ANyway, "rock" is just another word like "swing" or "groove". Except it is probably better employed to denote a lineage of guys playing amplified guitars, as opposed to perhaps the traditional instrumental setups of jazz (upright bass), or soul (clean-toned guitars). It's the way the bass and drums interlock and push and pull against each other; you know, the audible rhythmic tension that all the really great bands have when a drummer and a bassist know how to listen to one another, to create that swing, to know when deviate and syncopate and when to converge back on the one.
Offa the top of my head, download
1. "The Fixer" by Humble Pie - listen to the way Greg Ridley (bass) and Jerry Shirley (drums) play with another.2. "Poet's Justice" by Uriah Heep - listen to the way Gary Thain (bass) and Lee Kerslake (drums) interact and play against one another.3. "Evil" by Cactus - listen to the way Tim Bogert (bass) and Carmine Appice (drums) interact and play against one another.
Listen to the way these great bassists walk up the measure, when they move on the beat, when they move off the beat; when the drummers choose to place their snare hits, when the drummers choose to place their bass hits.
I mean this is so totally fucking basic to being a listener it feels silly to spell it out.
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 24 July 2003 21:34 (twenty years ago) link
Not sure what twee pop you're referring to; I'm a huge, and proud, TV Personalities fan, and a fan of the Pastels as well, if those qualify. But the vast majority of indie pop appeals to me not in the slightest; in fact I'm on record as suggesting that such music turns my stomach. I've never sold a record faster than the Honeybunch singles collection. I can no longer stomach Talulah Gosh, and I'm getting there with the Field Mice (who I've always been ambivalent about). My record collection contains exactly 0 records on Teenbeat, Darla, etc.
Likewise, my problem with Led Zeppelin is longstanding and has little to do with the general appeal of classic rock to me. It's a very specific thing, though I confess to also being immune to the charms of Bad Company. I like AC/DC, Def Leppard, and other such lodestones. My favorite rock band is, um, The Rolling Stones. None of these bands have, to my knowledge, been widely accused of not rocking, whatever we discover that to mean.
I appreciate your actually trying to answer the question, anyhow.]]]]
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 24 July 2003 21:45 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 24 July 2003 21:49 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 24 July 2003 21:50 (twenty years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 24 July 2003 21:52 (twenty years ago) link
A piece of techno rocks when the parts of the track display this relationship to each other.
― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Thursday, 24 July 2003 23:49 (twenty years ago) link
― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Friday, 25 July 2003 00:49 (twenty years ago) link
By the way, people in other genres who rock (a few): F. Lizst , Paco De Lucia, Ravi Shankar, Earl Scruggs, Ornette Coleman, Ivo Papasov, the Bothy Band, Celia Cruz, Fela Kuti, Diamanda Galas, Esquivel.
― Nom De Plume (Nom De Plume), Friday, 25 July 2003 01:29 (twenty years ago) link
Quite a few industrial electronic acts from the 1976-1983 period rocked hard. In their heyday, around 'Leichenschrei' in 1982, no-one rocked harder than SPK. However, and I mean this most diffidently, I wonder if the current crop of laptop experimentalists couldn't rock just a little harder?
― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Friday, 25 July 2003 02:35 (twenty years ago) link
I am creating binary oppositions here and I DON'T CARE. Which ROCKS.
― daria g (daria g), Friday, 25 July 2003 03:33 (twenty years ago) link
― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Friday, 25 July 2003 03:39 (twenty years ago) link
generally an amplification of the unique features of electric blues -- i associate it most strongly with norman greenbaum's "spirit in the sky".
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 25 July 2003 03:59 (twenty years ago) link
the golden gate quartet rocks!
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 25 July 2003 04:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 25 July 2003 04:25 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 25 July 2003 04:31 (twenty years ago) link
― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Friday, 25 July 2003 04:34 (twenty years ago) link
in partic though something like when the choir hits and sustains the harmonic dissonance just singing "spirit in the skaaaaaaay" i can't imagine a gospel choir ever doing that. the "i got a faith in jesus" part i can totally hear tho, but again not the "gonna rec-o-mend me" part poss. coz its a major-key chord-run and those just don't seem to crop up.
