwise like became crappy in the 80s -- jazz, r+b, funk, etc., largely because of the sound of the instruments and recordings. I've always assumed this was because of the transition to early digital equipment, but I'm no expert. Contrast that to the 1970s, when there was great jazz still being made, great soul and funk, great rock, great country, great avant garde stuff, and I feel comfortable saying the 80s were a bad decade for music. Again, a lot of this is because of the way many 80s recordings themselves tended to sound.

Well this is just silly. Your beef is with VH-1 and "'80s flashback weekend" radio. Take it up with the music programmers, not the actual music itself.

And I've also found that much music in genres I otherwise like became crappy in the 80s -- jazz, r+b, funk, etc., largely because of the sound of the instruments and recordings.

While there is perhaps a case to be made that early digital recording left something to be desired, it's ludicrous to say that many/most/all 80s artists were recording digitally. That excludes legions of less mainstream artists who stuck with analog gear because they had no choice, and a small number of acts who chose to stick with analog over digital because they thought at the time that it sounded better.

I feel comfortable saying the 80s were a bad decade for music.

This statement in and of itself is the height of ridiculousness, it doesn't need to be pulled out and highlighted but I'll do it anyways. You've discounted entire swaths of music and hundreds, if not thousands, of great bands who wrote great songs and great albums. If you think the '70s were some magical time when all music was at its creative and technical apex, you're entitled to that opinion. But it's wrong. And you're a stubborn, closed-minded rockist. Nyah nyah.

This is a big part of what I believe to be Mark S's point about rockism - namely that it is a secret expression of self-hatred on the part of rock performers/listeners/critics who passionately assert rock's legitimacy as "authentic", "meaningful" music (against the arguably higher claims of classical music, folk, jazz, etc.) in an attempt to deny rock's beginnings as throwaway pop, vilified using much the same criteria used againt eg chart-pop today.. This denial as such is as much self-harm as it is an attack of musics which are seen to be "beneath" rock, because it stifles the potential range of rock music. I often think of it being a bit like the homophobia of men who are afraid of their own potential femininity or same-sex desire: not only do they dislike or hate explicit displays of these tendencies among other men, but they also regulate their own behaviour to eliminate or conceal even the slightest hint of the same tendencies within themselves.

Thus you could indeed argue that what is happening could just as easily be called "jazzism" or "folkism" except for the fact that the reigning discourse re popular music is currently grounded in the superiority of rock, and "rockism" in the specific sense is both more common and more tyrannical than any other form of validation-of-authenticity. It goes without saying, though, that an anti-rockist positiion also entails a suspicion of any model which posits jazz or folk or classical music - or, it must be stressed, pop - as authentic.

Again though I'd stress that the more fundamental problem with rockism and related approaches to music is not the specific opinions expressed - "Joy Division were better than New Order because they were deeper and expressed something true to Ian Curtis's life rather than making anonymous pop songs", for example - but rather the unthinking acceptance of the solidity of certain terms that are used to describe music. I don't want to see the word "deep" banned from rock critic lexicon, but I do want to see its meaning questioned to the point where it can no longer be used as a self-evident category for describing & praising music.

It's a reductionist summation of the anti-rockist position to say "judge on the basis of the sound, not the deepness". However such a summation is right insofar as it acknowledges that music is always first and foremost a collection of sounds onto which such concepts as deepness are interposed.

The (somewhat Deleuzian) question that has to be asked of such a term as "deepness" is: what are the differential aspects within music that exist before the category of "deepness" becomes sensible, and which allow it to exist? Or to be more explicitly Deleuzian: what is the relationship between the "body without organs" of music as a purely sonic differential phenomenon (ie. different sounds) and such structured categories as "deepness" and "identity"?

This was probably addressed already and/or elsewhere but that makes the position of hip-hop an interesting one, potentially (would it be accurate to say that hip-hop more overtly/specifically posits itself as being grounded in what is 'real,' separate from the discourse about it? or is that either too patently obvious on the one hand or too left-field on the other?).

Whether or not a rapper has actually sold drugs is as unimportant to me as whether Beyonce really is an independent woman (or, more pointedly, really does want to have sex with me); does the identity constructed or claim made within the song in and of itself affect me?

When Kim Gordon points out to her daughter that Britney's songs are written by older men, she is pointing to the absent signified (the actual experience of being a teenage girl) which the signifiers in Britney's (earlier) songs seem to point to. It is true to say that part of the effectiveness of such songs is reliant on not constantly exposing this absence or lack of connection between signifier and signified, because (esp. on ballads like "I Was Born To Make You Happy") Britney and her writers/producers are doing everything in their power to make Britney's sense of emotional abjection seem plausible and believable. But I don't accept that this is evidence of some flaw in the music, and what Kim is doing amounts to the same thing as standing up in a cinema and yelling "it's not real! They're only actors reciting lines from a script!"

Ah wait, hold on a sec -- I *fully* agree with you on the 'to me' part (as elsewhere in the sentence too) but at the same time doesn't this mean less of a 'rockist/antirockist' world than it does a potential kaleidoscope of reactions?

(I figure a lot of this has totally be chewed to death on this thread -- I was in LA all weekend doing other things and now I'm in the throes of Nanowrimo writing, so these are quick hit and run comments, I admit!).

The acting comment is a good one...but at the same time slightly, I don't want to say *flawed* but one where I think there is an argument that there is more of a difference between (in this case) movies and music that is apparent. To illustrate in a roundabout way, we have the Pop Idol programs where familiar songs then and now are interpreted anew, but -- unless I've missed something and I could have! -- we don't have a 'Matinee Idol' equivalent where contestants face-off via how they deliver certain monologues and scenes.

It's being presumed that Kim is not telling her child that the songs are not written by the pop stars, and therefore do not give advice/insight into how to live your life (ie advice on why the song is a bad emulation model)

Ned I would have thought the existence of Pop Idol strengthened my analogy rather than weakened it insofar as it demonstrates quite handily that a sense of empathy with a performer and the identity they evoke with their performance depends more on the quality or style of their performance than it does on whether they wrote the lines they're delivering. In Australian Idol this season, the contestant Rickie Lee delivered a performance of Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" that felt more personal and heartfelt than the original, despite the fact that Whitney was certainly much closer to the song's genesis (if not necessarily the writer - actually I don't know if she was or not). Likewise people's opinions differ over who can perform the best Hamlet.

Actually a Shakespeare-based reality competition would be inevitable but for the fact that most people are largely unfamiliar with Shakespeare.

What puzzles me -- and what I've not heard enough about -- is where the fans of Lil Wayne or Ashlee Simpson stand on the issue: do they assume as a default position that songs are supposed to be confessionals or scripts? Or do they assume that in one genre songs are more confession-like and in another more script-like? Don't people naturally gravitate towards the genre with the strategy they like better? Seems like much of the SHE DOESN'T EVEN WRITE HER OWN SONGS pop controversies we've seen cloud over the question of exactly how sophisticated an audience might be at understanding how song-reality is created.

I'll grant that, but let's step back here: your stand-up-in-the-theater comparison, if carried out, would elicit a fairly huge 'duh' not merely from the theatergoing crowd but just about anyone. Standing up in a concert hall for Ashlee and saying, "Hey, she didn't write the songs" might not matter for anyone in the concert hall but it doesn't automatically matter for everyone *outside* it.

