Douglas Wolk, clearheaded, on rockism

Holy fuck, liberal arts/gender studies/english lit major flashback. So glad music never fell into those traps for me.

I'll clarify it in a couple of ways. I"m not saying that they capture THE (i.e., the one and only) essence of the genre. And it's not about "what I love most in X music" either. I am saying that their music is very much about genre and I don't think it's overblown in the least to say that, at their best, there is very much something of the essence of the genre (or parts of the genre) in what they do. Sometimes, their most ringing successes are when they seem to have pulled something from the past out of a hat and you can't even put your finger on where you have heard it before.

― timellison, Sunday, July 29, 2012 3:56 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, in that case I don't think we disagree on anything.

Like, your use of genre there seems to me to get at something quite different to what the original "tenet" I listed was driving at, which was more that something like the idea of "rock" is basically something that we, as a society, make up as we go along, its meaning subtly changed and distorted and extended by each new song or performance that proposes to call itself "rock".

And the importance of this for music criticism is itself quite subtle: mainly, that the ideas of real vs fake or pure vs impure are implicitly based on a misnomer even though their application might be trying, wrongheadedly, to describe something meaningful. "Genre purism" (i.e. being a "house purist") is not empty, but there's nothing guaranteed or inherently correct about wishing to freeze a style of music and say "this is what real X is."

To my mind (and tell me if I'm still not getting something), in your Bangles example what is treasurable is The Bangles' commitment to a particular idea or small set of ideas about a genre or genres, and part of what is treasurable is that this choice is essentially arbitrary - e.g. it's possible that no-one except them and you and some others in the room would invest so much importance in the particular ideas of genre which they are then transmuting into new music.

I actually love this idea of commitment because I think there are no particular transcendental rules about what ought be committed too - accordingly, there's something wildly excessive about the process which makes it seem more noble to me.

First line there should be "your use of essence there".

Well, like I said this on here last year:

"Anna Lee" is so good. The bridge toward the end with the vocable singing is a great 'going the extra mile' moment. Very moving.

― timellison, Wednesday, September 28, 2011 10:54 AM (10 months ago)

So, I don't think "excessive" is applicable in their case, but they don't need to be excessive in my opinion; they go far enough. We are definitely in the same ballpark there, though.

I don't know if I'm keen to play up its arbitrariness, though, as it makes me wonder if some suggestion is being made about the past as just a level playing field. The thing that knocked me out about "Anna Lee" is that it's this folk-rock song but then those vocals come in and it's, "Man, that is the freaking Free Design!"

Arbitrary as in nothing necessitates that someone recreate the free design so it's all the more enjoyable when it happens anyway. The past isn't a level playing field, sure - i'm not sure if the past can even be mapped in those terms but if I had to choose one it'd be a battlefield where the ultimate outcome is forever undetermined.

From the latest issue of the New Yorker:

"More and more people expect of rock what they used to expect of philosophy, literature, films, and visual art."

the passage is from 1968--it's essentially an early diagnosis of rockism...

...but the funny thing is the author of said passage would go on to say "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen" six years later!

I've never understood the syntax of that sentence - surely there's a missing apostrophe s? But no one ever corrected it.

one small step for rock, one giant leap for rockkind.

Last night the NBC announcer called the olympic closing ceremony a "tribute to British rock".

in your Bangles example what is treasurable is The Bangles' commitment to a particular idea or small set of ideas about a genre or genres, and part of what is treasurable is that this choice is essentially arbitrary - e.g. it's possible that no-one except them and you and some others in the room would invest so much importance in the particular ideas of genre which they are then transmuting into new music.

I actually love this idea of commitment because I think there are no particular transcendental rules about what ought be committed too - accordingly, there's something wildly excessive about the process which makes it seem more noble to me.

― Tim F, Sunday, July 29, 2012 2:20 PM (2 weeks ago)

love this post, and i think it gets at the heart of what made revivalist genre formalism so interesting to me over the past couple decades. i remember seeing the flat duo jets a few times in north carolina during the the early 90s. they put on an incredible show, driven by dexter romweber's passionate and knowledgeable commitment to his genre (a combination of garage rock, rockabilly, the blues, gospel and southern soul). the band's performances had the quality of a tent revival. they were driven and elevated by romwebber's explosively intense devotion to genre, to the idea that such devotion might transcend formalist cribbing and become Real. there was something unnerving about it. dexter's display of devotional fealty seemed both desperate and incommensurate with the actual substance and capacity of genre. it didn't make sense. he was only executing a clutch of familiar moves, after all, rehashing bygone styles for a roomful of enthusiasts, but he did it like he thought it could save his life, and yours along with it. it was "wildly excessive", and yes, this made it seem nobly romantic.

for quite some time after this, i was interested in commitment to rock & roll as a sort of salvation-seeking. it's what i initially liked in the murder city devils, the white stripes and the bellrays. i loved their perverse willingness to say "yes, this is THE TRUE PATH, the ONLY WAY" (obviously not true), coupled with their ability to invest tired rock tropes with a scary kind of frankenstein energy. when the devils' spencer moody sang about iggy pop "rolling in that broken glass", he wasn't just paying tribute to a forebear in rock. he was reaching out to something holy, something bigger, better and more real than himself, and he was investing far more in this gesture than reason could justify, offering his performance as a sacrifice in return for some promised transformation.

this is what's interesting about devotion to genre. not the fact that genre deserves it, but the belief that it does.

okay, so this is ridiculous and i apologize in advance, but i get all obsessive about letting shitty posts lie. take 2:

I remember seeing the Flat Duo Jets a few times during the the early 90s. They put on an incredible show driven in large part by singer/guitarist Dexter Romweber's passionate commitment to his genre (a combination of garage rock, rockabilly, the blues, gospel and Southern soul). The band's performances had the quality of a tent revival, even to the extent that there was something slightly unnerving about them. Dexter's desperate display of devotional fealty seemed incommensurate with the actual substance and capacity of genre. It didn't make sense. He was just running through a clutch of familiar moves, after all, rehashing nostalgic glories for a roomful of enthusiasts, but he did it like he thought it could save his life. His appreoach was "wildly excessive", and yes, this gave it a romantic sort of nobility.

For quite some time after this, I was interested in attachment to genre as a form of salvation-seeking. It's part of what initially attracted me to late-90s rock revivalists like The Murder City Devils, The White Stripes and The BellRays: I loved their perverse willingness to over-commit. When the Devils' Spencer Moody sang about Iggy Pop "rolling in that broken glass", he wasn't just paying tribute to an influence. He was reaching out to something holy, something bigger, better and more real than himself, and he was investing far more in this gesture than reason could justify, seeming to offer his performance as a sacrifice in return for some promised transformation.

That's what's interesting about devotion to genre. Not the fact that genre deserves it, but the belief that it does.

what's done is done

Buzzfeed on Why Beck Beat Beyoncé:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/why-beck-beat-beyonce?s=mobile

Yeah, that bullshit set me off on fb.