Douglas Wolk, clearheaded, on rockism

Yes, I disagree with the argument that there is no biological element to aesthetic preference, even if it not considered an "imperative" in the same sense as food.

the non-imperative nature of it is where I think the differences stem from, though: it results in an experience where the degree of variability introduced by social construction is substantially increased.

Part of the problem with the comparison is that people have a different range of things they might be considering in either case. Asking people if they hear higher or lower pitches or dissonant or consonant intervals would be comparable with asking them whether they experience something sweet or savory with food.

yes, and these aren't the kinds of distinction of taste that we generally mean when we refer to people's taste in music.

Our relationship to food typically is grounded in much more basic properties than is the case with music.

So it's not that taste in food is fundamentally different, but that the discourse around taste in food is structured very differently.

Well there's only one logical thing I can post at this point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM_8vOG-3CY

I really like thinking about "anti-rockism" not as position in itself but as a therapy that allows one to get rid of hang-ups. (That feels a bit like stating the obvious, but I do think it's important to try and avoid anti-rockism hardening into just another dogma, when its purpose should really be to liberate us as individuals into a more direct, intuitive, and non-ethically-mediated relationship with music.)

I would say this is anti-rockism's only purpose, really.

And of course if the environment you operated in was was one in which it was assumed that an artist's intrinsic worth could be measured by the extent to which they were backed by corporate investment (this isn't so bizarre a hypothetical: see how similar ideas inform, say, the legitimacy afforded to governments' economic policies), then the nature of the necessary intervention would be very different.

(though I'm not sure it's a question of removing ethical mediation. The so-called ethics of rockism are so heavily aetheticised in any event: in some ways I think someone saying that they will only buy music released on wholly independent labels or self-released through non-exploitative internet distribution platforms is taking a much more defensible position than someone who is less rigid but searches for some kind of vaguely defined and held quality of "independent spirit" in the music they listen to)

Part of the problem with the comparison is that people have a different range of things they might be considering in either case. Asking people if they hear higher or lower pitches or dissonant or consonant intervals would be comparable with asking them whether they experience something sweet or savory with food.

― timellison, Wednesday, July 25, 2012 11:14 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I meant to address this, too; I agree with this as being problematic. If you're talking about pure description, most people would be as similar in their pointing out of "distorted electric guitar" or "fast drumming" as they would "strongly earthy flavors" or "citrusy elements"... But for the kind of criticism we're talking about these are the least salient characteristics of the music/food; we want to talk about what makes the stuff "work", what makes it delicious or makes it, well, rock (?).

x-post to Tim: the best food writing, however, ignores as much as possible the biological imperative of needing to eat and approaches food as an aesthetic object worthy of value judgments--which I don't think are necessarily as uniform across individuals as you're portraying them.

x-post to Tim: the best food writing, however, ignores as much as possible the biological imperative of needing to eat and approaches food as an aesthetic object worthy of value judgments--which I don't think are necessarily as uniform across individuals as you're portraying them.

to be clear, i'm not saying that food does not merit highly individualised aesthetic value judgments.

I'm mainly saying it's hardly surprising that food, the experience of which is tied to biological imperatives, should be a case where questions of the material substances and the substantive processes that are applied to those substantes - at what temperature was the food cooked, how fresh were the ingredients - are widely acknowledged to be very important, and there is a relatively greater degree of consensus about a lot of the answers to those questions (e.g. fresh is best, by and large).

Some of the problems with proceeding to apply such analogies to music are best seen in their most typical manifestation, being the comparison of "manufactured" fast-food to "manufactured" pop: even leaving aside the particularly dubious notion of musical "nutrition", these are tempting comparisons because they wrap together very neatly ideas about the aesthetic consequences of widely marketing and distributing products while ignoring how these consequences play out differently as between music and food, with different related factors.

Most obviously, if you manufacture and sell fast food, you can't get away from the fact that you actually have to prepare physical items of food for each customer. Hence this results in decision-making about the way in which food is sourced and developed which reflects the pragmatic question of how to sell so much of it.