Yes, but I suppose the rockist response to that would be that, within the ostensibly authentic/unpredictable/real-time/quasi-aerobic frame of 'rock', it's more like standing up and yelling that at a wrestling match, or perhaps an Augusten Burroughs reading. Me, I like the fake kind of wrestling better myself and am vaguely hoping against hope that Burroughs' books turn out to be prankish meta-fiction, but I don't find it a dumb point for Gordon to bring up, or 'rockism' an innately moronic weltanschauung; I have rockist tendencies myself, though more in the realm of making music than listening to it. I think part of the issue here is that it's so obvious to you or me that Spears's music is a pop construction over which she does not have anything resembling final say that it might seem tautological to point it out to a child. But I don't think it is, which is one of the things that makes pop music so interesting. I mean, if you found out that Pink was actually a smug, vain, prima donna who doesn't like to get her nails dirty and that M!ssundaztood was simply the end result of a Powerpoint presentation entitled "INSECURITY SELLS," you'd feel just a wee bit taken in, right? What about Eminem?

But let it be also said that Kim Gordon criticizing anyone else for not being able to sing is indeed very very funny.

The sense in which fans of Ashlee Simpson or Pink or Avril might feel betrayed by Kim's revelation only exists to the extent to which the presentation of these artists (and subsequently their reception by their audience) has bought into rockist ideas about music. If someone entered a romantic comedy into a film festival for documentaries, standing up in the middle of the screening and saying "they're only acting" would be much more understandable and justified. Likewise, people feel betrayed by Ashlee's lipsynching to the extent that she has presented herself as someone for whom concepts of authenticity are important and central.

One of the great things about the Idol shows is how they've reintroduced the concept of a great interepretation of a familiar song into the popular consciousness. Sadly, because they also promote the individual likeability of its contestants the albums which they end up producing almost always play down their talents as interpreters and focus on their status as "really nice guys/girls", via bland songs/performances/arrangements that not only fall short of but often directly contradict the style of their great live performances - bland songs which allegedly reveal something about the performers as people (here come those signifieds) in a way that their great exciting live interpretations didn't.

This is kind of funny in light of Kelefa's Creflo Dollar article in The New Yorker.

now if a documentary was caught using undisclosed acting then the audience would be angry - but even then not at the acting but as with the lack of disclosure.

Dislike of fakery in music stems from the initial act.

Dislike of fakery in film stems from the concealing of the initial act.

xpost x 3

See, I'm not sure if it's even a matter of how these particular artists are presented as to how songs generally seem to be understood by the audience as diary entries, confessionals, the untranslated language of the soul.

i'm always pissing off djdee by complaining about Illmatic (even though I think it's a fantastic record) precisely because it is the quintessential rockist hip hop album.

"See, I'm not sure if it's even a matter of how these particular artists are presented as to how songs generally seem to be understood by the audience as diary entries, confessionals, the untranslated language of the soul."

I agree that this is the largest part of what establishes the personal connection between artist and audience, but there is a difference between early Britney's diary entries (she even has a song called "Dear Diary"!) and an Ashlee or Avril insofar as the latter to make public representations which attempt to verify that their music is "the untranslated language of the soul." Due to this cultural insistence on verification, I think the fan of a pop star who does base a lot of their appreciation on the seeming realness of the star's identity will look to the star's public persona, what he/she says, who he/she dates, what he/she wears.

Which I understand on a conceptual sense but I almost feel like that there's something of a have cake/eat it too scenario at work here. An indulgence in sounds and multiplicities that desperately tries to avoid being tied down to any of them -- which is perhaps an overstatement, and yet anti-rockism as it seems to want to be codified in article and now in thread (please note I think that this potential codification is automatically fraught with problems) seems so concerned to set itself as solely defined *against* something. The positive virtues are either taken as implicitly beyond argument ("Dude, don't you know? Everyone just punches up their iPods on random now") or as self-congratulation for not being locked into something.

I think the fan of a pop star who does base a lot of their appreciation on the seeming realness of the star's identity will look to the star's public persona, what he/she says, who he/she dates, what he/she wears.

See, now hold on here Tim, I invoked the example of my friend above vis-a-vis Ashlee precisely because I *don't* get this sense from her in her fandom. Now one person is not everybody (obviously) but I sense that her approval of Ashlee is much less tied up with the overdetermined bugaboo of verification you outline above, instead suggesting the more general 'diary entry' approach.

I agree that there are probably heaps of Ashlee who don't care at all and have personal connections to the music as music. I imagine this is true for a lot of Britney fans as well for whom there is little external verification of "realness" to be found (unless that's what Britney's new trailer trash look is trying to achieve).

I do think it's undeniable that unlike Britney (esp. early Britney), Ashlee has courted the rockist vote, although that is not necessarily the majority of her audience (perhaps in the same way as Kerry courts the religious vote even though many of his supporters might not care whether he goes to church or not).

I think Australian Idol is anti-interpretation in a manner far more direct than the prevelance of the "likeability" contest. The judges are extremely conservative when it comes to different arrangements--see the downfall of Ricki-Lee compared to the success of Haley, Courtney (a rockist himself!--the fucking Doobie Brothers on R/B night) and Anthony.

"Which I understand on a conceptual sense but I almost feel like that there's something of a have cake/eat it too scenario at work here. An indulgence in sounds and multiplicities that desperately tries to avoid being tied down to any of them."

I'm not sure why being tied todown to any particular sound or identity would be a good thing though. A person who stands for nothing falls for everything - and I like falling for as much music as possible!

Colin re Rickie-Lee I'm not sure that's entirely true. Dicko was rockist wrt The Beatles but everyone admitted that at the time of her exiting Rickie-Lee had been the best contestant by some margin.

Fantasia is a great example of an interpreter par excellence and I am both excited and terrified by the prospect of her album due its potential and it's likelihood of squandering it.

Quite understood! Strictly speaking I don't have a problem with this either. But I am leery when this shifts from becoming a potential individual reaction to something larger than that -- an ideology, if you will. It may be an ideology based on multiplicity but that's why the article shifts in my mind almost too carefully between a celebration of difference and an iconization of it, and too swiftly demonizes rockism instead of saying "Well, that's just *another* potential approach." Not that I think this is consciously Sennah's goal here, I think it's too well written for that. But the implication hovers in the air, if you like.

"...and too swiftly demonizes rockism instead of saying "Well, that's just *another* potential approach."

Ned surely Kelefa and most anti-rockists are merely demonising its tyranny? If rockism itself didn't inevitably lead to a rejection of a lot of music (and thus a narrowing of musical scope) it wouldn't be a problem.

But it emphasises the original artist's intent for the song. See Marcia's "Do you know what that song is about?" re: Chanel's "Hit 'Em Up Style".

The Australian Idol point in all of this is pretty micro, but the overemphasis of artist/writer's intent is one of the most widespread forms of rockism. The debate around the "true meaning" of songs ("Born in the USA" for example) isn't limited to Vh1 and Rolling Stone.

Re original artist's intention: apart from the Marcia example I think that this isn't necessarily the case. The judges have on occasion said that a contestant's performance was better than the original version - I think they have in their heads a horizon of potential for a performance's greatness which depends on preserving the strong's alleged structural integrity and not breaking too many of its "rules"; but said rules can be gleaned from the song itself without reference to the artist's intentions.

As I said before, this is still rockism but of a different stripe I think. It's sort of like the New Criticism approach to poetry where the artist is formally considered to be irrevant but there is such an insistence on the "integrity" of the poem that analysis ends up being as conservative as if it were a biographical analysis of the poem as being an "expression" of the artist.

