What is a rockist?

x-post.

That's just what I've gathered from reading the thread burried away on this site somewhere.

An anti-rockist doesn't like claims to authenticiy either. Whether in the form of hippy or punk. I guess it's about keeping an open mind about music and not being biased by categories of race, social class, instruments used. It's about not judging books by covers. It's also about sorting yourself out and taking a look at the hubris that produces rockist attitudes in the first place.

Throw the crib door wide
Let the people crawl inside
Someone in this town
Is trying to burn the playhouse down
They want to stop the ones who want
A rock to wind a string around
But everybody wants a rock
To wind a piece of string around

A rockist says you can't join the club unless you pay your dues, an anti-rockist says everyone's already a member.

A rockist concentrates authenticity, an anti-rockist disperses it.

A rockist says 'Join the queue and pass the test', an anti-rockist says 'Hello beautiful, go straight up to the counter!'

A rockist rocks pops, an anti-rockist pops rocks.

Rockists 'got it right', anti-rockists got it. Right?

(*Government standard issue gag for all words ending in -ist)

'A 'rockist' isn't just someone who loves rock'n'roll, or who goes on and on about Bruce Springsteen. A rockist is someone who reduces rock'n'roll to a caricature, then uses caricature as a weapon. Rockism means idolising the authentic old legend [or underground hero] while mocking the latest pop star.

'For critics, the logic appears to run along these lines: we - and I say we, because I am occasionally one of them - are exposed to such a wide breadth of music, a lot of it great, life-changing music, that our critical faculties are honed and sharpened to precision. We become, very necessarily, high-falutin'. And so where once, as mere regular music fans, we would delight in the simple pleasures of, say, Westlife and the Wurzels, now, as rock critics, we begin to take pleasure from the intricate chord changes of bands who labour under obscure influences and who view mainstream popularity as a form of disgrace.'

The article concludes, in a somewhat mealy-mouthed way:

'The term Disposable Pop shouldn't always be a criticism. Sometimes, it should be a compliment. Sometimes, it should command celebration.'

If the battle on rockism is just a battle for 'guilty pleasures' and 'disposable pop', it's all been a bit of a storm in a teacup. Nowhere in the article do terms like 'conservatism' or 'bad faith' appear. Perhaps looking at anti-rockism as a wide-ranging and passionate intellectual battle is just not cricket for The Observer.

Kitty Empire's Girls Aloud review is better than Petridish's.

I like Kitty Empire.

'oh look how funny the 'xenomania team' are making girls aloud sing stuff they obv don't understand being as they are pop puppets' KILL ME NOW.

Kitty Empire = reason I don't use pseudonyms very often, I can't better hers. I like her writing fine but she's done better than this review.

we lke what we like and we've all got our biases, so fuckin deal

im on someones laptop whici i dont undestand, + under tghe influence so sorry, im counting the hours till i deeply regret thsi post

mm - er no you're not wrong at all, that's part of it.

oops - sure you're onto something, i don't regularly read rock crit and when i do it's generally um anti-rockist i guess. i was initially addressing 'the outsider' but i'm not sure why what i'm saying wouldn't apply universally because what it becomes or has become (has become) is this big academic in-fight which promises to resolve nothing. instead we get entrenchments, strawmen, oh-so-subtle insinuations of racism and sexism and the like. and these things are not good.

ok i just typed a long post but it was once again all rambling! if this thread's still going tomorrow maybe i'll make a stab at thinking/writing/posting coherently.

errrhm BUT BASICALLY you create a debate like this (or cling to it long after it stops being relevant), you pick a side, you limit yourself, you polarize, you stop being honest, it's destructive-not-constructive, an artifical argument about nothing, or at least nothing significant, and not funny-like-seinfeld either. and while i may or may not be an 'anti-rockist' (but def not an Anti-Rockist) if i had to be one or the other which i don't, that doesn't mean i can't question why the fuck anyone should care in the first place. (and i think the premise for this assertion is flawed anyway but i'm rambling again)

i guess part of me wonders if this is just areally trite revolt against boomers who just don't fucking matter anymore (like for starters our parents!! ok but not mine since i currently live w/ them :-().

"Rockists... who are racist, but only about rock music..."

— from the Mark Ronson TED Talk about sampling, which I'm embarrassed to admit was actually pretty good.

Do you agree?

I tried to pick up the thread of that mention of Simon Reynolds on rockism and race, but I seem to have jumped into the middle of a discussion from 2006 that mostly dealt with the importance of the Arctic Monkeys in a very self-referential and somewhat defensive way. For example Reynolds arguing that gangsta rap is even more shallow and materialistic than hair metal. The main draw of metal now really seems like a subtle kind of racism to me. Really wish rock would officially die if it hasn't done already.

Here's the link just in case:

http://blissout.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_blissout_archive.html#113924712063132517

*shits*