The Popism Backlash.

(*as in Charlotte)

This is a potentially interesting thread but not if it's just going to be potshots at Dissensus.

I'll travel back in time!

Not meant to be loaded question - I'm not implying that all backlashes to date have been illegitimate.

What's this about Gabbo?

I've (obviously) been much more present on ILM over the last few weeks than I have for many, many months, and increasingly it strikes me that popism is taking a beating for being just as reactionary as rockism ever was, i.e. the knee-jerk assumption that all "boys with guitars" are necessarily rubbish, for example. Just today there have been a number of weary castigations of popism. After a few years of pop dominace in the charts and in critics favour (at least many critics represented here) is the current re-ascendency of rock in the charts and the broadsheets manifesting itsle fhere too?

AND CAN WE EVER LIVE IN HARMONY? Cos all I've ever wanted to be able to do is listen to Embrace, Boards Of Canada and Sugababes with equal enjoyment and not be shunned.

Many Xs - where's Mark S' point about popist rockism?

"cdn't u say the same abt 'rockism' and rockists, tho?"

Yes except rockism has a more entrenched heritage of official reasons for taste which people can refer (and defer) to.

i'm thinking of MIA again...

but also of course that a big part of fandom for rock/indie fans is stuff like band mythology and interviews and all that post-smiths *stuff* that you don't get with rachel stevens, however good her songs (and videos, though hers aren't much to speak of) are. for rockists, how a band formed is *important*, even if it's strictly irrelevant to the music. popists kind of have to ignore that, because there's nothing to latch on to. now you can hate that part of rockism all you like, but it's important to lots of people.

anyway:
"it doesn't matter whether you're into ornette coleman or the sex pistols, when it comes down to it everyone is basically a max bygraves fan at heart" (chris barber in the nme, 1978)

you don't get it around r stevens because she's boring which even the most ardent popists admit.

-- The Lex (alex.macpherso...), October 20th, 2005.

hmm, that's true. but look at the morrissey cult -- it's *still going*. men *still dress that way*. there must be *something* there to explain that, and i think it's that rock mythology is, for whatever reason, more powerful than the gossip-cult around GA or whoever.

I was just about to say that, Marcello. A problem with hitching your allegiance to popism is because it really is a nebulous little thing. I value pop and popist things, but, as distinct from rockism, I don't think that everything has to be judged on those bases.

As such, I prefer poptimist, because it basically holds that pop can be, and is good.

Oh, and Tom, check yr gmail.

i think the reason is that morrissey fans are FUCKING WEIRDOS. they would have to be to &c &c.

Hey!

x-post: aye, Tezza is OTM, there is rockism abt pop (hiya Lex) but this is NOT ant-rockism.

Bob Dylan is better than Charlotte Church. That's just a fact.

A 'popist' sez:

No way, boring Bob is rubbish compared to Charlotte Church. That's just a fact.

Here's what I actually think:

Listening to music is made up of a series of moments, like coin tosses or dice throws. At any given moment I might find Bob suits me better, or Charlotte. Over time, it's likely Bob will win a lot more often than Charlotte. But during those moments when I want Charlotte, no amount of Bob will suffice. The 'rockist' or 'rockist-about-pop' mistake is to imagine that the 'over time' is what matters, not the moment.

(For 'Bob' and 'Charlotte' insert whoever you want.)

This third point of view is, you'll notice, considerably less snappy than the other two.

-- edward o

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/newanswers.php?board=2 ;)

I tend to fall squarely into the third point of view. (Actually, I always prefer Charlotte to Bob. I don't dislike Bob Dylan for being boring, I just don't like the sounds of his records.)

I have to believe that "Popism" (or anti-rockism plus liking pop, which is how it is commonly used) is not about rejecting or ignoring the Morrissey cult so much as questioning the straightforwardness of the connections (esp. as indicators of objective quality) we make between such extra-musical factors and the music.

i don't think it does make m's music more timeless in a qualitative sense, but it still needs to be accounted for somehow.

What makes you think popism is against this happening?

Popism is finding pleasure wherever you can and being honest about where you find it.