True -- and yet, consider: is there a conflation of 'rockism' as philosophy and 'rockism' as practice which might not be always valid? To explain with an example, the article advances focusing in on albums rather than singles as a deleterious effect of rockism. But does this mean that everyone who generally prefers to listen to albums is therefore automatically guilty of rockism no matter what the guise? Is to prefer singles -- or to prefer the endlessly scrambled iPod -- therefore *always* 'anti-rockism'?

A good example is the music rag I write for - where reviews of rock albums are four times longer than reviews of dance or hip hop albums on the grounds that there is "less to say" about the latter two groups. It goes without saying that the singles reviews are even shorter again.

Totally agreed. I had a long discussion about this with a stridently feminist friend last night, and allowing for varying schools of thought within feminist theory, her point, which she made very adamantly, was that just because Xtina flaunts her body and is "in control of her sexuality" doesn't make her a feminist icon, or particularly someone who is challenging the status quo in any real, relevant way.

hasn't anyone seen Simple men?!?!?!

more later...

(p.s. god bless you tim)

Perfectly agreed on the last point but the first point, now there's a bit of slippery slope - you're right in that he's trying to avoid, as he puts it, simply replacing 'the old list of Great Rock Albums with a new list of Great Pop Songs.' Yet in rereading the article all of a sudden this leapt out at me:

If you're waiting for some song that conjures up soul or honesty or grit or rebellion, you might miss out on Ciara's ecstatic electro-pop, or Alan Jackson's sly country ballads, or Lloyd Banks's felonious purr.

Now what's interesting here is that we've shifted from the album/single divide to something way more trickier, something I think he must be aware of but can't still quite make work -- that it's *certain acts* with well known singles which get the blessing. What is being implied more here -- that there are possibilities at play or that this particular author has found possibilities which suddenly become strictures? I don't think he is actively trying to suggest the latter approach -- in fact his best work is that he's trying to describe the music as objectively as possible while still giving it a positive spin -- but in respects having advanced the examples he's fixed the argument to specifics -- and again, this makes me leery.

When Tom ran his "singles of the 90s" list it struck me as a reaction to the absence of such lists in the general media. But he was happy for you to make an "albums of the 90s" list as well!

And bless his heart for that!

All of these ideas may now seem self-evident on ILX but they aren't elsewhere

Heh, so my crack way up above about entryism really is the point of all this! ;-) (I say this goodnaturedly, not to mock.) But how rockist is it that something doesn't really matter until it's in the pages of the NY Times? *hides*

To return to the point in parenthesis, what Kalefa is doing in the section you're quoting is drawing attention to artists which may be good (and, in his opinion, are) but whose potential for goodness is automatically disqualified under a rockist strain of thought. I don't think he's at all saying that these artists are actually objectively brilliant and only rockists think otherwise.

Quite apart from this, it's not just these artists which are being ignored by rockism but certain aspects, tendencies and potentialities in rock music itself. I'm thinking, for example, of Mark S's description of Joy Division's Closer as being the first New Order album insofar as it marked the band's first actual encounter with "disco" in the broadest sense of the term (probably more so than Movement as well). This is something which a rockist interpretation would necessarily sideline or ignore. It's not that the (suicidal?) intensity conveyed by Curtis's lyrics or the general rockingness of the band aren't worth thinking about and discussing, but rather that, when the matter has passed into orthodoxy, it's generally more interesting to hear these sorts of intriguing Chuck Eddy-style connections being made.

But I'm repeating myself now, sorry.

Heavens, I don't think that's right either! If that's the implication being drawn then I'm misstating something badly.

I don't think he's at all saying that these artists are actually objectively brilliant and only rockists think otherwise.

Mm, I don't know, Tim, I wouldn't say 'at all' there -- there's a definite sense that all three are used as specific positive signifiers, seems pretty hard to definitively argue otherwise. I think it's a very close run thing, a hair away from drawing a line in the sand. Now that said frankly I have no problem at all with Ciara being elevated in place of Bruce Springsteen, say...

Anti-rockism in the sense that I use it is basically a suspicion of "common sense" or "accepted truths" about music on the grounds that such an approach drags people away from an awareness of this inescapable multiplicity, encourages them to think there is one explanation for why a given piece of music works or works for them, and pressures them to forsake their own capacity for reasoning and analysis in favour of some external authority.

x-post - yeah that might be right, although obviously as an album Closer has a discernible affinity which Unknown Pleasures does not, I think.

pressures them to forsake their own capacity for reasoning and analysis in favour of some external authority.

Like the All Music Guide? ;-) After all, unless I go back and rewrite all my reviews constantly, my thoughts on albums at respective points in time will be there as external authority for some forever.

Yes exactly. I mean this in four senses really (non-exhaustive list). Firstly, in that each time you listen to a piece of music the effect is slightly different. Secondly, in that this effect comprised of multiple aspects which no one explanation can encompass. Thirdly, in that even an attempt to explain one of those aspects will invariably "lose" something in the translation. And fourthly, that this prospect of analysis and explanation simultaneously creates effects and impacts. I'm sure everyone here is familiar with th experience of changing their opinion on a piece of music after thinking about it in a certain way or reading something written about it.

"Like the All Music Guide? ;-) After all, unless I go back and rewrite all my reviews constantly, my thoughts on albums at respective points in time will be there as external authority for some forever."

I don't think we'll report you to Kelefa just yet.

No, I don't think I'm confusing anything, rather I think it's hopelessly utopian to think you can get rid of ideologies. Once you challenge one ideology, the challenge will eventually become another ideology, perhaps a more sophisticated one, perhaps a more hidden one. This rockism/anti-rockism debate is basically popular music's version of the debate that's been going on in the humanities since the dawn of philosophy, ie relativity vs essentialism, either for or against the Platonic ideal. But the "against" position is ultimately just as idealistic and the "for" position.

How Jonathon? And which against position do you mean? Isn't basically everyone from Kant onwards against the Platonic ideal to a greater or lesser extent?

I think it's correct to say that we can't escape ideology but that doesn't mean we should put up with the most stupid and oppressive one we can find.

It seems to me that Tim summed up in his posts just above how to resolve that situation as practically as possible by remaining as fluid and open as possible with the potentials for listening, whether with the new or the familiar. You're correct in that this could be seen as ideological in terms of establishing a constant process or model, but in, dare I say, practical terms, this is as close as one can get -- and as you'll note from some of my comments above, even there it can be slippery in spots. (One reason why I much prefer Tim's elucidation on these points to the original article is that he convincingly illustrates the possibility in a broader sense away from specific songs, artist or signifiers.)

Xpost! But there ya go.

(I was gonna say - but then you went to bed - that one of the things I like about your All Music Guide (and the same goes for the 136 albums list) is that it never feels like you're buying into received wisdom. Even when you're writing about a canonised album it comes across as a personal, individually reasoned reaction. Which is more than one can probably ask of a consumer guide).

As for being awake already, there's this thing called 'work,' see. ;-)

Yeah, this is my position I suppose - ie a more humble one than to suggest you can eliminate ideologies and escape the taint of essentialism.

"And which against position do you mean? Isn't basically everyone from Kant onwards against the Platonic ideal to a greater or lesser extent?"

I mean the relativist position, which perversely becomes idealistic because it still posits a "view from nowhere" meta-position where there is no such thing as authenticity and all ideologies are relative. Any attempt at pure essentialism or pure anti-essentialism eventually breaks down in a logical contradiction.