Accordingly, a lot of ideas about food which from a wide-angle lens might appear "rockist" - the slow food movement, buying from local farmers markets - need to be understood as operating in a context where despite variable aesthetic preferences the fact that the substance and processes of food are tied to a biological imperative function as an irreducible core.

This is different from contemporary music where there is no necessary reason (other than aesthetic) that manufactured pop and other music would sound substantially different to one another.

To the extent that food criticism starts to get really outre and unpredictable about what it values, it's actually starting to resemble anti-rockist (or post anti-rockist) criticism more than rockist criticism.

the non-imperative nature of it is where I think the differences stem from, though: it results in an experience where the degree of variability introduced by social construction is substantially increased.

But social construction is mediated by physiological factors in the first place.

I agree that the degree of variability does seem to be larger with music than with food, but still disagree with this argument:

At root is the fact that whether something tastes good or not - while not predetermined or universal - is related to biological imperatives that simply doesn't apply to music. While we're all biologically capable of hearing particular qualities in music, the experience of those qualities serves no particular biological purpose.

Replace "purpose" with "function," anyway, and I disagree with it.

(i.e., "purpose" being associated with survival as opposed to "function," which could be used to discuss physiological factors not associated with survival)

I think whatever function you could say it serves is too devoid of specific content to distinguish it from "mere" aesthetic enjoyment.

i.e. saying "music serves the biological function of provoking aesthetic enjoyment" is effectively the same as saying "music serves no biological function other than provoking aesthetic enjoyment".

But social construction is mediated by physiological factors in the first place.

Of course. Again, I'm talking about a difference in degree.

I agree that the degree of variability does seem to be larger with music than with food

Assuming I'm wrong as to the reason, how would you explain this?

I agree that you can't make a map of our aesthetic enjoyment of music the way you can make certain predictions about what we like to eat and how that relates to nutrition, but it's not insignificant to say that there's some biological tendency to enjoy music. You obviously can't tell where the biological tendency ends and the social construction of music enjoyment begins, and I'd say the relationship between the two is probably like the relationship between our biological tendency to make language and our actual inheritance of language.

I agree that you can't make a map of our aesthetic enjoyment of music the way you can make certain predictions about what we like to eat and how that relates to nutrition, but it's not insignificant to say that there's some biological tendency to enjoy music. You obviously can't tell where the biological tendency ends and the social construction of music enjoyment begins, and I'd say the relationship between the two is probably like the relationship between our biological tendency to make language and our actual inheritance of language.

I would agree with that.

I'm just not sure how it could be considered to support rockism.

I think variability with music is simply explained by a wider variety of choices, but identification with particular choices is not just a result of social constructs; it's also explained by physiology.

I think whatever function you could say it serves is too devoid of specific content to distinguish it from "mere" aesthetic enjoyment.

i.e. saying "music serves the biological function of provoking aesthetic enjoyment" is effectively the same as saying "music serves no biological function other than provoking aesthetic enjoyment".

But that biological function is significant, in my opinion.

In short, I think music taste is tied in with identity, and identity has a lot to do with physiology.

Like music evokes some sort of space and you see your body fitting into that space. Or the fact that music is created by human beings and you relate your own physiology to the physiological aspect of the artist creating that music.

i.e. saying "music serves the biological function of provoking aesthetic enjoyment" is effectively the same as saying "music serves no biological function other than provoking aesthetic enjoyment".

But that biological function is significant, in my opinion.

In short, I think music taste is tied in with identity, and identity has a lot to do with physiology.

I don't see how we are disagreeing at this point...

I would absolutely agree that music taste is tied in with identity and that has a lot to do with physiology, but this really just works against notions of objectivity or universalities in music, for largely the same reason that identity politics works against notions of objectivity or universality in political philosophy.

you relate your own physiology to the physiological aspect of the artist creating that music

i'm not quite sure what you mean here tim? there's something problematic for me about the idea that listening to music points beyond the experience of the music to an implied or imagined author - sometimes i'm sure this is the case but far from always, and that imaginary author feels much more like a social construct than a physiological drive. but maybe i'm misunderstanding?

