Douglas Wolk, clearheaded, on rockism

I'm talking about the "value" that the music itself holds for the person making this statement. MIA has use value for the person -- they buy the CD and they play it. The music they don't like has no value for them -- if someone gave them the CD, they wouldn't play it.

If you ever read a reggae reviewer talking about the music in terms of "good" or "bad" or overall quality, then they are probably missing the entire point, severely. It's not that kind of genre and it doesn't abide by those kinds of rules, so following them won't get you anywhere.

I think the useful questions are ones like: What shouldn't work but does? How does this artist or producer do so much with so little (or so little with so much)? What does a crowd of moving bodies in front of a massive soundsystem understand about this tune that a person sitting alone in from of their home stereo might never, ever get? Why are these electro-Caribbean gangster entertainers so puritanical on certain issues and famously libertarian on others---and might it be possible to pin this on a heat-warped vestige of British colonialism? Are all or just most of the leading studio producers semi-closeted gays? Will US stars ever follow Elephant Man's bold lead and develop a new dance move with each new single? And so forth...

Although he's talking about reggae specifically, I think it works beyond that. There is so much to talk about with music; I guess my least-favorite music would be music that doesn't leave me with much to say, not in the sense that it leaves me speechless (which is more like an overload of things to say that i can't readily put into words) but that which does not provoke me in one way or another.

So the reason they like the album is because they like the album?

According to Derrida, "logocentrism" is the attitude that logos (the Greek term for speech, thought, law, or reason) is the central principle of language and philosophy.1 Logocentrism is the view that speech, and not writing, is central to language. Thus, "grammatology" (a term which Derrida uses to refer to the science of writing) can liberate our ideas of writing from being subordinated to our ideas of speech. Grammatology is a method of investigating the origin of language which enables our concepts of writing to become as comprehensive as our concepts of speech.

According to logocentrist theory, says Derrida, speech is the original signifier of meaning, and the written word is derived from the spoken word. The written word is thus a representation of the spoken word. Logocentrism maintains that language originates as a process of thought which produces speech, and that speech then produces writing.

So when applied to music, it is logocentrist to expect/value "meaning" in music?

Sorry, I don't quite understand the correlation between logocentrism and rockism.

If I wrote a review about two power pop albums and talked about one accomplishing something that the other does not, am I doing the same thing?

If I wrote a review about two power pop albums and talked about one accomplishing something that the other does not, am I doing the same thing?

This is way too vague of an example, but what I'm trying to say there is that the accomplishment made = effect on me as a listener, expressed through my writing. Some music has a stronger pull for me, and I can say so; but saying that 'it is my opinion that mia's politics are the 'correct' politics, ergo her music is better' does not fulfill the kind of expectation i have from music writing, i guess. I want someone to explain the music to me, not turn music into a simple represenation of "good" and "bad" politics/belief systems/structures.

is what i'm trying to say, i think.

(I know that these qns are what everyone is sort of asking but I felt framing them explicitly might provide a focus. Also I keep on asking this in conversation and email myself.)

Or write as subjectively and temporally as possible about the experience of listening/seeing as it happened.

Rock
Rap
R&B
Pop

Then ask yourself: is the rockism debate really that important? And arent you guys too wrapped up your own asses? No offence.

darin, think of a stereotypically Rockist straw statement like "Artist A doesn't write their own songs/play their own instruments". Fine. Now analyse what somebody's saying when they say that those are "bad" things.

Excellent.

Then ask yourself: is the rockism debate really that important? And arent you guys too wrapped up your own asses? No offence.

Trouble is, one of those four genres is a genre that the "anti-rockists" simply want to disappear. They feel that enough rock is already made, and that nobody should ever make any rock anymore ever.

This comment intrigues me. I've heard it expressed from others involved in the 'scene' there (on that 'Berlin Digital' DVD) that things may have 'peaked' in some sense. Care to expand on this? What's going on in your opinion? Too much fashionability or some other negative factor (coalescing of expectations around musical creativity etcetera).

"You're only in it for the cred--I'm in it because I genuinely like music."

Also, re: rockism, Spencer is OTM about it being like logocentrism. And, like logocentrism in literary studies, music critics should recognize that everyone is "rockist" in the sense that they have normative values about music. No one is exempt. In fact by declaring yourself "anti-rockism" you are (obviously) taking an ideological position too--it's just that no one in music crit is calling each other "pop-ist" or what have you.

Not only. The average Status Quo or AC/DC fan is probably a "rockist" as well.

Geir, was "Love Me Do" rock or was it pop?