Do Americans tend to be more rockist than Europeans?

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If so, why?

― always the traffic, always the lights, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:00 (twenty years ago)

Oh, this'll end badly.

― Jetlag Willy (noodle vague), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:03 (twenty years ago)

we'll need a shitload of popcorn for this one.

― moley, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:08 (twenty years ago)

Since popular music genres are mostly American in origin, it's harder for Europeans to play the "authenticity" card. But we're so far on from the roots of rock'n'roll now that I'm not sure that matters.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:11 (twenty years ago)

I always thought that the cult of the top 40 in the UK made Brits a lot more disposed to popism, but I'm not sure that translates into Americans being more rockist.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:18 (twenty years ago)

The answer is an emthatic no. Next.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:21 (twenty years ago)

Well I'm not so sure that the answer is such an "emthatic" no. After all, the UK has thrown up more theatrical Bowie-esque types of stars than the US, the US has thrown up more rootsy Springsteen-esque types of stars than the UK etc...

― always the traffic, always the lights, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:25 (twenty years ago)

hey look, you mistyped empthatic too! what are the chances etc.

After all, the UK has thrown up more theatrical Bowie-esque types of stars than the US, the US has thrown up more rootsy Springsteen-esque types of stars than the UK etc.

What does this prove? The US has thrown up more/better rappers (whether gangsta, backpacker or whatever), gay disco and house producers etc. too.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:28 (twenty years ago)

Most of the "anti-rockists'" favourite music seems to be from the US....

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:30 (twenty years ago)

I'd've said popular music genres were mostly European and African in origin, mushed together and mutated in the States, and so on back and forth back and forth like Cameo said.

― Jetlag Willy (noodle vague), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:35 (twenty years ago)

A lot of today's genres did also go through a lot of mutation in the UK from the mid 60s onwards.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

xpost to azzahole

I'm not sure it proves too much. I just don't think the answer is as emphatic as you seemed to think it was. I'd guess there's a stronger tradition of the authentic in the US, and a stronger celebration of artifice in the UK. But of course popular music is such a broad stream you're always going to find plenty of counter-examples. As for rap, again it's largely American in inspiration and has generated its own form of rockism, and UK rappers are different in that regard.

― always the traffic, always the lights, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:39 (twenty years ago)

I think it's hard to think of a British equivalent of Bob Dylan, for example - a middle-class Jewish boy who claimed a direct artistic lineage from Woody Guthrie, ie he was making claims of authenticity for his music. The Beatles or the Stones were ripping off Elvis or Little Richard or whoever, but they weren't claiming some pure lineage from them. They were taking this stuff and doing something different with it, maybe marrying it up with some British music hall traditions, or messing with it in the studio etc...

― always the traffic, always the lights, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:45 (twenty years ago)

The no remains emfatik to me because rockism is practically the same wherever it is, regardless of how geographic size affects cultural filtering and dissemination, though if anything I would've said despite rife conservatism and commercial monoculture the sheer range and abundance of different subcultures in the US combined with the nation's 'newness' and the enterprise culture that ties in with that, it's the other way round.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

erm there's a huge British folk tradition which is all about 'claims to authenticity' and lineage etc

― Andrew L of Brockley, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 11:18 (twenty years ago)

Agreed, but did that tradition throw up anyone as emblematic or huge as Dylan? The British music that became huge in the sixties was not really about making claims to authenticity, the opposite was the case.

― always the traffic, always the lights, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 11:24 (twenty years ago)

The answer is so obviously yes. For all the obvious reasons. Obvious, really.

― bugged out, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

Because Europeans go out and dance a fuckton more than Americans do. Case closed.

― Hillary Brown (Hillary Brown), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 11:48 (twenty years ago)

Or is it because Europeans tend to dance better to drum'n'bass?

― Jena (JenaP), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 12:36 (twenty years ago)

Don't forget, you gave us Oasis.

― k/l (Ken L), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

"Or is it because Europeans tend to dance better to drum'n'bass?"

Who doesn't?

― Hillary Brown (Hillary Brown), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 12:41 (twenty years ago)

Um...aren't you kind of ignoring a pretty huge portion of Bob Dylan's career? Dylan's the ultimate fake in many ways.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

hey, a rockism thread! : D

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

Jim DeRogatis
Sunday June 20, 2004
The Observer
The first thing to say is: you Brits have good taste - certainly much better than us Yanks. As an American analyst of British rock and popular music in general, I cannot applaud you heartily enough for the absence here of, say, Kylie and the Spice Girls (sure, you're as quick to embrace pop dreck as we are, but at least you don't call it art), or for the inclusion of cultish heroes such as Massive Attack, Nick Drake, My Bloody Valentine, Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt and the Fall.