With a lot of music, it's not an implied or imagined author, though. We know who it was that created the music, we see their pictures, hear their voices, and hear them playing instruments. I'm just arguing that part of our appreciation of music has to do with these physical aspects and that our own bodies can provide the explanation for these affinities.

it's valid to point out the differences between the food appreciation and music appreciation, but this doesn't do much to undermine the fact that the two have a great deal in common.

food, like music, is regional & cultural. your taste in both in likely a product of where you are and have been and what groups you identify with as much as something you were born with. both food and music change in predictable ways in response to changes in preparation. cook it more and this happens, play it faster and that happens, etc. both are areas in which "the good" and "the bad" will often seem self-evident and even universal from a given individual's perspective (comforting casseroles and classical euphony are good, hot peppers and shrieking noise are bad), leading to xenophobic dismissal of that which violates the rules.

people can be "foodist" just as they can be rockist, privileging a narrative that attaches superior worth to expensive ingredients and preparations, a certain kind of creativity and/or fealty to tradition, a classist elevation of the "sophisticated", the discernment of supposedly refined palates, and so on. i don't suppose this is so terribly different from rockism in its hegemonic implications.

it's valid to point out the differences between the food appreciation and music appreciation, but this doesn't do much to undermine the fact that the two have a great deal in common.

really only in the way that every single aspect of cultural life has "a great deal in common" with every other aspect, e.g. you could argue for the rockism of fly fishing, S&M, forensic economics, calligraphy, sudoku, model train collections.

With a lot of music, it's not an implied or imagined author, though. We know who it was that created the music, we see their pictures, hear their voices, and hear them playing instruments. I'm just arguing that part of our appreciation of music has to do with these physical aspects and that our own bodies can provide the explanation for these affinities.

― timellison, Thursday, 26 July 2012 7:56 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't see how this is really true for anything other than live music, which is the only context in which I can physiologically relate to the music's creator(s) in a manner that is not mediated through imaginary suppositions e.g. a conceptual linking of name to voice to picture afforded by a CD booklet or etc.

By rockism at this point we just mean conservatism, don't we? My brother only likes 3-minute power punk pop and yorkshire pudding; I like electronic pop jazz and green pork chilli.

xpost; if that were true, Tim, there'd be no market for music magazines (oh...) with photos of bands / artists, or music videos, etc etc etc. No one would ever want to know what a band looked like.

photos belong to the realm of the imaginary tho

I think I addressed this:

physiologically relate to the music's creator(s) in a manner that is not mediated through imaginary suppositions

R'ship between the physiological experience of a live performance and imagining the physiology of the performer via CD plus CD booklet, magazines etc. is vaguely analogous to that between sex and visual erotica.

By rockism at this point we just mean conservatism, don't we? My brother only likes 3-minute power punk pop and yorkshire pudding; I like electronic pop jazz and green pork chilli.

It's not about what you like.

Sorry, in my post above "imagining the physiology" should be "imagining the physiological presence".

this is shifting scales too, the photo is a real representation and the performer in the flesh is still an object to be gazed at and fantasized around, the performer even when present isn't the irreducible core of yr experience of the performance

really only in the way that every single aspect of cultural life has "a great deal in common" with every other aspect, e.g. you could argue for the rockism of fly fishing, S&M, forensic economics, calligraphy, sudoku, model train collections.

― Tim F, Thursday, July 26, 2012 1:25 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

but none of those things have the centrality in the cultural discourse that food and music appreciation do. we could lump them both together under "art appreciation", so long as you're willing to extend the definition of "art" to include utilitarian stuff like food preparation, clothing design, architecture, etc. but yes, common critical stances that subtly or overtly reenforce hegemonic structures are everywhere in our cultural life, no less in the way we approach food than the way we approach music and film. rockism was very specific in its values and has been defined even more clearly by its detractors, but i don't see any reason to treat it as an entirely isolated instance. its sins must be just as troubling when we find them in other corners of cultural life, right.

all this just to say that clarke b's point about food and wine rockism makes sense to me, with certain caveats. if someone were to insist that only conservatory trained and intrinsically gifted artisans working in the classical tradition and using instruments of the highest available caliber are capable of producing "truly great music", i'd say that they were making an argument quite similar to clarke's about wine. neither is "rockism" per se, but i'd say that they all belong to the same philosophical family.

supposed to be a "?" after that "right"

Right - although not all hegemonic reinforcement necessarily has the same consequences i.e. if there is a rockism of sudoku, this is only problematic insofar as it suppresses some other, more free or diverse form of sudoku-play. Which I doubt. Generally speaking the more a cultural practice is explicitly defined by rules in order to derive its meaning/existence at the outset, then the more insisting on those rules being observed makes sense.

