Douglas Wolk, clearheaded, on rockism

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.

yeah but they don't serve sprays that taste like hamburger, they serve things you can pop in your mouth and digest that are accompanied by sprays

next i'm going to say people don't eat coal and you're going to point out the grill lines on my steak

also it's interesting that it's called molecular gastronomy and not molecular food

i dunno though, maybe molecular gastronomy is the dada urinal of food writing

Whereas claiming the privileging of improvised music as rockism is an incoherent usage.

Not sure I understand why. Improvisation signifies to some a transcendent connection to the author in the moment of creation, compounded by audience presence and even the influence of the audience on the act of creation. Rockism is more than just Real music by Real musicians on Real instruments especially in front of a Real audience - but this is exactly that.

I wonder if this thread were on ILE if we could ignore the rock part of rockism and discuss it as a symptom of something bigger with less terminological difficulty.

also a lot of what goes into our conception of "good food" has to do w/ a balance of processes (acidity, salting, heating, oiling, soaking, cleaning, cutting) that have as much to w/ making certain things other than nuts and fruits edible as they do w/ making them pleasurable

yeah but they don't serve sprays that taste like hamburger, they serve things you can pop in your mouth and digest that are accompanied by sprays

next i'm going to say people don't eat coal and you're going to point out the grill lines on my steak

― the late great, Friday, July 27, 2012 11:39 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm just sayin' don't underestimate the ability of chefs and food writers alike to treat food as something completely divorced from notions of nutrition and sustencance. (Your bad fugu example still relies on the notion of potability in it that it will hurt you if you eat it; avant garde cuisine is all designed to be safe to eat, but that's the least salient feature of it.)

Not sure I understand why. Improvisation signifies to some a transcendent connection to the author in the moment of creation, compounded by audience presence and even the influence of the audience on the act of creation. Rockism is more than just Real music by Real musicians on Real instruments especially in front of a Real audience - but this is exactly that.

That makes me a little uneasy, but I guess I can reconcile myself to it by a pejorative interpretation of the term "privileging."

Improvisation signifies to some a transcendent connection to the author in the moment of creation, compounded by audience presence and even the influence of the audience on the act of creation. Rockism is more than just Real music by Real musicians on Real instruments especially in front of a Real audience - but this is exactly that.

I think you have rockism confused with romanticism, the 19th century variety, here working as a performance art.

i'm actually kind of shocked that i can't recall any critic calling an album "very drinkable"

rock part of rockism and discuss it as a symptom of something bigger with less terminological difficulty

semioticians would say that any ideology happens because it happens to serve the interests of a group of people. they use their influence to put norms and limits on what signs can mean to maintain their influence

there was an aube album that came in a fluid filled plastic bladder, that was drinkable

When I was really into Disneyland I understood certain records as theme parks, or at least "lands" in a theme park.

some are still drinkable apparently

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?release_id=114069&ev=rb

vic that's the best way to understand sun ra's free jazz works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qssnsXgQLU

Hell yes Sun Ra is theme park, theme park you bring.

i think the critical framework of 'rockism' vs 'pop(ul)ism' is not a good one.

Vic that great! i've now got a plan to put my 90s house records into loose groups based on the indoor pavilions at the brooklyn botanic garden - "desert", "warm temperate", "tropical" etc

to be more specific, i think using these words/the ideas behind them to assess music made in the past, when the creation & production of records was less democratized, can lead to a lot of wrong-thinking. some people find it too convenient to rely on these binaries and do not look at the more subtle differences in the creation & production of music and instead choose to examine the values of the audience.

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/images/smilies/48.gif

not only that but get a big boxy space and decorate different parts and play the appropriate music....push people around in shopping carts and wheelchairs for "rides"....

semioticians would say that any ideology happens because it happens to serve the interests of a group of people. they use their influence to put norms and limits on what signs can mean to maintain their influence

It isn't only semioticians who talk this way, it's pervasive throughout vast corridors of academia. Talk of hegemony has a lot in common with conspiracy theory, and I mean that in the mean way.