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 25 July 2003 04:47 (twenty years ago) link
― ara, Friday, 25 July 2003 17:27 (twenty years ago) link
― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 25 July 2003 17:30 (twenty years ago) link
― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 25 July 2003 17:31 (twenty years ago) link
― Kingfish (Kingfish), Friday, 25 July 2003 17:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 25 July 2003 17:38 (twenty years ago) link
― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Friday, 25 July 2003 17:44 (twenty years ago) link
Hence ballads are never "hits," even when they sit atop the charts. And songs like "Slates, Slags, Etc" would be "hits" even if they only sold 12 copies.
And thus, borderline nonsensical statements such as
"'I Am the Walrus' 'rocks' harder, but 'Hey Bulldog' is a bigger 'hit'"
are made possible.
PS Y'all have heard of the Rock, Rot, or Rule [sic] thing, right?
― jackson anderville, Friday, 25 July 2003 19:00 (twenty years ago) link
― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Friday, 25 July 2003 23:33 (twenty years ago) link
presumably.
― Kingfish (Kingfish), Saturday, 26 July 2003 00:21 (twenty years ago) link
― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Saturday, 26 July 2003 02:19 (twenty years ago) link
(1) Scott Walker is good, therefore: (1a) he rocks. (1b) he rocks me.
(2) Scott Walker is good, but does not rock.
(3) Scott Walker is not good, but he does rock.
(4) Scott Walker neither rocks nor is good.
― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 17:16 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward, Tuesday, 5 August 2003 17:26 (twenty years ago) link
(5) Scott Walker does not rock therefore he is not good.
What is Christgau's position? Is it (4) or (5)?
― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 17:32 (twenty years ago) link
It's Raining Today: The Scott Walker Story (1967-1970) [Razor & Tie, 1996] Nothing I'd read about this L.A. wannabe turned moody Brit teenthrob--going back to Nik Cohn's Rock From the Beginning, which pegged him as "top-heavy and maudlin" in 1968--prepared me for how purely godawful he'd be. We're talking Anthony Newley without the voice muscles, "MacArthur Park" as light-programme boilerplate, a male Vera Lynn for late bloomers who found Paul McCartney too r&b. Go ahead, believe Nick Cave, Oasis, Foetus, and, I cannot tell a lie, compiler Marshall Crenshaw. But I'm warning you--when I gave him the benefit of the doubt, all I got was this lousy review. C-
― scott seward, Tuesday, 5 August 2003 17:45 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 17:50 (twenty years ago) link
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 18:27 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 18:52 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 19:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 5 August 2003 20:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Johnney B (Johnney B), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 10:57 (twenty years ago) link
― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:25 (twenty years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 14:29 (twenty years ago) link
this thread was motivated by chuck eddy constantly using "it rocks" or "it doesn't rock" as a critical heuristic but getting his panties in a huge twist when i asked him to explain what that means. i thought it was odd for a critic to take it as self-evident, as eddy apparently does -- it seems like a foundational aspect of his aesthetic that he doesn't or didn't care to analyze. the best he could do IIRC is to rattle off bands that do and don't rock, which is not exactly helpful. i wish i could find the thread(s) where this confrontation (?!) took place.
this particular thread never really got off the ground, really, but the question still stands. what does it mean "to rock" in a musical sense -- that is, what formal components of music generally qualify something as "rocking" in some intersubjective way?
― by another name (amateurist), Friday, 5 August 2011 16:09 (twelve years ago) link
i still think eddy is a shitty critic btw. hugs!
― by another name (amateurist), Friday, 5 August 2011 16:11 (twelve years ago) link
there was this promo cd sonic youth sent to lol college radio around the time of 'sonic nurse' which had snippets of like luigi varese & borbetomagus with thurston moore and i think some other sonic youths doing radio links between them, all along the lines of "that was xenakis, from persepolis ... definitely rocks hard"
― thomp, Friday, 5 August 2011 16:12 (twelve years ago) link
amateurist would you like to listen to a three hour podcast celebrating his existence
― thomp, Friday, 5 August 2011 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
because there is one of those
and you can listen to it
and it will only take three hours
of your life
you will be only three hours closer to your own personal death
― thomp, Friday, 5 August 2011 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
you should be looking for your answers in chuck berry not chuck eddy
― blapplebees (crüt), Friday, 5 August 2011 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
the whole lyrics debate is one big false dichotomy, no? sometimes you care what the person is saying, sometimes you don't. some people care, others don't. what's the big deal?