I think the reason people leap on food as an analogy so much is precisely because they want to imply the "nourishment" / "good for you" angle which is food's primary distinguishing feature - so as to make arguments to the effect that e.g. the problems with a Carly Rae Jepsen song are analogous to problems with a McDonald's hamburger.

To be fair this doesn't apply in the case of Clarke's wine analogy but it's the root cause of why I'm so suspicious of consumables as a reference point generally.

term "rockism" pretty weird at this point - hegemonic discourse always a phenomenon worth investigating but for the term "rockism" to be the way of describing that makes as much current historical sense as calling it "Boscoism"

Which is why it's small c conservativism.

Yeah, I don't see why seeing a photo or video necessarily creates more of an "imaginary supposition" than a live performance does. And I'm not sure of the relevance, anyway. I'm still relating to some concept of the physicality of the music even if my suppositions are distorted through the media in which I'm receiving them.

term "rockism" pretty weird at this point - hegemonic discourse always a phenomenon worth investigating but for the term "rockism" to be the way of describing that makes as much current historical sense as calling it "Boscoism"

― tallarico dreams (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, July 26, 2012 2:47 AM (6 hours ago)

yeah, i've been thinking about that for a while. rockism is a relative of other -isms, of what we might call "jazzism" and "classicalism". the rock critics of the late 60s and the 70s seem to have borrowed many of their notions of artistic virtue from blues and jazz culture and criticism, and thus their views arguably had non-hegemonic power in relation to the pre and early 20th century arts culture they succeeded, a culture that elevated the european classical (and subsequent avant-garde) tradition over all others. at the same time, their tastes were much more open to pop and the merits of entertainment products with no explicit claim to art status than the increasingly serious and insular jazz culture of the 50s-70s. by another name, what we now disparage as rockism was radical and valuable in its time. subsequent generations identified critical flaws in that critical culture's legacy, but rockism's persistence as a generic pejorative descriptor for values that aren't exclusive to it does seem a little strange.

"non-hegemonic" probably should have been "anti-hegemonic"...

to get back to the topic that started the revive, i do think it's an interesting issue in contemporary electronic music. it's more common than ever to make music at home on (primarily) a computer, but no one makes money on recordings so everyone is trying to figure out a way to present their original music live. and a lot of these ways are, if not boring, overly safe and inflexible (ie lacking opportunities to mess up or improvise, all the hard work has been done ahead of time, etc.).

so even though electronic music is an old thing, the current 'rockism' conversation feels like it has a new urgency or at least a slightly fresh angle. where does the skill/art/craft come into play - is it enough to 'press play' on a set that's been painstakingly produced & selected at home, or to what extant is it incumbent on the performer to actually perform (or reconstruct/reimagine) their music?

that topic needs a thread all to itself

would read

Tim, Tim, contenderizer: thanks for your thoughtful posts (this is a hell of a thread). Jordan, I think about that a lot and will give my take separately... I first wanted to pick up with what Tim and I were going back on forth about, how the nature of food/wine and the nature of music necessarily result in a difference in the potential usefulness/validity of a rockist approach. In my previous thinking on the topic, I've come to grips with my wine rockism (forgive the stretching of the term if it irks you here) by thinking about the notion of finitude.

We value "responsible", ethical, thoughtful, artisanal approaches to farming (wine and other stuff) because they're finite; there's only so much earth-surface we have to work with to grow these things. (Tim, you got at that above with your point that all fast food is still at the end of the day prepared for each person that eats it using finite resources.) Why would you choose to drink something made using tons of chemicals (which are likely harmful to our health, although that's a separate--yet related--issue here), that's mass-produced, whose cost is tied into tons of big advertising, etc, when you can have something more evocative of the place where the grapes are grown, that speaks to a tradition of viticulture, and that directly benefits a farmer working his land responsibly and exactingly?