I don't get this at all. Hip-hop authenticity has never been merely about the rappers' biographies (think of Public Enemy coming from the suburbs of Long Island, or NWA containing members who used to be in jheri-curl groups, or whatever); the music ITSELF is said to keep itself real. And rockers have never cared whether Bruce Springsteen, say, actually was a Viet nam vet or worked in refineries of Jersey. I still don't understand the difference -- to me they seem exactly the same. Rock fans care about Bruce's or Van's or Creed's or Dylan's persona, just like rap fans care about Tupac's or Biggie's. (OK, well, if anything, rap fans overemphasize the biographical aspect -- which was maybe Tim's point? - -which would make them MORE rockist, not less.) I have no idea what "signifieds" are, either, but in both rock and hip-hop rockism-so-called, it's the experience in the song (or in the sound of the music, somehow) that's supposed to be real; whether the artist's biography supports it is a side issue at most. This goes for folk music, too; I really don't see a difference. Tim seems to be wanting to set up hip-hop as some kind of special case, but I still don't get why it would deserve to be one. Maybe I was misunderstanding Tim's interesting but cryptic comments, though. And I haven't read the last 20 or so posts, so who knows, maybe this question has already been answered, and I just didn't notice it yet.

If you could show me an example of a pop star's mediocre sister being molded like play-doh and then turning out really good music, I'd be impressed.

CONTROL
RHYTHM NATION 1814

Feminists and Feminist Sympathizers Unite: A Bold Call for Pazz & Jop Activism

I'm not trying to construct a special case for hip hop (refer me to what I said that implied that and i'll rephrase it) - all I'm saying in relation to areas like hip hop and dance is that a) their media don't have anything like the widespread legitimacy of the rock press, and b) they mostly learnt their rockist tendencies from rock (who learnt it from other genres, yes).

The problem with the Ashlee Simpson lip-sync example is that there are two levels of perceived authenticity/inauthenticity. One is the level of performer, as in, "She can't pull off live vocals -- she's a no-talent fraud." Even people who don't care whether Ashlee has "lived what she sings" might feel this way. But her lip-synching might also reinforce in the minds of some, who do care, that she is in fact the manufactured pop star little sister of a manufactured pop star.

I don't know if there's been any shift since then, but it'll be interesting to see how her screw-up is taken versus how Milli Vanilli's was (essentially destroyed their career).

You are a hopeless cause and I assume they only keep you at the Sun-Times because nobody else was using those extra-wide chairs Ebert demanded. Yes, I know such jokes are puerile and allow you to dismiss my other statements but BY GOD THERE IS NO OTHER LOGICAL EXPLANATION!!!

MY BLOOD IS BOILING!!!

Kot: "But what the Pixies did was take that avant-garde influence, and apply it to catchy pop songs. I don't think there's anything wrong with that."

DeRo: "So are you calling me a rockist?"

Kot: "Uh, no, I'm just calling you myopic when it comes to the Pixies."

I don't know how Kot puts up with this guy. And Kot isn't exactly a bastion of novelty himself.

I'm sorry, I know I'm just fanning the flames here, but it's grotesquely fascinating to listen to.

-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), November 10th, 2004 10:58 PM. (jaymc) (link)

I'd probably call in if I was in the area. At least once.

R. Kelly and Chicagoans Against DeRogatis, "Put Down The Donut (And Eat A Dick)" (prod. Steve Albini; Thrill Jockey, 2005)

"So art should be judged based on the number of units moved?"

"No, I'm just saying..."

"So Hillary Duff is more influential than the Pixies?"

"No..."

"I mean, you could make that argument. Kelefa Sanneh just made that argument in last Sunday's New York Times."

those stupid things tend to be stupid because they ARE rockist.

Miccio i love you

to backtrack a lot back to some of the arguments upthread, something i read recently (donald kuspit on modernism, specifically) made me wonder about rockist "self-hatred", specifically in the sense that the demand of rock to 'stand the test of time' actually exposes a problematized relationship with historicity, with the processes of pop. rockism's call for musical longevity (well, immortality, really) requires a mode of communication that, taking place in some eternal metaphysical present moment alone, is actually (despite claims to trend-transcending meaningfulness) a paradoxically narrow and shallow channel of communication.

Scott, do you have a link to that article?

To the Editor:

Kelefa Sanneh did me a disservice when he quoted my published review of Avril Lavigne and implied that I am a member of this dreaded club of rockists - a group he contends is sorely out of touch with popular music. In my work for the Chicago Sun-Times and in numerous magazines and books, I have railed against nostalgia and baby boomer myopia and have issued calls identical to the one ending Mr.Sanneh's essay: "Let's stop trying to hammer young stars into old categories." Because I was never offered the opportunity to refute or respond to the assertion that I am a rockist, I would like to request a correction: "Än article on Oct.31 suggested that Jim DeRogatis is a rockist; he denies this and contends that, like many critics of popular music, he is simply loud-mouthed, opinionated, and occasionally wrong (in our own critic's view)."

Jim Derogatis
Chicago

I agree with a lot of the anti-rockist positions, but something won't let me go all the way. Maybe I just resist absolutes. See, I think both John Coltrane's "Chasin' the Trane" from Live at the Village Vanguard, and Kelis's "Milkshake" are great tracks, but deep in my heart I can't say that let myself believe that the two are of equal value. It would be like putting a lifelong friend on the same level as a guy from work that I have a good time hanging out with.

i don't think not being a rockist requires you to like coltrane and kelis equally. that's just plain silly. you're still allowed to have opinions. you're still allowed to hate shit that everyone likes, or to love stuff that everyone likes. no one's taking your taste away from you, though perhaps they ARE asking you to re-examine why you have certain tastes and to make you think about that.

(xpost)

It's an honest criticism -- more honest than I think some might be willing to admit -- but at the same time I think it shows a sign of unwarranted suspicion to assume that second position is where people are starting from. Not that I'm saying you're doing this! But it's kinda depressing to have to always think of that -- personally, I think if someone says they like something, I'll be more than happy to take that at face value.

I also think it's possible, as I said above, that people sometimes use certain narratives to justify what they just like or don't like on a visceral level. Many people, not just rockist music critics, bring up authenticity -- they say they like that an artist is "real" or don't like that they seem "fake". Of course they really just mean that the artist is *convincing* -- their actual realness or fakeness can't possibly be judged from the music. Maybe it's sort of a suspension of disbelief thing, like professional wrestling or an engrossing movie. Perhaps I am rambling now.

well, i definitely like my music to be catchy, except for those times when i don't.

i don't think catchiness or killer hookiness has anything to do with rockism or anti-rockism, though i do tend to think they're pretty good qualities for a song to have. and i don't think anyone here would suggest they DON'T want music that is stimulating, intense, fulfilling and challenging.

i think the question is more along the lines of: were you open to the possibility, before you listened to it, that kelis' "milkshake" COULD BE as stimulating, intense, fulfilling and challenging as "chasin' the trane"? are you open to the possibility that any given piece of music can be stimulating and fulfilling regardless of the means and circumstances of its production, regardless of the arena in which it is created, and regardless of the life story of its creator? can you listen without those prejudices?

I'd like to believe I am, but the honest answer is probably no. I spent years listening to and reading about Coltrane, so the myth I've built up around him can't help but infect my listening. Of course I could argue that the Kelis song is static and repetitive and doesn't take much to thoroughly digest as a result, whereas there is enough going on in Chasin' to stand up to endless repeated listenings. I still thought "Milkshake" was a strangely mind-blowing song when I heard it.