― by another name (amateurist), Friday, 5 August 2011 22:40 (twelve years ago) link
i still am not sure what this thread's about
― Neanderthal, Friday, 5 August 2011 22:41 (twelve years ago) link
i mean i feel like i get a lot more out of e.g. mahler's kindertotenlieder if i know what the singer is singing and how the music interacts with the words. but i wouldn't care if someone else just enjoyed the music. although i'd get annoyed if (like some folks on ILM who will remain nameless) they decided to make it their "project" to tell me that the words don't matter.
i still am not sure what this thread's about― Neanderthal, Friday, August 5, 2011 5:41 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark
it's about what it means when people say something rocks.
― by another name (amateurist), Friday, 5 August 2011 22:48 (twelve years ago) link
These sound like Jack Black quotes from School of Rock.
incidentally I was just quoting the house music monologue and replacing "house" with "rock"
― blapplebees (crüt), Saturday, 6 August 2011 01:09 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NSn5RfxoXs
imo music that "rocks" tends to a) sound like someone broke a sweat playing it or b) like you'll break a sweat if you move to it in the way that it inspires you to, but not necessarily dancing.
― some dude, Saturday, 6 August 2011 01:13 (twelve years ago) link
i judge how much music "rocks" by counting how many people I challenged to a fight while the song was playing
― Neanderthal, Saturday, 6 August 2011 01:14 (twelve years ago) link
Don't know if there are any musicological studies on the question, but honestly, I'm not sure that it merits it. Tend to think that Chuck's off-the-cuff definition is actually pretty adequate. (Wouldn't include an emphasis on swinging, though. Rock can swing but doesn't have to.)
― timellison, Saturday, 6 August 2011 01:46 (twelve years ago) link
it may not mean a thing but can still rock
― some dude, Saturday, 6 August 2011 01:53 (twelve years ago) link
Well, like "School Days" swings but "Johnny B. Goode" does not.
― timellison, Saturday, 6 August 2011 01:55 (twelve years ago) link
dude, amateurist, if you can't figure this shit out in 8 years maybe its time to get another aggravating hobby.
― scott seward, Saturday, 6 August 2011 02:15 (twelve years ago) link
what do you mean? are you satisfied with the definition chuck gave? i'm not.
every time i criticize or mock chuck eddy i get more vitriol than if i had just made the same points w/o mentioning eddy, so obviously a lot of folks here have got his back. which is fine.
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 6 August 2011 03:52 (twelve years ago) link
in other words i grant the chuck eddy-baiting part is aggravating if you don't share my antipathy to his writing but if the other questions about music are "aggravating," well i dunno sorry. i guess we think about music differently. i still think you are awesome.
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 6 August 2011 03:53 (twelve years ago) link
also dude scott i'm guessing you have some concerns and interests that you had 8 yrs ago no? even if baiting chuck eddy and wondering what a definition of "rocking" might look like aren't among them.
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 6 August 2011 03:54 (twelve years ago) link
Well, why is the definition unsatisfying?
― timellison, Saturday, 6 August 2011 03:55 (twelve years ago) link
it doesn't rock
― blapplebees (crüt), Saturday, 6 August 2011 03:56 (twelve years ago) link
i already explained why. it begs the question of what "forward motion" might mean in musical terms!
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 6 August 2011 03:59 (twelve years ago) link
Chuck's words were "to propel with forward motion." "To propel" is, I think, key. And, again, I don't find this, as at least part of the definition, to be vague or inadequate.
― timellison, Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:21 (twelve years ago) link
This is like asking what makes pizza " delicious"
― fappin' duke (Whiney G. Weingarten), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:47 (twelve years ago) link
lol i cant believe amt is still carrying this beef around with him. i remember the great what-is-rock wars of 03 - heres the thing, if you're so interested in chuck's definition of it, just read his shit for a while and it becomes easy to anticipate what he will find to be 'rockin' after a while
tbh i can count on one hand the number of rock critics who i think dont deserve to be thrown on a giant barge and floated out to the middle of the arctic ocean where they'll have to kill and skin each other to create mounds of blubber they can survive off of, and chuck's one of them
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKbsdMRqhcI (Princess TamTam), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:54 (twelve years ago) link
TamTam will u marry me?