I used to think music distinguished itself from food/wine by virtue of it not being subject to this notion of finitude. It doesn't really deplete anything to listen to music the way it does to drink wine made from a plot of land given over to big corporate farming, or to eat something from a huge chemical-spraying profit-machine of a mechanized farm. However, upon further reflection, it strikes me that rockists could easily apply the notion of finitude to music--both in terms of production (Why are labels spending big money to churn out pop trash? Why are radio stations devoting their resources to the propagation of such soul-suckingly empty programming?) and perhaps more acutely in terms of consumption (There are only so many hours a day in your finite life, so why would you spend them listening to pop trash?).

Sure, music is "just music" and is not tied to our biology and our survival the way food is, but the fact remains that a lot of people are continuing to reap great amounts of wealth making the stuff, a lot of people are spending a great deal of their money and time consuming the stuff, we only have so many hours a day to listen, etc. I'm not saying that I think we should be overly moralistic about our consumption about music, but I guess don't think the argument that one shouldn't be is entirely specious or ridiculous when you look at it in these terms.

Sure, music is "just music" and is not tied to our biology and our survival the way food is

it's more tied to our biology than any other art form or entertainment though -- humans have the ability to sing...birds can sing...we take it for granted but it's amazing to think about, for instance, an acapella group or choir...like how complex that is from a biological standpoint, what goes into that, all with no instruments or anything outside of the human body

would read

― Dunn O)))))))) (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, July 26, 2012 6:08 PM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I tried, years ago, but things have changed considerably since then

live electronic music and the laptop

so even though electronic music is an old thing, the current 'rockism' conversation feels like it has a new urgency or at least a slightly fresh angle. where does the skill/art/craft come into play - is it enough to 'press play' on a set that's been painstakingly produced & selected at home, or to what extant is it incumbent on the performer to actually perform (or reconstruct/reimagine) their music?

― 40oz of tears (Jordan), Thursday, July 26, 2012 10:43 AM (1 hour ago)

i'm not sure anything's really required of a live show. if people are happy seeing somebody press play and jump around, then i don't see what's wrong with that. then again, i can see why someone like a-trak, who's spent years acquiring skills and considers DJing a craft might disparage such a thing.

personally, i go to live shows to see people make music together. i'm attached to the hard rock model: physical bodies working hard in a small space with and against machines and one another and time to make punishingly loud noise. i like that experience, though i wouldn't say it's necessarily superior to any other approach.

personally, i go to live shows to see people make music together. i'm attached to the hard rock model: physical bodies working hard in a small space with and against machines and one another and time to make punishingly loud noise. i like that experience, though i wouldn't say it's necessarily superior to any other approach.

― contenderizer, Thursday, July 26, 2012 3:28 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with this. DJ-ing is not something that lends itself to people staring at unless you trump it up with all sorts of forced-feeling spectacle. Not that spectacle doesn't exist in the sweaty-rock paradigm, far from it, but it doesn't necessarily have to in order to make it feel like it's worthwhile to be watching the players creating their music in real-time. Why would a DJ feel the need to seek validation in a rock-crowd setting anyway?

Sidenote: lulz about "rockism of sudoku" because there is totally a rockism of crosswords. Some puzzle constructors are strictly pen-and-paper and work in their heads; others use computer spell-check to suggest alternative possibilities for a given space. I know one of each. The one who uses a computer said he is totally unashamed about so-called "cheating," because as he said the artistry is in clever clue construction, not your ability to call to mind the names for e.g. extinct Guatemalan tree frogs or whatever. So I guess he's an anti-rockist crosswordist.

that's just it, there is a weird line these days between a 'live performance' and a 'dj set'. sometimes the only difference seems to be whether you play all-original material via Ableton (live performance) or other people's music to (dj set). it seems like there are lots of musicians out there who start out making original music via electronic means, and then end up going out on the road doing dj sets (maybe because it's expected, or goes over better, or because it's more economically viable than traveling with a bunch of gear or other musicians).

there are lots of electronic musicians trying make their sets feel more live or physical in different ways, some of which are really effective and some of which feel obligatory or bullshitty. there are lots who don't. it just seems to be an increasingly common question/issue these days.