Popism is about eliminating barriers to pleasure.

Popism is an attempt to capture the way most people listen to music before they enter into the music-crit / music-nerd world and get beat down by the assumptions contained within, then exaggerate that to a degree where it stands in opposition to many of the established assumptions of that world. (Note: I think it's important to be honest about this. A significant part of popism's initial appeal to most people is this opposition, but I think it's the robustness of its ideas that keeps it going beyond mere contrarianism.)

Popism is, especially, an attempt to capture the way people who would never go near that world listen to music.

Popism is an attempt to then apply that point of view to music-nerd canonical items.

Popism is finding what is neglected or scorned and seeing what value can be derived from it.

Popism is looking at what is widely accepted or loved and seeing what additional value can be extracted from it.

Popism is far from the norm in the music-nerd world.

Popism is not what other people say it is (including me).

Popism is not about you.

-- Tim Finney (tfinne...), October 20th, 2005.

lex kind of sums up a tendency:

i think the reason is that morrissey fans are FUCKING WEIRDOS. they would have to be to &c &c.

-- The Lex (alex.macpherso...), October 20th, 2005.

i'm a little weary of the poppists claiming to have no party line -- ok, sure they don't but in that case neither do rockists. there is no rockist manifesto.

Forgive me for all of that, I just woke up. Now to the shower.

http://popjustice2.proboards48.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1129744465

Of course not all rockists are the same, any more than all liberals are the same.

But the differences b/w popists are worth pointing out at this stage precisely because erroneous connections are being drawn between particular quirks of taste and popism qua overarching theory - this happens w/r/t rockists as well but against the background of a consensus as to why the connection prima facie works.

"I truly believe pop is making a resurgence of late. And im sorry but the likes Of Ms Stevens will droop because Pop music and personality go hand in hand (See above artists)"

:-(

What do you think is the motivation behind his thread?

How widespread are these two things "in the wild", i.e. outside ILM? I don't really read a lot of crit outside the Internet. Who are the most widely-read rockist writers? Rockist publications? There's definitely a rockist backlash, so what's being lashed back against?

By the same token, if popism has a backlash, surely this means that it's out there being read. Who is writing popist stuff of note? Where? When? etc. Who are the NAMES?

Can you remind me of what this was again Jerry?

I'm going to come back to this and unashamedly plug my blog while I'm at it.

I am a 'popist'. Or at least I am someone who is consistently identified with 'poppism'. Here are three things about me, as an amateur critic:

1. I think that writing about every #1 hit is a worthwhile hobby, and might tell me something interesting about the story of pop music in Britain.

2. Within that, I am going to give Girls Aloud's "Sound Of The Underground" a better review than The Animals' "House Of The Rising Sun".

3. I am also going to give Kylie Minogue's "I Should Be So Lucky" a worse review than The Rolling Stones' "Get Off Of My Cloud".

A legitimate backlash, for me, would be one that attacked the basic principles behind (1). A stupid backlash would be one that cavilled at (2) while ignoring (3).

what was that bill bryson comment about oxford graduates studying the finer points of 16th century silesian tonal music with holes in their cardigans?

xpost to tim

Popjustice has some interesting quirks in his taste. But no more un-understandable or weird than any of us.

i guess i'll just have to wait a year or two to find out!

xpost also the Lex said that Popjustice doesn't care about (the music that) black people (make), which is kind of more important. Maybe he didn't say that on ILM tho.

As a brave footsoldier through the fields of rockism I should point out that I have reviewed Kylie, Robbie, Destiny's Child, Sugababes, Girls Aloud and Will Young in the pages of Uncut! I'm not sure they would have bothered giving them reviews a few years ago.

Also, on Dissensus recently, Reynolds called 'Words and Music' the Das Kapital of Popism!

i'm struggling to pinpoint what this thread is about, still. i don't think there's a critical backlash against popism because there was never a critical, um, frontlash except on the internet which pretty much doesn't count. pop is ostensibly less successful in the charts but i think that's partly due to a shift in consumer demographic, and that's the kind of thing we've hashed out endlessly elsewhere. there's less popism on ilm but that's because of the inevitable influx of corny indie fuxx.

also tom's #1 project is the AWESOME and anyone who disagrees i will duel at sundown by the internet saloon

xpost right, unban his IPs now.

