"*sigh*.. i mean, i dunno, her latest one is just too rockist for my tastes."

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Overhead from a conversation between two shoppers at my local indie record store two days ago.

Does this make sense at all?

The artist in question was Lucinda Williams.

Is Williams talking about the way things "oughtta be" and laments about how good they "used to be" on her latest album?

― donut e-g (donut), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:28 (twenty years ago)

Haha what a strange comment.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:30 (twenty years ago)

maybe she critiques rap and techno using rock parameters?

― Sym Sym (sym), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:30 (twenty years ago)

proof y'all should stop fuckin' around with that shit.

― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:31 (twenty years ago)

lmao.

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:31 (twenty years ago)

It's clearly a sign that the term has bridged the blogosphere and into some subset of the "da 'stream" where its use can be nothing but DANGEROUS

― donut e-g (donut), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:31 (twenty years ago)

maybe she didn't release a single?

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:31 (twenty years ago)

and she had a REASON for not releasing a single, too, I bet.

― donut e-g (donut), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

thanks a lot, ILM

― Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

yes it's her all-round lack of random whimsy

(i interviewed her once, for GQ: i don't remember a damn thing abt it)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

they probably just meant "too rock"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

haha yeah maybe she said "rockish."

― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

I can only hope, miccio. you might be right.

― donut e-g (donut), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

only lucinda williams fans here will be able to help us determine if "rockish" makes sense in the context of her latest album, though.

― donut e-g (donut), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

don't look at me, i don't think i even listened to the LP she put out at the time i interviewed her - the piece was 150 words long!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:39 (twenty years ago)

it does make sense, in that she started out as a folkie more or less and gets a bit more "rock" with each new record.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:46 (twenty years ago)

ok, phew.

(seriously, this was about as scary as accidentally unleashing a supervirus for a second.)

― donut e-g (donut), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 22:51 (twenty years ago)

What's wrong with being sexish?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

who the hell is lucinda williams?

― That One Guy (That One Guy), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 23:35 (twenty years ago)

To be fair, there has been at least a couple of printed (i.e. people outside the in-tar-web could be clued in) pieces on the work "rockism" (the former two of which at least were not square at all)... so, it's not that far fetched that the term may roll its own tumble ball of dung along the way, quality articles aside.

― donut e-g (donut), Tuesday, 28 June 2005 23:41 (twenty years ago)

I think I'm going to have a heart attack the first time I heard a reference to rockism walking around Seattle. Which record store was this?

― lyra (lyra), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 00:03 (twenty years ago)

I refuse to believe the word exists outside ILM.

― Sasha (sgh), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 00:40 (twenty years ago)

i was just thinking about lucinda williams the other day, by way of the schramms' version of "side of the road."

― the underground homme (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 01:12 (twenty years ago)

I refuse to believe the word exists outside ILM.

Yeah, there's just a small matter of a NEW YORK TIMES FEATURE devoted to it specifically.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 02:34 (twenty years ago)

and Douglas Wolk's piece in the Seattle Weekly.. granted, not nearly the readership as the NY Times..

Lyra, I heard it at Sonic Boom in Fremont... or at least "rockish".

― donut e-g (donut), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 04:21 (twenty years ago)

...and, finally, a Google search reveals that "rockist" was used in print as far back as 1990

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 05:59 (twenty years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockism

― gato, Wednesday, 29 June 2005 06:58 (twenty years ago)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Suckist

― babyalive (babyalive), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 07:48 (twenty years ago)

Seeing as her last album was a 2CD live album, consisting of fairly faithful versions of songs from her last four or so albums, it was probably a misuse of the word 'rockist.' And let me be the first on this thread to say that she is pretty friggin amazing.

― jedidiah (jedidiah), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

Keep on rockist in the free world!!!!!!!!

― Rob Uptight (Rob Uptight), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:32 (twenty years ago)

so, wait.. What exactly *is* rockism again?

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 15:40 (twenty years ago)

It's when you only like rock music.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 30 June 2005 16:02 (twenty years ago)

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh..... Someone should post that somewhere.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Thursday, 30 June 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

lolololololol @ that "suckist" link.

I remember "rockist" being commonly used in the NME in the early '80's. I don't think I'd read or heard the term used once between then, and happening across ilm.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 30 June 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

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