― xhuxk, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 14:26 (twenty years ago)

From a lurker! :D

xpost

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 14:26 (twenty years ago)

Do Europeans tend to be more close minded about music genres and the total pallette of sound than Americans?

If not, why does it seem that they only care about the taxonomy of electronic dance music these days?

― Gerhard Schröder, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 14:35 (twenty years ago)

haha dero strikes again!

― deej., Wednesday, 8 June 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

ROCKIST HANDS ACROSS THE GLOBE.

http://www.oxfam.org.au/oxfamnews/september_2003/images/hands.jpg

*wuv*

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

Definitely, yes.

― Yakuza Ghost Six (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:03 (twenty years ago)

( I should add that the only American I have ever met is gygax )

― Yakuza Ghost Six (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

adam, let's break from the pop jello and be rockist in unison. *holds adam's hands firmly*

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:04 (twenty years ago)

We need a song for Hands For Global Rockism though... who will write it? How will it be written? How do we represent the world and its undying need for more rockism in a difficult art-brut distinctly-NON-pop manner?

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:06 (twenty years ago)

contact bgeldof@mrbloodyafrica.com or bonovox@heyheyisavedtheworldtodayohhiderecondi.com

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:10 (twenty years ago)

they're pop sell outs, though. We need to talk to a curator that knows "real", ya know

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

I have the answer. Bob Pollard.

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

No. Plus you've gotta figure in the rather substantial differences between coastal Americans & middle Americans, north v. south, city v. suburban v. rural etc., not to mention the rather substantial differences between various European nationalities and classes - so, anyway, no.

― Zack Richardson (teenagequiet), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

A.F.R.O. (ARTISTS FOR ROCKIST ORGANIZATIONS) "Realness will prevail"

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 17:25 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

are americans more rockist than albanians????

― gershy, Saturday, 22 March 2008 02:30 (eighteen years ago)

i like that beat

― PappaWheelie V, Saturday, 22 March 2008 03:00 (eighteen years ago)

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/8527/michaeljacksonpopcornjm0.gif

― Cunga, Saturday, 22 March 2008 03:23 (eighteen years ago)

rockist rockist rockist nom nom

― tremendoid, Saturday, 22 March 2008 04:21 (eighteen years ago)

The answer to the original question is yes.

Though it is a 'tend to be' as rockism is a wide spectrum disorder.

I would put folks like myself in it because I'm not keen on much pomo relativism and still think intentionality, authenticity, integrety, etc are still qualities to be valued, but that's not the same as someone who thinks disco sucks and that Hootie and the Blowfish have any merits.

― Sandy Blair, Saturday, 22 March 2008 09:28 (eighteen years ago)

no it's the same

― tremendoid, Saturday, 22 March 2008 09:42 (eighteen years ago)

Hootie And The Blowfish, forever, appealed most of all to the same people who used to love Journey, Styx and Foreigner. And those people have never cared much about anything except what sounds good to them at all. They aren't knowledgeable about music to have much of an idea about what "ideology" is behind their music.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, 22 March 2008 10:22 (eighteen years ago)

I don't think that Daniel Smith, who gave Hootie and the Blowfish an excellent lead review in Vibe once in which she compared Darius Rucker to great soul singers, thought disco sucked.

― xhuxk, Saturday, 22 March 2008 14:21 (eighteen years ago)

Stupid thread

― Tom D., Saturday, 22 March 2008 14:42 (eighteen years ago)

Do Americans tend to be more rockist than Albanians, Andorrans, Austrians, Belarussians, Belgians, Bosnians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Cypriots, Czechs, Danes, Estonians, Finns, the French, Germans, Greeks, Hungarians, Icelanders, the Irish, Italians, Latvians, Liechtensteiners, Lithuanians, Luxembourgers, Macedonians, the Maltese, Moldovans, the Dutch, Norwegians, Poles, the Portugese, Romanians, Russians, Serbians, Montenegrins, Slovaks, Slovenians, Spainiards, Swedes, the Swiss, Turks, Ukrainians, the British?

― Tom D., Saturday, 22 March 2008 14:56 (eighteen years ago)

you missed out Israelis

― blueski, Saturday, 22 March 2008 15:10 (eighteen years ago)

That's a can o' worms right there!

― Tom D., Saturday, 22 March 2008 15:13 (eighteen years ago)

I suppose it would depend on the American.

― steampig67, Saturday, 22 March 2008 15:22 (eighteen years ago)

Actual and true text of VH1 promo spot from '94 or so.

― slugbuggy, Saturday, 22 March 2008 17:12 (eighteen years ago)

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