Douglas Wolk, clearheaded, on rockism

xxpost "particular" respect is fine, but the often "exclusive" respect (and the dismissing of music created/presented outside of this) is the problem of rockism.

xpost, I think it holds true as long as there has been recorded music (including notation), but perhaps it wasn't as obvious until actual sound recording.

But I'm compromising my statements by conflating virtuosity with general live performance a bit.

I think it holds true as long as there has been recorded music (including notation), but perhaps it wasn't as obvious until actual sound recording.

What if humans naturally get a feeling of excitement when they hear rapid flurries of notes, possibly for some kind of biological reason? There were player pianos since the 1800s and other mechanical instruments before that, but for the most part, until Les Paul started messing around with half-speed recording in the late '40s, the only way to accomplish that live or on record was for somebody to actually play it. If you wanted to hear music that sounded like Charlie Parker, you needed to hear Charlie Parker or one of his imitators playing like that. So the ability to "cheat" and create musical illusions that don't require an actual human performance is relatively new. So I don't think it's fair to say that special respect for musical talent has always been rockist, since it's probably been embedded in human culture for hundreds or thousands of years for good reason. The real problem is when people apply those standards of music as a performing art to the medium of recorded music, which is free to move beyond the constraints of a purely performing art and is something more like a plastic art.

I agree to a point but it's a bit chicken and egg - was music that required virtuosity popular because of the virtuosity required to present it? Or is it because, like you say, there was an innate and particular response to complex music.

I would guess that the performance of the author of the composition was always privileged over any interpretation.

I think the bigger challenge to my argument is the musical value of improvisation - where presence and virtuosity combine to create original music.

However, it's still rockist to privilege improvised music.

Hoping the move to use "rockist" to mean practically anything succeeds.

still think it's foolish (a kind word) to use the term "rockism" to describe values that are in no way specific to rock music and/or rock criticism, and which aren't objectionable in any sense.

the privileging of obvious technical skill in music is much like the privileging of such skill in other art forms: painting, dance, whatever. it's old-fashioned, but not necessarily reactionary. if we wish, we can draw a line between "pure music" (something consisting only of sound) and the various non-musical qualities with which we associate it (authorship, performance, culture, history, etc.), but to do so denies the variety and complexity of music appreciation.

at this point, i don't believe that any "hegemonic" prejudice marginalizes music that isn't performed physically and/or with sufficient technical expertise. not, at least, in the largely digital landscape of contemporary western pop.

Please lets all stop pursuing this strawman notion that anti-rockism is coming to take away your guitar records and turntablist event posters and charlie parker box sets.

The prevailing music crit impulse is actually inconsistent on virtuosity anyway, as quick to dismiss "musical masturbation" as it is to demand virtuoso displays of technical skills.

What if you believe in a sort of spiritual sickness?

― Clarke B., Friday, July 27, 2012 1:32 PM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In other words, rejection of the food/music analogy on the grounds of relative severity of our biological response to said product relies a bit more heavily on the ol' mind/body split than some might be necessarily comfortable with.

― Clarke B., Friday, July 27, 2012 1:45 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Clarke I really hope you're just saying this to be devil's advocate.

seriously contenderizer you are currently brutally kicking to death a strawman.

No genre of communication arises without an accompanying debate over what constitutes proficiency in the genre or, more basically, who is really good at it and who isn't.

Do you seriously think people are arguing against that fact?

No, I don't think anybody was arguing against this. Which is funny because expanding "rockism" to mean the privileging of such a wide variety of skills would seem to constitute some kind of objection.

was music that required virtuosity popular because of the virtuosity required to present it? Or is it because, like you say, there was an innate and particular response to complex music.

I feel like there's probably an innate human interest in complexity and patterns but I don't know the science behind it, so I could be way off. But there's also an interest in feats of dexterity and physical skill throughout the performing arts: juggling, magic, dance, physical comedy, etc. It doesn't make any sense to judge recorded music by those standards, but what each individual values in a live performance is much more of a grey area.

So to me it's rockist to criticize a lip-syncing pop star who puts on a genuinely entertaining theatrical experience, simply because they aren't "playing real instruments". But it might be valid to criticize an electronic musician or DJ for example that offers no entertaining performance aspect. At a certain point if the performer is standing still, while prerecorded music plays, and they're not offering up any recognizable element of a performing art, then criticizing that is not necessarily rockist, is it?

"Rockism" remains a meaningful term only so long as there is a secret or not so secret ('rock') at the beginning of 'music crit discourse' - that is, so long as rock music and its appreciation remains the dominant component and rulemaker in 'popular music criticism'. That doesn't mean that the appreciation of rock music is the original or sole source of many of these tendencies.

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, May 8, 2005 11:53 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I probably wouldn't put things in such strong terms 7 years on (e.g. "vehemently").

seriously contenderizer you are currently brutally kicking to death a strawman.