But I still wonder if anti-rockists are susceptible to the opposite trap -- the sort of equivocation that sometimes goes on with journalists who are earnestly trying to avoid being biased.

Absolutely. The problem with rockism is not liking rock music, it's privileging a particular narrative to discuss this visceral pleasure, which has the effect of either implicitly or explicitly rejecting all other narratives.

Yes, and also in the position of deciding what is rockist and what isn't.

Rockism has long been polarizing, not just because it characterizes certain strains of thinking, but because the people who obsess about rockism have a tendency to assume higher ground.

I do think music criticism is better if it doesn't stray to either extreme (and to be fair, most doesn't).

funny that you should pick that particular piece, hurting. a century ago a lot of people couldn't get used to the idea that someone might someday evaluate the rite of spring and mozart on the same grounds.

Hmm. I don't know if I would evaluate them on the same grounds either, but I suppose I do unconsciously see them as more like each other than either is like punk, which is perhaps wrong-headed.

Maybe if the concept had more tangible, coherent boundaries then it would be easier to grasp.

(i hope)

http://www.papaink.org/pictures/5005.jpg

Then this evening, somebody named Mered!th Oakes (sp?) reviewed the new Kings of Convenience on All Things Considered, praising it for being "acoustic" and closing her review with astonishment that such naturally fine music could come from the country that gave us "the awful one-hit wonder band aHa." !!! That's it, Oakes -- you're on the list!

meredith ochs. she had a great long-running radio show on WFMU, and is a damn good writer. she's a twang fan. whether that makes her a rockist or not, i have no idea. but she'd probably plead guilty to being a twangist.

I think this is largely a defensive reaction. I think if we listed all the times someone came on this board and said "dude, how can you possibly like Britney Spears?!? She is intrinsically crap!!" (or some random equivalent of this. And yes, Hurting did this only a few days ago) it would be much longer than any list of the reverse happening.

The sense of "assuming higher ground" is also perhaps a result of said rockist arguments usually being so poorly articulated - anti-rockists in the true sense have usually thought a lot about what they're talking about and can argue their case more effectively. Most of the reasoned anti-anti-rockist arguments on this board tend closer to ambivalence than any sort of actual opposition - or at least I think this is the case. I might be biased by my own position. Can anyone point out a really good example of a pro-rockist position staked out on this board? Which is more than just saying "I agree with anti-rockists in principle but don't like much pop music at the moment and feel irritated by the general insistence that I should"?

That last criticism (which I would consider to be the typical "ambivalent" anti-anti-rockist position) I think mostly stems from a perhaps erroneous assumption about the way that most of the "regulars" (and I focus specifically on them because they are the ones in a position to create an ILX critical tendency and perhaps even orthodoxy) talk and think about music on this board.

It's often alleged that the celebration of pop on this board is uncritical and enforced, an inverted reflection of the very sort of bad-thinking which characterises rockist reception and criticism. The running "best singles of 2004" (or 2003 or etc.) list has in the past been held up as an example of this. The suggestion seems to be that while anti-rockists/popists are quick to jump on any evidence of rockist thinking, they apply very little energy in being self-aware or self-critical, or in thinking deeply about the music which they like beyond facile comments about it being catchy or fun.

I think this does a disservice to many of the posters on this board who do like pop and yet talk about it in a critical manner - one of the most striking aspects of such discussions is the strong dissent over which pop music works and why it works. I place a strong personal emphasis on trying to think through the music which I enjoy, but I also like to think such a position is not in the minority among regulars on this board. To focus on certain threads which convey the impression of uncritical celebration is to ignore the multitude of threads which contradict this. It's especially distorting considering threads such as the one I listed are a) not designed to facilitate critical discussion; and b) replicated right across the rockist/anti-rockist divide on the board in the form of OPOs and other such threads.

I feel like mentioning here the number of threads that have been started in the past which seemed to challenge the legitimacy of current pop music, and which have resulted in long, intricate debates. I'm thinking of Pinefox's "why is pop music so bad" thread, or N.'s "what about the elephants" thread or Nabisco's "Cult of the New" (was that it?) thread as examples here.

What's often not talked about much is the fact that anti-rockists can still like a lot of rock music (or jazz music, or...) and can still appreciate the sort of things that rock music can do which are also valorised by died in the wool rockists. I can understand and sympathise with Ned being slightly concerned about a possible orthodoxy of anti-rockism. As someone who identifies with the term though, I don't feel any contradiction in liking a helluva lot of the same rock music as Ned does.

There are of course examples of people expressing dismay that certain types of music are liked by members of the board more than other types of music - see the ILM 90s poll thread. But such expressions again seem to span the rockist/anti-rockist divide, or ignore it completely - eg. saying that there should be more hip hop on the list and less Saint Etienne does not seem to be a criticism that could be mapped on to any rockist/anti-rockist position.

This is more or less the summation of the response thread to Jess' noise article in SW -> replace "anti-rockists" with "noize dudes" and "rock" with "other types of music".

I think there is some truth to this, to be fair...it would definitely be flat-out wrong to suggest that this is the dominant way ILM approaches music, but it does become very difficult to honestly discuss your opinions on Britney Spears just because people will ASSUME you dislike her for rockist reasons - I feel like i have to constantly reassure ppl that the reason I don't like it is because it just doesn't strike me as particularly interesting, sort of middle-of-the-road like a mediocre g-unit track, rather than some sort of anti-bubblegum standpoint (which anyone who has paid attention to my posts on music would probably agree is not an attitude i have).

Which is not to say that you're not allowed to have an opinion on Britney's voice, but rather that it's better to think about how and why Britney's style of singing irritates you (and I mean "you" generally, not as in you specifically dee) rather than appeal to fictional universal standards regarding "proper" singing which then aren't actually applied universally.

I happen to like Britney's vocals *most* of the time - although what I've found interesting is that how I perceive them will depend on how I perceive the specific song. On the songs I love her vocals sound great, on the songs I dislike they actively annoy me. And I suspect this is because Britney's vocals are so recognisable, so tied up in the myth of herself which she propogates that in instances where the myth seems distasteful the vocals do to. Conversely, what some might consider a lack of craft is a big part of what makes her best stuff work - "Born To Make You Happy" would fall flat if it was sung by Aaliyah, for instance.

And I'd say that a lot of people's insecurity when criticising Britney (including your own dee) is as much a result of an anxiousness to distinguish oneself from posters like Hurting and especially Sasha as it is a desire to please the pro-Britney contingent. But even if that's not the case, if the primary objection to anti-rockism is that it means you can no longer say "I think Britney is shit" without qualifying it with more reasoned criticism, then I fail to see what the problem is. It's not like you don't jump on me when I make some sly reference to DJ Premier or something (and I should note on that issue that I think you're misreading the "anti-Illmatic" sentiments of this board - a lot of the people who make digs at hip hop classicism fucking love that record and other similar records, myself included - but that's neither here nor there).

as for Illmatic - its not just that album, you are probbly right that most people digging at the classicists DO love a lot of that stuff, its more the sense I get that people think that because Miami Bass and Screw were UNDERrated that NYC is inherently OVERrated. New York hip-hop (and hip-hop in the New York mold - Pharcyde, etc.) was justly praised for a lot of reasons, I think, and it DID have positive qualities that distinguished it from more unsung forms of h-h. I posted about this a couple days ago when we were discussing Rolling Stone's take on hip-hop, where they've given one hip-hop album 5 stars, and it was by the beastie boys - I joked that "hey ILM, Rolling stone agrees, the canon is overrated!" after someone posted the ratings given to PE and Illmatic (among others). It just seems a lot of the time that many of the critics who frequent this forum probably wouldn't have given hip-hop from that period much shine at the time, and now they can dismiss it easily because the critics who DO investigate less-well known forms of music say that early 90s NYC was overrated.

