is there such a thing as a rockist as opposed to rockist arguments?
This is a great question too, because I think it relates to Douglas' concern about people getting defensive as soon as they hear the term.
― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Sunday, 8 May 2005 18:51 (nineteen years ago) link
"(they criticise it in much more productive ways, like living to it)"
i don't even know what this means. they live to it? who doesn't?
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 18:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 18:59 (nineteen years ago) link
― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:01 (nineteen years ago) link
I do kind of like Rush, Queensryche, Dream Theater and The Mars Volta. That is, there are things about their music that I love and there are things about their music that I strongly dislike. The latter consists of 1. screaming vocals 2. slightly too blues oriented melodies 3. too many loud guitars 4. not enough keyboards and not enough mellow parts.
Considering these four things are the "metal" elements of the styles of these four bands, I have a reason to be sceptical towards prog that has obvious metal elements.
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:31 (nineteen years ago) link
Well, if you don't accept anything that you can't dance too, then you don't accept 90 per cent of all Western music.'
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:35 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:38 (nineteen years ago) link
If I am in doubt, there is always Soulseek.
Regarding Opeth and similar, I am not even in doubt. I know a lot of today's metal has prog elements, which is nice. I also know most of today's metal has extremely loud guitars, annoying grinding or screaming vocals, and basically not a lot of good tunes. Which is not quite as nice.
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:41 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:52 (nineteen years ago) link
― Masked Gazza, Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 8 May 2005 19:57 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 20:04 (nineteen years ago) link
I find this a little irksome actually, Scott. Are people supposed to just do this arbitrarily? If not, then how should they go about it?
If someone sends me something in the mail, I'll listen to it at least a little bit. I also make some attempts to keep up with things I might not be optimistic about so that I don't miss out on things that interest me. Mainly, though, through the years, I have followed the trajectory of my own interests. I don't feel that this is a narrow "comfort zone." And it takes enough of my time that I don't really have the additional time to IMMERSE MYSELF in a bunch of other stuff "in order to learn more about music or even learn more about why I do like what I like." Maybe it's because I studied music in school and had a decent amount of discipline outside of my areas of interest there. But I also feel that I have learned lots about music by following the trajectory of my own interests.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 8 May 2005 20:18 (nineteen years ago) link
― deej., Sunday, 8 May 2005 20:29 (nineteen years ago) link
But I still think the comfort-zone argument sucks, A) because I just don't think it's true, who are these people? and B) because it takes an art-music argument about proper aesthetic-critical experiences and generalises it to everyday life (itself part of the trajectory of the aesthetic-critical argument, so perhaps reasonable in its terms, but terms i"m not totally happy with) but also to music that simply doesn't demand or expect that kind of response. (In fact, to a large extent doesn't demand a 'proper' response at all: pop music simply says live with me, take me into your life on your own terms, or don't. This is why it can't be 'damaged' by mechanical reproduction whereas the argument that a symphony designed to be heard in a concert hall is not being 'heard' properly over the radio does have some value). It looks to me like a way of hanging on to the pretensions of the art-tradition (i.e. pretending to have something other than an instrumental / consumerist relationship to music) without asking whether this idea of art was ever / is still possible / as desirable as it claimed to be. That is pretty much my definition of rockism, as I may have mentioned :-)
― alext (alext), Sunday, 8 May 2005 20:46 (nineteen years ago) link
― J (Jay), Sunday, 8 May 2005 20:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― J (Jay), Sunday, 8 May 2005 20:49 (nineteen years ago) link
sure, why not? whenever you feel like it.
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 21:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 21:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 8 May 2005 21:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 8 May 2005 21:50 (nineteen years ago) link
As someone who's background is Funk/Disco/Hip-Hop, followed by Jazz/Race Records/non-Dylan:Stones Oldies, I've spent my life defending agsinst rockists, and then having them embrace me and my music on their terms only.
Hearing a panel of critics come around to embracing Public Enemy, but then tell me about how avant-garde it is or how similar to musique concrete it is just tells me that they're still waaaaay off base. It's mostly fucking James Brown loops. The only siren on PE's break through was used in the opening intro record live at a concert that predated production on It Tkaes a Nation of Millions. Yet, the "sirens" always get pointed to. Context is overlooked, and instead, they apply their history to something that already has its own history.