― Tim F, Friday, July 27, 2012 4:45 PM (9 minutes ago)

well, i showed up to ILX in what seemed to be the wake of the Great Rockism Debates, and the word had become something of a ILX in-joke. you couldn't really talk about it, except to mock the idea that anyone would want to talk about it. despite this, it was invoked in passing with a tired sort of knee-jerk regularity. since the ideas involved were new and interesting to me, i found this situation rather frustrating. what i get for showing up late, i suppose...

anyway, that's why i may seem a little overeager to administer my kicks.

So to me it's rockist to criticize a lip-syncing pop star who puts on a genuinely entertaining theatrical experience, simply because they aren't "playing real instruments". But it might be valid to criticize an electronic musician or DJ for example that offers no entertaining performance aspect. At a certain point if the performer is standing still, while prerecorded music plays, and they're not offering up any recognizable element of a performing art, then criticizing that is not necessarily rockist, is it?

― wk, Saturday, July 28, 2012 12:05 AM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is correct.

The first scenario falls down b/c the judgment is based on a rule that is largely irrelevant to the appreciation of the music: it's basically like a shutter between the listener and any sense of what the performance's strengths and weaknesses are.

The second scenario involves judgment based on a rule that is implied in the fact of live performance: you will be entertained.

anyway, that's why i may seem a little overeager to administer my kicks.

― contenderizer, Saturday, July 28, 2012 12:11 AM (5 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Feel free to keep kicking! I just think you'd be better served directing the kicks at things that are actually in play here, rather than e.g. the question "is it legitimate to privilege technical skill".

But I suppose the problem is that the second scenario is frequently criticized by comparing it to traditional rock standards of live performance. So people are more likely to reach for "laptop show was boring cause no real instruments" rather than "laptop show was boring because not enough giant light up mouse heads and choreographed dancers."

xpost

that old post of yours, tim, is excellent, and it explains why i object to the use of "rockism" to describe (for instance) the privileging of technical skill. it's not a product of placing rock and its values in the center of the musical universe.

I agree with Tim F on the use of the term rockist in the lip synch example. That would be a coherent use of the term. Whereas claiming the privileging of improvised music as rockism is an incoherent usage.

But as for "falls down," that simply insists we are all obligated to appreciate music solely on its own terms and none of our own. Who lives up to that? Making up an ideology of "rockism" to simplify the aesthetics of others is probably what I find most objectionable in "anti-rockist" writing (I mean, speaking of straw men!)

I'm not so sure that the first scenario should be written off entirely as "largely irrelevant to the appreciation of the music."

The distinction between the two scenarios feels a little arbitrary to me. Privileging theatrical value gets a pass, but privileging live musical theatricality in the case of the lip-syncing pop star does not.

Also worth pointing out that lip-syncing was probably often criticized in part for the fact that it was done dishonestly.

As noted above, in regard to rock music itself the tendency in music crit discourse is to downplay the importance of technical skill, even to dislike its more overt manifestations. So it's really not a straightforward pro vs con.

The bigger issue to my mind is when and how technical skill gets acknowledged as such - how we acknowledge and treat the "technical skill" that goes into certain gangsta rap or dance music or etc, and what we casually think technical skill must be or involve (or not involve) in order to merit the term.

And, again, my point earlier was that the term "rockism" should only be used in cases of clear BIAS, not just preference.

x-post to myself!

I'm not so sure that the first scenario should be written off entirely as "largely irrelevant to the appreciation of the music."

The distinction between the two scenarios feels a little arbitrary to me. Privileging theatrical value gets a pass, but privileging live musical theatricality in the case of the lip-syncing pop star does not.

Also worth pointing out that lip-syncing was probably often criticized in part for the fact that it was done dishonestly.

― timellison, Saturday, July 28, 2012 12:20 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The original post said the hypothetical reason for dismissal is that "they aren't playing real instruments". I think that's largely irrelevant to the appreciation of pop music that isn't made and played on "real instruments" except at the very widest lens of "do I like or not like this entire swathe of popular music". It's not a logically illegitimate stance, but it has very limited value to others as a critical position (and it's important to remember that talking about rockism is not a witchhunt of what people think in the privacy of their minds, but about what gets written and published).

And, again, my point earlier was that the term "rockism" should only be used in cases of clear BIAS, not just preference.

x-post to myself!

― timellison, Saturday, July 28, 2012 12:22 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is entirely uncontroversial, with the caveat that if, say, 80% of articles on a Britney show said "I can't really enjoy her music given she doesn't play her own instruments" then it would be reasonable to postulate a kind of institutionalised bias at work.

Which is a strawman example itself obviously, but i'm using it to make a theoretical point only.

And, again, my point earlier was that the term "rockism" should only be used in cases of clear BIAS, not just preference.

― timellison, Friday, July 27, 2012 5:22 PM (2 minutes ago)

OTM, and as i keep insisting, where that bias is unmistakably a product of a specifically rock-centric POV. using the term in a more generic sense - for instance, to refer to any privileging of "authenticity" or technical skill - seems inappropriate to me.

i understand why rockism has come, in everyday use, to describe the privileging of "realness" and skill. this has happened because it turns rockism into a ridiculously simple concept, one that anyone can grasp without much thought. tim's definition, where rockism refers to a specifically and uncritically rock-centric view of musical virtue, is complex, and difficult to grasp, especially in the post-rockist era.

extra comma in there

and i suppose it's only relatively complex

The original post said the hypothetical reason for dismissal is that "they aren't playing real instruments". I think that's largely irrelevant to the appreciation of pop music that isn't made and played on "real instruments" except at the very widest lens of "do I like or not like this entire swathe of popular music".