This is not a rhetorical dare-you question here, but an aesthetic critical inquiry: what does Britney do -- with her voice alone -- that Debbie Gibson didn't?

The critical embrace of say crunk is a pretty recent and I would also say highly localised phenomenon - I'd suggest that ILM is still in the minority wrt general critical opinion on that score. There has been a huge influx of interest in non-undie hip hop in the past few years resulting in people championing Outkast and Kanye who might never have heard Illmatic or Breaking the Atoms or Low End Theory or The Infamous or etc (but may have liked say J5 or The Roots). However these people are not really the same people who were listening to L'Trimm in the 90s or T.I. now.

What I would say is that there is definitely a trend among the sort of people who hype-hype-hype J Dilla or Madlib towards revering "quality" hip hop a la Premier in a way that is both terminally unexciting and, I find, actually misinterprets a lot of what makes people like Premier (and J Dilla and Madlib) good. It's not the music that is the problem here but that whole emphasis on the beat-digging aesthetic in the critical reception of it - emphasising the boring issues of craft and respect for heritage and encyolpaedic musical knowledge rather than the most important issue which is impact (physical, sonic, emotional etc.)

Re Britney's voice: when it works I think it's most appealing quality is its thickness (there's at times a certain gutteral quality to it), which can suggest, for me at least, a sense of it being loaded with emotion. Britney often does sound like she has to struggle to be heard within her own songs, but this can be quite an effective sound actually - "Born To Make You Happy" is one of a very short list of chartpop ballads where the performance actually sounds pained, like Britney's actually choking on her own distress. Whitney's "I Have Nothing" is similar in this regard. It may be relevant as well (at least in terms of my fondness for them) that both of these are high stakes declarations of love and devotion, a denial of a separate and individual personality outside of the relationship which is being addressed.

Sadly, no. I thought they reran it in the wee hours, but their schedule doesn't say anything about that. My favorite of the callers was a girl who declared herself a 15-year-old rockist and told Kelefa that the problem with Ashlee Simpson isn't her lack of rockingness, it's that she sucks.

Another thing is that early 90s NYC hip-hop (along with west coast gangsta circa The Chronic) had a powerful impact on me when I was young - when I was 10 I would huddle around a radio listening to stations that played Gang Starr and the Pharcyde and Scarface and I loved it ALL, I have very specific memories of how fertile a period it was, it seemed like EVERY song I heard on hip-hop stations then were great, and this was affirmed years later when I investigated the music I used to tape from the radio to discover that even the songs without canonical presence (Domino's "Sweet Potato Pie" is one of the best songs ever!!!) held lots of resonance with me.

I also feel that while corny indie fuxx worshipping Illmatic is annoying, the rock version of the hip-hop canon is even MORE irritating - it goes Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys, De La Soul (everyone knows Prince Paul was the best producer from the early 90s!1!1!) and maybe even Arrested Development! (although it seems Wu-Tang has enough clout these days to take its place firmly within the rock canon - it helps that they made some ridiculously strong albums and so are an easy fit within an album-based canon). This is usually followed by west coast gangsta tracks that have some sort of novelty appeal - "Today Was a Good Day," "Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" (rather than say "The Nigga You Love to Hate" or "Mind Playing Tricks on Me," which I think are better tracks by the same artists that are less-popular than the former two, yet I enjoy considerably more).

So I sort of feel like fighting a multi-headed hydra here or something, on one hand the rock fans who have a cursory knowledge of the period and then on the other hand the brits who see hip-hop as picking up where dance music left off (and therefore dance music superseding any hip-hop that was being made at the same time as dance music's fertile period) and then the people who (i feel) overreact to the lack of support for miami bass by dismissing NYC wholly and then I've still got the corny hip-hop indie fuxx behind me trying to stab me for saying that Cash Money created some of the best records of the 90s!

So anyway...I'm rambling but that's my frustration.

Do not ignore what I now realize to be the Office Space-derived further cachet of this song.

NB. my own relationship is not like that at all, and I think in life I'm predisposed against co-dependence. But I can enjoy representations of it.

I probably did -- is it in the archives? And you've been creepy yourself? EW GET AWAY. ;-)

Keep in mind that if there's a belief that the whole point of La Brit is that she's 'everybody's' -- as I've seen advanced here and there, with somewhat unsavory subtexts -- then presumably she exercises what constitutes the type of reaction I argue existed for Schulz and Peel, IE she makes every effort of hers feel like an individual conversation, even when it clearly isn't meant to be so. (The difference would be regarded as that Schulz/Peel would be seen to have done that 'intentionally' whereas Brit could never be allowed that ability of self-control of image/product.)

Ned can you elaborate here? I can think of a number of different meanings to this, some unsavoury yes. But most I would disagree with I think.

In otherwards, like Tim notes upthread, the fact that he can enjoy *and talk* a lot of things that falls under the umbrella of 'rockism-approved' -- obscurer, not necessarily of the zeitgeist, whatever you'd like to call it -- is somehow negated or ignored everytime and anytime he writes a celebration or criticism of something omnipresent, 'obvious,' 'now,' which as it happens is exactly what Tim regularly does as a matter of course. DeRo would look at Skykicking and draw immediate and incorrect conclusions about what Tim solely listens to, for instance, and if Tim deigned to respond to such nonsense by saying, "Well, YOU KNOW, I can talk about, for instance, Ani DiFranco and Kitchens of Distinction and whatever until the cows come home, and when I feel like I do talk about things like that which move me," DeRo wouldn't believe it or would feel that Tim is somehow wasting his time by not always addressing that side of his listening. It's not the proof that Tim could do that that would be desired by DeRo, it would be a sense of 'committing' to do that CONSTANTLY -- a demand which of course Tim is under absolutely NO obligation to fulfill, and which in fact doesn't exist as a demand from his standpoint at all, it's just a limiting form of nonsense that just simply doesn't apply.

Ah, thank ya! Sometimes I do wonder about what I'm writing. Well, maybe most of the time.

My own defensiveness on this issue, I think, is that charges of rockism often imply dogma or at very least, degrade what I would consider legitimate criticism under the banner of righteous indignation. That Ian Curtis can or cannot hold pitch isn't necessarily comparable to Brittney's ability to do so or not--they're different creatures operating in different contexts, and it seems that identifying those contexts is relevant to the critical process. For many people, appreciation for music is an essential aspect of enjoyment--that Beethooven was deaf adds to my appreciation of his 9th Symphony, and in turn, makes me value it more, revel in the astonishment. That the guys in Milli Vanilli didn't sing on their own album seems relevant--to me, the fraud lessens the value of the music to me. If that's rockist, then I'm fine with being a rockist. Some of Chopin's pieces are so difficult to play, that they are rarely played perfectly. Is it rockist to be critical of a recording that overdubs mistakes on one of those issues or is it rockist to assume that the flaws are the purist expression of the composer's work?

As noted, part of the rockist blowback comes from poor or lazy communication (writing). But even then, I'm not so convinced that rockism is essentially perjorative. Or, any more perjorative than any other set of prejudices that a critic uses.