I used to think music distinguished itself from food/wine by virtue of it not being subject to this notion of finitude. It doesn't really deplete anything to listen to music the way it does to drink wine made from a plot of land given over to big corporate farming, or to eat something from a huge chemical-spraying profit-machine of a mechanized farm. However, upon further reflection, it strikes me that rockists could easily apply the notion of finitude to music--both in terms of production (Why are labels spending big money to churn out pop trash? Why are radio stations devoting their resources to the propagation of such soul-suckingly empty programming?) and perhaps more acutely in terms of consumption (There are only so many hours a day in your finite life, so why would you spend them listening to pop trash?).

Rockists already make this argument. But it presupposes that the music in question is pop "trash". It's circular logic: "this thing is categorically awful, so it's a waste of time to listen to it, so it's categorically awful." Once you remove the self-evidence of the connection of pop to "trash", it becomes meaninglessly universal in its applicable: "there are only so many hours a day in your finite life, why would you waste resources hunting down more obscure music?" Arguably being into more obscure music is analogous to burning wood in your fireplace.

But it's ultimately a largely empty rhetorical gesture, because unlike with food, the outcomes of music consumption are largely only meaningful in the context of the rules we make about music and the contexts in which music continues to be made (which is why I think only buying independent music is an ethically defensible position,if done for sociopolitical reasons rather than aesthetic reasons).

This is why I think in some ways sports fandom offers better analogies - people can feel very strongly about the way baseball should be played but this is really a conversation internal to the rules and history of baseball.

The problematic difference with sport is that the objectives (what constitutes a win vs a loss or coming second place) are usually much more clearly defined.

In general these analogies are useful but a lot of people are too quick to elide over where they fall apart.

aesthetics and politics tend to melt together though, no? (c.f. guess political affiliation of beautiful people)

is it enough to 'press play' on a set that's been painstakingly produced & selected at home, or to what extant is it incumbent on the performer to actually perform (or reconstruct/reimagine) their music?

there are lots of electronic musicians trying make their sets feel more live or physical in different ways, some of which are really effective and some of which feel obligatory or bullshitty. there are lots who don't. it just seems to be an increasingly common question/issue these days.

This has been a question for a very long time. I actually made a (pretty bland) mini student film about it 8 years ago. There is def. a divide between electronic musicians who see their only responsibility as making sure good music comes out of the speakers vs. ones who do crossfades with their whole body like arena rockers and turn knobs like they were on fire.

Some puzzle constructors are strictly pen-and-paper and work in their heads; others use computer spell-check to suggest alternative possibilities for a given space. I know one of each.

Oh, you're friends with Merl Reagle?

But it's ultimately a largely empty rhetorical gesture, because unlike with food, the outcomes of music consumption are largely only meaningful in the context of the rules we make about music and the contexts in which music continues to be made (which is why I think only buying independent music is an ethically defensible position,if done for sociopolitical reasons rather than aesthetic reasons).

some people consider certain food products to be "worthless" or "trashy" because they're mass-produced, bland, artless, devoid of nutritional value and/or made from low-quality ingredients. some of these are statements of fact, some are unsupported opinion (empty rhetorical gesture), some are a combination of the two.

same sort of thing applies to music. some people consider certain musical products to be worthless/trashy because they're commercial sops, bland, artless, made without instrumental skill, morally questionable, non-nourishing, etc. these tend more to be matters of opinion, and of course, with music, there isn't the objective risk that you'll get sick from consuming the wrong stuff. that aside, though, as far as taste alone is concerned, i still don't see much difference between these two sorts of appreciation.

the cliche compares pop to "a mcdonald's hamburger" in an attempt to make the pop fan seem like an unthinking garbage feeder. but it could be argued that the mcdonald's hamburger is perfectly and perhaps even brilliantly engineered to appeal. beyond our quite reasonable objections to its unhealthiness and environmental impact, on the level of taste alone, there isn't anything really objectively wrong with its flavor, packaging, market positioning, cultural associations, etc.

would you say the nuge is the chick-fil-a of rockers?