I have spent too long with my constant knee-jerk response of "get over your rock-as-art perspective on ALL music." I'd like to think that eventually my perspective on my own music becomes validated by the people who control the platform.
Thanks Doug!
― PappaWheelie (PappaWheelie), Sunday, 8 May 2005 22:10 (nineteen years ago) link
oh and like half of ITaNoM is built on "The Grunt"?
― J (Jay), Sunday, 8 May 2005 22:16 (nineteen years ago) link
(likely source of move: attali's NOISE and pe's BRING THE NOISE hit the english-speakin world abt 18 months apart)
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 8 May 2005 22:20 (nineteen years ago) link
(rock and rap are strong rival co-opters of their various pre-histories though: they have both structured their histories via serial ruptures, and have both used the device of looking back towards unspoiled mythical pasts as means to drive off into new terrain)
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 8 May 2005 22:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― J (Jay), Sunday, 8 May 2005 22:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 8 May 2005 23:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― J (Jay), Sunday, 8 May 2005 23:08 (nineteen years ago) link
As I said upthread, the imperative to be open-minded about music is not a moral imperative, but a pragmatic imperative in the service of good, interesting criticism - I don't care what people think about music unless and until they start talking to me about it or fill up space on an online messageboard or newspaper or whatever which I happen to read.
And as you point out Tim we have to be careful not to equate being open-minded with simply listening to lots of different types of music (although I think that can be helpful insofar as it tends to place stress on the more obviously inflexible listening prejudices) - one can listen to a single style of music (or, hell, even a single piece of music) and hear something new and interesting in it each time.
One possible way to think about rockism is that it operates by dint of the "structural exclusion of thought": a discourse wherein certain ways of thinking, certain realisations, are simply not possible, because the entire critical approach to music is structured in such a way that these thoughts are necessarily excluded. And depending on the strength and subtlety and hegemony of the discourse, simply attempting to disprove its tenants by showing evidence to the contrary (ie. exposing the discourse's exponents to music from other styles so they can see how it actually functions and is effective) will not necessarily overcome that, because this evidence is still "read" by a structure of thought and feeling.
A good example of this is the debate re pop stars writing their own lyrics, insofar as rockism has an answer for any real life factual permutation of the issue:a) if popstar doesn't write his or her own lyrics, he/she is a manufactured robotb) if popstar does write his or her own lyrics and the lyrics suck, he/she demonstrates that manufactured robots can't be trusted to make art on their ownc) if popstar does write his or her own lyrics and they don't suck, he/she is no longer a manufactured robot, but like Pinnochio has transcended that category and is now a real boy, er, sorry, artist.
Where the strawman rockist falls down here is not so much in their dismissal of pop music - indeed, as long as they apply the rules above there is an entire canon of non-manufactured chart pop the rockist can construct. Rather, it is the insistence that any piece of music will fall into one of the three categories above, this subordination of the music's potential for affectivity to a rather simple set of schematics whose conclusions are at once foregone and banal, which seems to undermine the rockist's claim to being a critic as such.
Rockist pan-genre eclecticism is of course a widespread phenomenon - there is always the "correct" hip hop, dance music, metal, reggae, chart pop etc etc to which the discourse can grant legislative approval.
My favourite model for explaining this is a solar system (and I apologise to anyone who is now thoroughly bored of my use of this metaphor): the sun is "rock", not real actual rock but an imaginary of rock, a set of values which rock should espouse. Around this sun orbit other genres (not real actual other genres but the imaginary of etc. you surely get the picture by now). For the purpose of rockist discourse, these other genres are valuable/visible to the extent that their face is turned to the sun, to receive and reflect back the values which it shoots out into space. These planets rotate on their axes very slowly, such that there are whole sections whose faces are turned away from the imaginary of rock for long stretches, and are thus effectively invisible and/or lifeless (usually not permanently though: see the creeping rockist acceptance of early dancehall).
The added bonus of the solar system model is it also reflects rockism's capacity to establish a heirarchy of genres: each planet receives the sun's light, but some are closer to the sun than others.