I do get this, but it was also about a "lip-syncing pop star" and I would stand by my statement about the arbitrariness of allowing for the privileging of theatrical value but not the privileging of theatrical musical value.

I have no issue with people disliking lip-syncing though.

I do have an issue with the different proposition, "this artist lip-syncs, therefore he/she has no artistic merit". But that's not a proposition you've made so far.

The distinction between the two scenarios feels a little arbitrary to me.

The distinction I was trying to make is between judging a performance exclusively by a single standard of skill vs. criticizing a performance for showing no recognizable performing skills of any kind. I think most people can now understand the concept that a DJ can select songs and guide the mood of a crowd of dancers. But if you found out a DJ was playing an entirely pre-recorded set, then what exactly are they offering in terms of performance? That's not really a privileging of improvisation.

But at a certain level I guess it's kind of like stage magic. If the audience truly believes that the DJ is creating the music on the fly and they are enjoying the performance under that assumption, is there really any difference? The same would go for lip syncing. Blatant and honest lip syncing can be OK. And lip syncing while successfully fooling people into believing that you're singing live can be OK too! But once the trick is ruined then the performance fails.

What if you believe in a sort of spiritual sickness?

― Clarke B., Friday, July 27, 2012 1:32 PM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In other words, rejection of the food/music analogy on the grounds of relative severity of our biological response to said product relies a bit more heavily on the ol' mind/body split than some might be necessarily comfortable with.

― Clarke B., Friday, July 27, 2012 1:45 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Clarke I really hope you're just saying this to be devil's advocate.

― Tim F, Friday, July 27, 2012 7:45 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For sure I am. I'm trying to inhabit various iterations of a rockist mindset, however, because I'm not entirely convinced that it's a worthless position.

sorry all, that last post came out a lot more jerky than i intended. and badly written to boot.

it'd be nice to have a term for the privileging of technical performance skills in the arts that isn't so imprecisely tied to a particular musical context. "jockism" maybe, to tie back to tim and spencer's earlier comments about sports fandom.

I have no issue with people disliking lip-syncing though.

I do have an issue with the different proposition, "this artist lip-syncs, therefore he/she has no artistic merit". But that's not a proposition you've made so far.

― Tim F, Friday, July 27, 2012 8:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Who cares about artistic merit? I always thought it was rockists who cared about stuff like that...

Well, clearly you mean some sort of codified use of "artistic merit" and not artistic merit per se, correct?

I'm more just suspect of the use of the term "artistic merit", not the idea of it. It sometimes feels like the term only gets trotted out in situations where one would naturally question whether or not said merit is actually present.

what would be an acceptable substitute for the term "artistic merit" given you have no problem with the idea of it?

i think clarke's got a point. the problem isn't necessarily the idea of artistic merit, but that it's become the kind of concept we trot out only to note its supposed absence.

I don't know if I just want to substitute another term in... It's the scenario of insisting on imparting artistic significance to something that neither asks to be taken on those terms nor relies on that framework in order to achieve its desired effect that makes me suspicious and feels like a maneuver to legitimize/elevate unnecessarily.

i think clarke's got a point. the problem isn't necessarily the idea of artistic merit, but that it's become the kind of concept we trot out only to note its supposed absence.

― contenderizer, Friday, July 27, 2012 11:14 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, exactly, and it's pretty universal a maneuver, too. I mean, haven't hardline classical music snobs always basically just written off all pop/rock/jazz as non-sophisticated commercial pabulum?

i think tim's point got swept under the rug upthread

tim is arguing there is more technique to cooking because it has a function. it's like comparing architecture to art. "here's a building that kills the occupant by collapsing!". nobody would call that good architecture any more than they'd call badly prepared fugu good cuisine, no matter how succulent. on the other hand, people go to pan sonic shows. and there don't seem to be such restrictions on art - even ones like "looks like something other than art"

also there *are* definite cultural values. no one eats hair. it's inedible. no one cooks air. yet 4'33 exists.

gah i mean biological limits on what food is

it's why some of the shit in willy wonka works as absurd humor ... what if you inhaled a spray that tasted like hamburger. is that food?

But as for "falls down," that simply insists we are all obligated to appreciate music solely on its own terms and none of our own.

quite the opposite! we appreciate music solely on our terms. the music has no "merit" w/o the frame of the listener.

"artistic merit" is one of those meaningless terms like "nutritional value"

even things like "danceable" are suspect

or "performance" vs "technical skill"

it's why some of the shit in willy wonka works as absurd humor ... what if you inhaled a spray that tasted like hamburger. is that food?

― the late great, Friday, July 27, 2012 11:26 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You should visit a restaurant that specializes in molecular gastronomy some time.