― i'm sorry for whatever (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 6 August 2011 04:56 (twelve years ago) link
rock is its own reward
― lizard tails, a self-regenerating food source for survival (wk), Saturday, 6 August 2011 05:31 (twelve years ago) link
read his shit
― chawki (buzza), Saturday, 6 August 2011 05:53 (twelve years ago) link
― fappin' duke (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, August 5, 2011 11:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
how so?
― by another name (amateurist), Saturday, 6 August 2011 07:33 (twelve years ago) link
does tetzuki akiyama rock?
lol tam tam shill
― chawki (buzza), Saturday, 6 August 2011 07:35 (twelve years ago) link
some irritating troll somewhere
^^ missed amateurist display name opportunity
― uh oh whats your fantasy (flopson), Saturday, 6 August 2011 08:05 (twelve years ago) link
MUSIC CRITCS ARE THE ART OF PRETEND FORGETFULLNESS
― chawki (buzza), Saturday, 6 August 2011 08:29 (twelve years ago) link
Cootie Williams on swing: "Define it? I'd rather tackle Einstein's theory!" Holding one man's feet to the fire on what it means to rock seems sort of obsessive. Probably the best you can ask of a non-musician is to give examples, and he's been more than accommodating.
― Thus Sang Freud, Saturday, 6 August 2011 12:49 (twelve years ago) link
tbh chuck's writing style and circular logic drive me nuts a lot of the time and i kind of enjoy amt's archnemesis thing w/ him but this "rock" debate is just pointless
― some dude, Saturday, 6 August 2011 13:11 (twelve years ago) link
actually i don't care what chuck's opinion on this topic is. he was just the impetus to ask the question. i don't think he takes the concept for granted any more than anyone else, really.
sorry for being so grumpy these past few days! i've been stressed IRL.
― by another name (amateurist), Sunday, 7 August 2011 06:02 (twelve years ago) link
I would be pretty stressed too if I didn't even know what rock was
― lizard tails, a self-regenerating food source for survival (wk), Sunday, 7 August 2011 06:09 (twelve years ago) link
Rock is cowbell
― calstars, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 01:11 (nine years ago) link
Rock is tin he spaces between the beats
― calstars, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 01:12 (nine years ago) link
Rock is a ham hock in your milkshake.
― Bo Diddley Is A Threadkiller (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 01:27 (nine years ago) link
Not precisely, but Marcus has made more or less the same point: "If the artist made a record intending to convince all right-thinking people to send money to the I.R.A., but the record is in Swedish and nobody can know that, it's sort of pointless to discuss the guy's intentions. What you really have to discuss is what is it like to hear a record in Swedish, and does it have a good beat?"
I like the idea that no one could conceivably understand a song that was written in Swedish.
― EveningStar (Sund4r), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 02:28 (nine years ago) link
actually it's just an english-language record running backward
― espring (amateurist), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 17:29 (nine years ago) link
This is like asking what makes pizza " delicious"― fappin' duke (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, August 5, 2011 11:47 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― fappin' duke (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, August 5, 2011 11:47 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
is that because the answer is obvious and/or because the question isn't worth asking?
b/c the simplest answer is that pizza is delicious because it is sweet and salty and fatty. but a lot of foods are those things, and chances are we wouldn't find all of them delicious. i guess i find some questions interesting that other people don't.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Friday, 17 October 2014 22:11 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvABt2uXRzY
― am0n, Tuesday, 31 May 2016 17:47 (seven years ago) link
if you gotta ask, you'll never know.
― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 31 May 2016 18:15 (seven years ago) link
rot
― am0n, Tuesday, 31 May 2016 18:38 (seven years ago) link
styx rocks
― am0n, Tuesday, 31 May 2016 18:45 (seven years ago) link
ranking ac/dc songs that say 'rock' in them
― fact checking cuz, Tuesday, 31 May 2016 18:48 (seven years ago) link