I'd be startled if many people didn't accept the concept of hegemony these days - even the center right tacitly accept it in the characterisation of the liberal media.

like clarke b, i wonder if anything can be salvaged from "artistic merit"...

when i was a kid, i was a hardline atheist/materialist, but as i've gotten older, i've softened considerably (ahem). i'm no longer inclined to aggressively deny the existence of things simply because they can't be proven, and even if i could be purely rational about everything, i doubt that i'd want to. i guess i try to leave a little room for the ineffable.

similarly, and though i can't satisfactorily define it even on a personal level, i'm loathe to entirely discard the notion of artistic merit. to do so would feel too much like surrender to the cruelest and most lifeless aspects of rational materialism, where all things become inert objects, and nothing has any value or meaning other than that which we arbitrarily assign. of course, that position is eminently defensible, unassailable even - but it seems so pinched and defensive. so, you're right. so what?

rather than insist on the tedious equivalency of all things, it seems much more interesting to me to risk foolishness in pursuit of what is valuable, as one sees it. that could be the worship of superhuman technical expertise, or an identification with the margins and extremes of culture, or even a moral vision of art's higher purpose. i respect the sort of devotion that outstrips any rational justification, at least where art is concerned.

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

― the late great, Friday, July 27, 2012 8:32 PM (1 hour ago)

ironically, i was thinking of your point about leaving "wiggle room for magic"* while composing that last post. if we're inclined to leave room for spirituality and magic in our conception of the physical universe, why should artistic merit be so difficult to accept?

* see ILX fear of death thread

i think the critical framework of 'rockism' vs 'pop(ul)ism' is not a good one.

― one dis leads to another (ian), Friday, July 27, 2012 9:04 PM (1 hour ago)

agree. it's frankly lousy.

ironically, i was thinking of your point about leaving "wiggle room for magic"* while composing that last post. if we're inclined to leave room for spirituality and magic in our conception of the physical universe, why should artistic merit be so difficult to accept?

As with spirituality and the universe, it's not the leaving of wiggle room that is the problem, but the fact that very few people are prepared to accept that they might be wrong about what it is.

is artistic merit the same as cultural uplift? i have to agree that lip syncing lends itself to cultural debasement because of the built-in cynicism. autotune is cool, though.

gah, make that "i'm loath to entirely discard the notion" a few posts back. loath/loathe thing always gets me...

And oddly, the main story on CNN.com today:
http://us.cnn.com/2012/07/27/showbiz/art-pop-music-image/index.html

There's a veritable army of straw men in the comments.

like clarke b, i wonder if anything can be salvaged from "artistic merit"...

when i was a kid, i was a hardline atheist/materialist, but as i've gotten older, i've softened considerably (ahem). i'm no longer inclined to aggressively deny the existence of things simply because they can't be proven, and even if i could be purely rational about everything, i doubt that i'd want to. i guess i try to leave a little room for the ineffable.

similarly, and though i can't satisfactorily define it even on a personal level, i'm loathe to entirely discard the notion of artistic merit. to do so would feel too much like surrender to the cruelest and most lifeless aspects of rational materialism, where all things become inert objects, and nothing has any value or meaning other than that which we arbitrarily assign. of course, that position is eminently defensible, unassailable even - but it seems so pinched and defensive. so, you're right. so what?

rather than insist on the tedious equivalency of all things, it seems much more interesting to me to risk foolishness in pursuit of what is valuable, as one sees it. that could be the worship of superhuman technical expertise, or an identification with the margins and extremes of culture, or even a moral vision of art's higher purpose. i respect the sort of devotion that outstrips any rational justification, at least where art is concerned.