Hm, hold up a bit. So in otherwards, the 'charge' results in an implication that there is an implicit dogma being held in opposition, which exists even if it's not conscious? I think that's already been addressed by Tim and others upthread -- the argument being that a self-aware 'anti-rockism' (quotes incredibly intentional) must also question itself for its own dogmatic tendencies, to avoid them.

Yeah Ned, Tim addressed it fairly well, though I don't think he made the gray area any smaller. Which is most of my problem with the concept of rockism.

To Spencer--bio info is textbook rockism, but my point is that rockism tends to be wholly perjorative even on the occasions where rockism may take the form of legitimate, relevant, worthy criticism. Am I missing something?

I don't think I said exactly that. I just asked whether there wasn't some irony or sense of camp in people's enjoyment of Britney. People said no, and I was satisfied.

"The sense of "assuming higher ground" is also perhaps a result of said rockist arguments usually being so poorly articulated - anti-rockists in the true sense have usually thought a lot about what they're talking about and can argue their case more effectively. Most of the reasoned anti-anti-rockist arguments on this board tend closer to ambivalence than any sort of actual opposition"

But isn't that because you're talking about something that is arguably an orthodoxy (anti-rockism) versus something that is merely a resistance to an orthodoxy (anti-anti-rockism by non-rockists)?

Can anyone point out a really good example of a pro-rockist position staked out on this board? Which is more than just saying "I agree with anti-rockists in principle but don't like much pop music at the moment and feel irritated by the general insistence that I should"?

That pretty much sums up how I feel, so I'm not sure why you singled me out.

Oh man and the same day I post the above, guess what gets posted in the "OK! OK!" thread by three different people:

1. I'm mystified by the Geto Boys placing. The track's just not very good. I like the sample, but 2nd II None did more with it on "If You Want It". Was there some vote bloc that lobbied to place it so high? I mean, for 90s gangsta rap there's about 100 better tracks!

2. I have to say, I just downloaded it tonight and wasn't that impressed. I liked "Regulate," though -- which I had heard before but probably not since the mid-90s.

3. "Damn it Feels Good to Be a Gangsta" >>>>> "Mind Playing Tricks on Me"

Myth is perhaps an inaccurate or deceptive word to use here, as I'm referring more specifically to the sense of a coherent character that is expressed by each individual song - eg. "Sometimes" expresses the myth that the character of "Britney" is shy and unable to express herself, while other songs express the exact opposite. I'm not sure if this is rockism; I'm not sure if the limits of anti-rockism encompass a suspicion of the concept of character as well as the concept of author/auteur. I suspect it doesn't mostly, but it goes without saying that we are not dealing with anti-rockism but anti-rockisms.

"I don't think I said exactly that. I just asked whether there wasn't some irony or sense of camp in people's enjoyment of Britney. People said no, and I was satisfied."

Sorry Hurting, I may have confused you with Sasha momentarily. But to use yet another example I might refer to Alex in NYC's ceaseless campaign against pop pabulum.

"But isn't that because you're talking about something that is arguably an orthodoxy (anti-rockism) versus something that is merely a resistance to an orthodoxy (anti-anti-rockism by non-rockists)?"

This question rather insidiously equates any thesis or proposition which its speaker believes in with orthodoxy. There is a good argument to be made that this is in fact the case, but considering your other statements on this thread and elsewhere Hurting I think it would be inconsistent for you to be the one to make it.

"That Ian Curtis can or cannot hold pitch isn't necessarily comparable to Brittney's ability to do so or not--they're different creatures operating in different contexts, and it seems that identifying those contexts is relevant to the critical process."

This is true but I think a lot of the time these "contexts" applied in judgment do more harm than good, because they're applied so unthinkingly ("of course Ian Curtis's singing limitations add something to Joy Division's music; of course Britney's detract from hers).

I just stumbled across this quote from Claire Colebrook re Deleuze: "The problem, for Deleuze, that dominates common sense and everyday life, and that thereby leads to unthinking philosophy, is the lazy and undifferentiated attachment of concepts to affects and percepts. Green means go; darkness means negativity; 'man' is white; tartan, haggis and Burns are what it means to be Scottish. We no longer encounter affects - allowing ourselfs to respond, become or question differences. We attach affects habitually to everyday concepts; we pass all too readily from affect to concept. For Deleuze this is the banality and rigidity of opinion, which underpins a society geared to 'communication' or the maximum circulation of information without ambiguity or distortion."

When we say that Ian Curtis operates in a certain context that is different to Britney, one meaning this might have is that we attach the affect of Ian Curtis's vocals to the concept of rock (specifically punk etc.), while conversely we attach the affect of Britney's to the concept of pop, perhaps specifically R&B-derived pop. This is all fine as far as it goes, but it undeniably works to limit the scope of potential experience of the affect (its affect-ivity) by constructing a short-circuit-like habitual interpretation that both ignores or glosses over the potent differences subsisting in any and every vocal performance, and (partly as a result of the previous operation) undermines engagement with the affect itself in favour of an engagement with the concept which stands in for that affect.

I can't deny regularly using the concept of style or genre as a point of enquiry when talking about music, but I think what needs to be foregrounded is that style (as an overarching concept) is only a standardised and homogenised conglomerate of mass of individual, differential affects, and therefore it's vital to think before style or genre, ie. "how does this music create style" rather than "what style is this music reflective of". Indeed, perhaps my attraction to music which seems highly regulated by the rules of style and genre (R&B, say, or certain strains of dance music) is partly motivated by an interest in examining the relationship between style as a concept and individual pieces of music as affective apparatuses.

A statement like this makes rockism seem situational.

I think what needs to be foregrounded is that style (as an overarching concept) is only a standardised and homogenised conglomerate of mass of individual, differential affects, and therefore it's vital to think before style or genre, ie. "how does this music create style" rather than "what style is this music reflective of"

Possibly, but again I see this as a slipperly slope more reliant on individuals and thus, works against a tangible definition of rockism. And you're kind of creating a chicken-or-egg argument in a sense--it would seem that music is more an expression or reflection of style, more of a contributor than an originator of style. Is what I'm saying that charges of rockism are in itself possibly as perjorative as lazily attaching other affects or precepts? Probably. It seems to me that charging rockism as a critique doesn't necessarily insulate from a foundation of equally negative affects or precepts.

I think it's impossible to have both a tangible *and* theoretically reasoned, watertight definition of rockism. See also "literature", "democracy", "knowledge", "being".

It may be impossible to have a theoretically reasoned definition of literature, knowledge et al., but this may be more to do with the inherent fuzziness of the terms rather than philosophical contradictions, whereas with rockism I think you hit a philosophical wall. It's simply not possible to talk about the spuriousness of the concept of authenticity without setting up a meta-authenticity.

Haven't you heard? Derrida's dead.

I agree with your first point, except that I think the problem with "rockism" is that it's a fuzzy term as well, not that it hits a philosophical wall. Mind you I think I'm more sympathetic to continental philosophy and disagree with you on the meta-authenticity score.

Furthermore, examining pop music in particular tends to pose these questions in a much more immediate and direct way for even elementary construction of knowledge than does, e.g. examining evolutionary biology, or political history for that matter. The initial *point* of a politician, so to speak, is the political actions they accomplish (communication of course being linked to this). The *point* of a song, on the other hand, is rather obviously in the responses it elicits.

Get it?