The challenge for critics trying to escape rockism is not necessarily to visit each planet, but rather to conceptualise the dark hemisphere, to shed light upon that which the prevailing discourse (in this case rockism) passes by untouched. Chuck's tactic of judging [x] genre in the terms of [y] genre is one way to do this, because it offers perspectives of proximity and visibility quite different from rockist heliocentrism. You can even practice anti-rockism from the perspective of rock's terms of references itself: the "truth" beneath this solar model is that outside of this hegemonising discourse the imaginary of rock is itself merely another planet, with its own dark hemisphere to be investigated. Of course this is what rockism seeks to deny or ignore most vehemently.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 8 May 2005 23:53 (nineteen years ago) link
Tim: nice way of putting it.
I am SO loving this thread.
― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 9 May 2005 00:39 (nineteen years ago) link
Actually, we have it pretty good out here in readership land. We don't need all of you to be generalists; when want to learn about metal, we can read the metal guys, and see through their eyes. Same with any other genre. (Though admittedly it is interesting to get a metal guy's take on something that's not metal, etc.)
Be careful though, young dudes, when you criticize old-school writers for dismissing genres you like. The tendency is for you to return the favor and dismiss out-of-hand the music *they* like (as too genteel, too lyric-oriented, not, well, rockin' enough, too reflective of some perceived canon). You're missing lots of good stuff, just as they are.
― Sang Freud (jeff_s), Monday, 9 May 2005 00:43 (nineteen years ago) link
Let me add to that. (Part of my reason for not really getting into the meat of this more is my shying away from theoretical language, not because I think it isn't applicable -- it's INCREDIBLY applicable -- but it gives me ghost-of-grad-school hives to use, so I'd rather read it. :-) )
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 00:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 9 May 2005 00:49 (nineteen years ago) link
Actually I think there's a distinction between the writing and thinking to possibly be made, but then there's that whole logocentrism question again to be sure.
*thinks how to word this*
I suspect -- I have a *hunch,* let me phrase this carefully -- that there is a potential assumption that much older writing (rockist if you want to use the term) can be seen as dealing in tropes that from a distance come across as too macho, too biased, etc. for Our Lovely Modern World. In otherwards, that it has to be...screened, filtered even. I'm probably grasping at straws here and/or this has been discussed much more clearly above.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 00:53 (nineteen years ago) link
But I really like MBV! *hides*
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 9 May 2005 00:55 (nineteen years ago) link
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 9 May 2005 01:17 (nineteen years ago) link
Ha! But I don't miss a trick. And I dig deeper! Ah, but I'm not that young anymore. You'll find out when I finally get off my butt and send you that tape that I promised. But wait, I'm thinking of older stuff.I'm not a big fan of Aimee Mann or Wilco, but my mind can be changed. I haven't shut my door to them. Yet. (those are the only two people i could think of that old-school rockist critics like. i could be wrong though. I'm not always so sure who the rockists are. i think of rolling stone when i see the word.)
― scott seward (scott seward), Monday, 9 May 2005 01:20 (nineteen years ago) link
― Sang Freud (jeff_s), Monday, 9 May 2005 01:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Monday, 9 May 2005 01:38 (nineteen years ago) link
"That Kanye West album has no COUNTERPOINT! It's not even music!"
― J (Jay), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― J (Jay), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― J (Jay), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:10 (nineteen years ago) link
There are two many notes in music with counterpoint. You have these guys, Bach and Handel, who are extremely derivative and insist on recycling the past, but everybody else knows that the future of music lies in the considerably simpler approach that Bach's sons, and people like Salieri, represent.
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 9 May 2005 19:56 (nineteen years ago) link
But to take one thing, the statement:
So, for instance, it's a rockist opinion that pre-stereo-era blues and country are interesting less in their own right than because they anticipated rock
is interesting, because it is the reverse of the truth. "Rockist" critics don't write that Eric Clapton validates Robert Johnson, they write that Robert Johnson validates Eric Clapton. Of course one suspects many, if not most, of them actually listened to Eric Clapton more frequently and with more enjoyment than they listened to Robert Johnson, but that isn't what they wrote. By missing the essential point, that "rockist" critics were imposing values derived from earlier art forms onto rock (and *not* imposing values derived from rock onto earlier art forms) Wolk shows that he misunderstands what he is writing about too completely to have anything very perceptive to say about it.
― frankiemachine, Monday, 9 May 2005 20:06 (nineteen years ago) link