― contenderizer, Saturday, July 28, 2012 1:21 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like this post a lot, contenderizer. I would never decry the notion of artistic merit; I was only trying to explore the situations in which the phrase tends to pop up, because I think it's always telling to examine usage when dealing with such nebulous things.

I furthermore think "risking foolishness in the pursuit of what's valuable" is something we naturally do. To point at something like that meme photo of Jeff Mills and the "Three DJs With One Laptop" and think that the three DJs are the lame ones is not, I would argue, a reflex honed by some sort of rockist brainwashing, but rather a fairly natural thing to think. There's something impressive, life-affirming, and inspiring about the way Jeff Mills pursues his craft, and that's something people naturally connect to--something they find value in. It feels dry, smarmy, and condescending to insist that those who believe in the aesthetic superiority of Jeff Mills in the above scenario are exercising bad thinking. (Side thought: maybe they're not thinking; maybe they're responding on a gut level to a perceived sham-ness and bullshit in the other act. If that's the case, why is this bad?)

the tedious equivalency of all things

This phrase really gets at it for me. It may well be an impressive achievement to be able to respond to everything you encounter as "just music" (although I've never really understood what this would feel like, or how you would prove that that's what you were doing), but even if I could, I don't think I'd want to. The model of a listener as some sort of totally unbiased ingester of aural information who never enters the messy fray of extra-musical ethics, questions of authenticity, etc, seems to me to be no fun at all. It's a way to feel broad-minded without having to get your hands dirty.

ARGGGGHHHH why do you all keep jumping to the conclusion that the choice is between rockism and "the tedious equivalency of all things".

Maybe I just think the awesomeness of Jeff Mills is something to be decided and discussed and advocated for rather than already decided by god/the universe.

Tim F. My inadequate response to your First line: yes I see how the rockism discussion goes back and forth, finally read a bunch of it this morning, but it does depend on how far people want to take it and I don't see consensus.

Tim F. My possibly misplaced response to your Second line: it is obvious, right, that when I say "this is good," that it is - I hate to resort to this cliche - "always already" my opinion? Do I have to add, "IMHO", all the time, so that nobody gets intimidated? I know people who actually believe this matters. It doesn't.

Again, this may not be a fair response to how you feel, so I will throw out an opinion//fact decided by god: Being paranoid about the effects of critical hegemony is misguided; being actively anti-hegemonic is inherently flawed because it is being hegemonic.

I want to say, again not necessarily to Tim F., but to everyone, everywhere, (cue guitar opening of The Youngbloods "Get Together" here) just do your work, be some other thing. Being "anti-hegemonic" is no escape from hegemony, no more than being atheist is an escape from religion. Be agnostic about hegemony. Here, I think I will make this into a beautiful internet meme.

ARGGGGHHHH why do you all keep jumping to the conclusion that the choice is between rockism and "the tedious equivalency of all things".

Maybe I just think the awesomeness of Jeff Mills is something to be decided and discussed and advocated for rather than already decided by god/the universe.

― Tim F, Saturday, July 28, 2012 6:07 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sorry to frustrate you, Tim! I don't think taste always works that way, though... We often respond to things on a gut aesthetic level and then rationalize (then advocate for) why it is that they're good/bad. The discussion is more a working through the details of that response than some sort of forum after which we make our decision as to how we feel. A lot of people don't feel the need to offer more than a "rules" or a "sucks"--which makes for boring discourse, obviously. But I don't think people have any obligation whatsoever to be able to articulate their tastes.

Rockism is, of course, a sort of stunted attempt to create an aesthetic framework for one's tastes. Which, to bring it back to wine, is often more harmful to aesthetic happiness than having no framework whatsoever. We say in the wine business sometimes that "a little knowledge is dangerous"--people think they know stuff about wine, and their prejudices (often a melange of iffy received wisdom, extremely limited exposure to certain wine regions or grape varieties, and identity politics) prevent them from engaging with entire huge swaths of the world of wine.