"This is hardly limited to just Britney and is hardly limited only to singers. I'm not explaining this very well but I believe the term Reynolds used was 'robo-ho,' the implication being that she is mechanistic, available and up for grabs for whoever 'pays' -- which complicates it further."

I think this was actually one of Reynolds' more bullshit moments - it has nothing to do with the music and everything to do with peripheral stuff like crazy old guys offering millions to pop Britney's cherry. This idea that Britney is "for everybody" in that whole mass-produced, million-selling, lowest common denominator sense being the most pertinent thing one can say about her music is irritating not so much because it's unfair to Britney's music, but because it totally ignores so much of what is interesting about the issue you raised, Ned....

Which is, namely, how are the dynamics of a seemingly "personal" connection with a musical artist or artifact affected by that artist or artifact's omnipresence? Can "Born To Make You Happy" be "for me" and yet simultaneously be no 1 on the charts (and thus "for everyone")? I think this is a really fascinating area to think about, because of the way artists and music which are universally used are so casually and routinely utilised and instrumentalised among social groups. I think I once wrote on Skykicking about how I went to a party where this group of girls did this odd dance routine they'd worked out in their spare time at school to Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me" and I found it quite affecting.

For me personally, I don't feel any noticeable difference between my personal connection with Britney and that with, say, Stina Nordenstam, but it's possibly because I don't move in a social context wherein "Born To Make You Happy" is a common cultural touchstone. It's nice that you bring up Ani DiFranco, because she's one example where the way in which she is embraced by certain social groups at uni (along with Michael Franti etc.) - groups which I am a part of - frequently makes me feel quite conflicted about my personal connection to so much of her music. A song like "Your Next Bold Move", which would chime in so well with all my friends' political sentiments, took me ages to admit to myself that I loved precisely because I felt targeted by it, perhaps in the same way many people feel uncomforatbly targeted by chart pop.

An article on Oct. 31 about rockism - favoritism toward traditional rock 'n' roll over producer-driven genres like disco, rhythm-and-blues and hip-hop - misstated the Web address for the Internet forum I Love Music, where rockism is often debated. It is www.ilxor.com, not ilovemusic.com.

Film Rockism-friend or foe?

Is that a metaphor for the Brits evacuating/Americans taking over?

*flees*

Rockism draws for its legitimacy on functionalism. Functionalism draws for its legitimacy on authenticity. Authenticity draws for its legitimacy on metaphysics. Before you know it, you've gone from talking about 'bass, drums, guitars' to talking about 'invisible realities'.

By the way, I've always found it really lovely that the most rockist movement of recent music history, punk, had at its centre a figure as anti-rockist as Malcolm McLaren. A man who saw how punk was being used to establish a new puritanism, and acted swiftly (by making the deliberately 'novelty' late Sex Pistols singles and 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle') to sabotage and undermine the rockism. Did he succeed? Yes, in Britain. In America, no.

btw, I don't think rockism is necessarily "not about production", only one form of it. Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" engendered a whole cult of production and "hi-fi perfection".

I think we have to look at prog and punk and pop together, and answer our rockist criteria questions of each of them.

Is music all about 'bass drums guitars'?

Prog: No. Punk: yes. Pop: No.

Is it about artists and songs, not about production?

Prog: No. Punk: yes. Pop: No.

Does a good artist keep it real?

Prog: No. Punk: yes. Pop: No.

Are some artists more real than others?

Prog: Possibly those who went to music school. Punk: yes. Pop: No. (Mr Blobby and Frank Sidebottom to thread.)

Are good songs timeless?

Prog: Yes. Punk: No, there's no future. Pop: No, they're deleting the record next week.

Did they 'get music right' at some point in the past?

Prog: yes. Punk: Maybe Iggy or the Dolls did, yeah. Pop: Nah.

Does music have value to the extent that it's one person emoting sincerely?

Prog: No, when the singer leaves we're going instrumental. Punk: 'We mean it, man... ha ha ha!. Pop: No, but faking it can shift units.

Is the real both very important and, today, absent?

Prog: Have you read Tolkein? Punk: England's dreaming! Pop: Heaven's in your kiss.

not so sure about that punk "yes." punk, at least in its '70s form, was largely defined by sound and presentation, as opposed to the actual songs, wasn't it?

Incidentally, there's nothing more dud than MTV pop-punk/rap-metal bands doing *ironic* covers of non-rock pop songs. It feels like the baseball team making fun of the football team for being jocks or something.

"If the songwriter's name is on the cover, if it says 'Toxic' by Laura Perry [sic] or whatever, then that's a different story. But it says Britney Spears on the cover, so I have to review Britney Spears for who she is: someone who's not a good singer and who doesn't write her own songs."

Later in the conversation, I maligned DeRogatis, to which she replied, "Oh you know he's a very good friend of mine." OF COURSE.

(The real problem here is that "Toxic," while not bad, is not great either, so the idea of Local H covering it just continues the meh.)

http://www.localh.com/toxic.html

Need I point out the irony of this statement in a discussion of a COVER SONG?

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

ign'nt muthfucker don't know his local h! Get one Pack Up The Cats.

(brit's version is better, btw - I love both, though)

i hope to christ he had to research that list of rock bands who have covered pop tunes. no one should actually just know that shit.

The degree depends on the song/track. For example, in Tori Alamaze's "Don't Cha", the chorus, with it's chord progression and vocal hook, could be turned into a successful rock song, however, the success of the intro and verses rely on a lot of very production specific mood and texture (timbre) in the rhythm track and the eerie organ.

Limbeck
Dynamite Boy
New Found Glory
Chronic Overboogie
Stretch Arm Strong
Further Seems Forever
The Starting Line

Yeah, I discovered the greatness of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" when I heard the Weird Al version.

I was with him up until "Christina Aguilera is every bit as radical as 70s punk."

does Sanneh write about music anymore? a quick glance at his recent New Yorker stuff shows politics, sports, books, practically anything but music.

xp that xtina album cycle did have some legitimate challenging (in the good way) moments

Knowing how hard it is for writers who start out in music to make a living from not writing about music, I'm not surprised Kelefa's grabbing the opportunity. It's not like there aren't other people covering music at the New Yorker. I've always wondered why SFJ doesn't do longform though.

did mr snrub take a decade to read the piece or

Knowing how hard it is for writers who start out in music to make a living from not writing about music, I'm not surprised Kelefa's grabbing the opportunity. It's not like there aren't other people covering music at the New Yorker. I've always wondered why SFJ doesn't do longform though.

― What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL), Wednesday, June 4, 2014 5:37 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it's not shocking, especially since Sanneh always seemed like he had interests outside music and an ability to write about other things. good for him, tbh. it was just weird to realize that a music critic who's had a lengthy ILM thread dedicated to him has quietly moved on to other subjects.

In 2008 when he joined the New Yorker, I thought he made it clear he was gonna write about non-music subjects

My hunch is that all music writers have interests outside music and the vast majority have the ability to write about them but there aren't many publications like the New Yorker that avoid pigeonholing and say "Hey if you can write well about x maybe you can write well about y and z." Most titles say "You're the x guy. Write about x until you die."

I was just more surprised he left the New York Times to go to the New Yorker. Writer John Leland who wrote great music pieces for Spin way back in the '80s, moved to the NY Times long ago where he has mostly written non-Music stuff. So it can be done.

did mr snrub take a decade to read the piece or

― lex pretend, Wednesday, June 4, 2014 12:21 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm a little slow.

this is when I was working at Tower (Records), with coworkers who would make anyone anti-rockist 4 life.