Thinking over it the past few days, I wonder if rockism's fatal flaw might be the ol' correlation/causation conflation. In trying to work out why he likes certain things, a rockism-inclined individual may notice that, hey, he tends to like dudes sweating it out on guitars/bass/drums, he likes real-time performance, he likes albums recorded with a dry, "documentarian approach" (great Carducci phrase to describe lots of '70s hard rock production), etc. The discursive leap is to say that the reason the stuff is good is BECAUSE it has those characteristics. And then, further, that stuff that doesn't have those characteristics is bad BECAUSE it lacks them. This is the line of thinking that has led to thousands of shitty bands (Burzum made all his stuff on a four-track with purposefully poor microphones; that's WHY it rules, and I can do it, too!). Non-rock is of course subject to this sort of thing, too; Jeff Mills isn't awesome BECAUSE he uses three decks and can mix really fast and spins only vinyl. I would argue that Jeff Mills wouldn't be Jeff Mills and wouldn't quite have the rep/respect that he does if he didn't do things this way, but that's only because I do belive certain mediums are better, more sensitive revealers of artistic talent than others.

Which brings me to the idea of the auteur. I've never really found that notion controversial, though, and I don't understand why it catches so much flak. Talented individuals who have the ability to connect with audiences and create art that stands apart from that of their peers are who we all gravitate toward as we navigate our way through the piles and piles and piles of music/film/art/wine/food, right? I guess what I'm saying is that I can easily sidestep the pitfalls of rockism, but I'm not exactly sure how to do it without at least gently appealing to the notion of the auteur.

Here are what I consider to be the key tenets of anti-rockism, laid bare for you. If you think any of them are wrong, please explain:

1. There is no necessary hierarchy of musical qualities.

2. Further, musical qualities are not consistent and easily isolated forces for good or bad: the perception of their goodness or badness depends on their articulation with and through other qualities (Frank Kogan's Boney Joan Rule).

3. Genres are not in and of themselves a spiritual force, and there is no 'essence' of genres. What "rock" means... depends.

4. The greatness of music is not the direct expression of the greatness of its creator. Similarly, the creator cannot control what their music means (although for obvious reasons their POV is usually worth taking seriously).

5. The perception of greatness in music is derived through the experience of listening to the music (and potentially absorbing other phenomena - photos, interviews etc.). Hence the listener's notion of the greatness of the performer is always necessarily an imaginative reconstruction (although potentially a very accurate one).

------

Each of the above tenets is not intended to shut down discussion - e.g. what did X songwriter mean for X song to be about - but to avoid conversations being shut down, lines of inquiry not being pursued.

The vast majority of careful, insightful music criticism already adopts each of the above 5 tenets whether openly or implicitly, and whether the writer considers herself a rockist or an anti-rockist or whatever.

Tim F. My possibly misplaced response to your Second line: it is obvious, right, that when I say "this is good," that it is - I hate to resort to this cliche - "always already" my opinion? Do I have to add, "IMHO", all the time, so that nobody gets intimidated? I know people who actually believe this matters. It doesn't.

Yes, of course it doesn't matter. I am more than prepared to argue forcefully for my opinion, knowing it's only mine. The fact that it's mine and not the universe's makes me more passionate about wanting to win the argument - I have more at stake!

Again, this may not be a fair response to how you feel, so I will throw out an opinion//fact decided by god: Being paranoid about the effects of critical hegemony is misguided; being actively anti-hegemonic is inherently flawed because it is being hegemonic.

Agreed. Hegemony per se is not something that particularly worries me per se even though I think it exists (individual instances might). Agreed that there's really no such critical or academic practice as "anti-hegemonic" - maybe "counter-hegemonic".

But also a lot of stuff that sets itself up as "counter-hegemonic" is really no such thing either. It is definitely useful for the left to see the right stealing some of its more petulant rhetorical devices.

What is the reason for the argument that a genre has no spiritual essence?