I dunno if I'm ready for the backlash, as one of the things that I've really liked about this board is that it's drastically expanded my tastes in pop (chances of hearing Girls Aloud or Robyn before ILM? Zilch.) I don't necessarily listen to pop more (and a lot of the pop I really like is powerpop, which is kinda excluded from the popist canon that I see around here), but it's really grown on me. And when it comes to things overhyped by the internet, I'd rather listen to Girls Aloud than Sufjan Stevens any day of the week.

...or even if it is at least partially attributed to the ironicism of the 90s, ie, irony may open doors for certain people, but with a tight grip, and once enough water has rushed through the door, the grip is loosened and falls away, and the irony is washed away with it.

either way, ignorance of the canon, 'subversion' (read how you wish) of the canon, recontextualization of the canon, irrelevance of the canon, the canon has come under attack from so many angles in the last few years, it now feels more like a sieged mentality than a dominant mentality

(sorry for talking about you like yr not here!)

We're ALL so hard done by.

Also I'd like some examples of what you're saying Jerry!

(also, mtv vmas for example, the rock bands, felt more like hip hop bands with guitars than rock bands - not musically, but....culturally?)

Four people wrote the Geezaesthetic Manifesto, incidentally.

-- Jerry the Nipper (jerrythenippe...), October 20th, 2005

ahahahaha! this makes me think he hasn't read it [either], though.

i think i was mean abt geezaesthetics at the time, because it just didn't reflect my lifestyle, but i was REALLY angered by k-punk's critique thereof, so i still consider myself a poppist *in the present tense* but i don't really know anything about music and i like bob dylan and radiohead &c &c so can't be either, really.

Are there popists on this board who don't like any "rockist" music at all? (not that rockism is or should be about bands/artists etc.)

"Bounce" by Fatty Koo is EXACTLY what I needed to hear on the radio

American /= "the wider world".

uhhhh, dance in america? ie selling jack shit?

i suppose you need to define 'a few years' but dance music was the dominant semi-indigenous uk music for the 90s.

yeah this was the cause of much handwringing earlier this year, there aren't really any successful second-tier pop acts a la holly valance. belatedly i think we've realised that there is and her name is rachel stevens, and it just happens that she's ended up with top-tier songs.

Surely hip-hop has taken the position that dance had in the UK a few years ago (a few acts hitting the charts, but not enough for anything approaching dominance) whereas indie is where pop was (ie, hegemony).

i don't really feel the charts are a good barometer of popularity now though, esp with The Kids.

Lex, your "people who don't like indie and hip-hop obviously hate black people because they don't like hip-hop but not white people despite not liking indie" argument is, ummm, totally flawed. Like, massively.

what steve said: i think i align commercial hip hop and pop so strongly with each other because of the surface similarities (personalities, image consciousness, glossy production, catchiness) that when i see people LOVE the latter and HATE the former without ever explaining why adequately, my suspicions are raised.

I guess I'm talking about acts deemed to be following in the wake of others - not trendsetters, despite occasional strong chart success.

"spizzazzz is pretty much my favourite regularly updated music blog. lil missy is head and shoulders above the others though. "

No they're all great I reckon, they complement eachother beautifully. I think they also have the best use of the word "real" (in the hip hop sense) I've seen.

That's one of the things I love seeing in music criticism btw, that wresting of control of the terms of the debate (though spizzazzz's sphere of influence may be limited).

Rooster say hi.

(x-post)

"ah but if the public got a chance to *hear* MIA... "

Why haven't they, Henry, if not perceived lack of crossover potential on the part of the gatekeepers?

She got nominated for a Mercury! She got playlisted on Radio 1 and her videos on MTV 1 and 2! If My Chemical Romance can transform this into top 20 singles and units shifted, why can't she?

i don't like this focus on how much these people sell, i think it's a massive massive red herring.

x-post- yeah Nick just said it faster.

(x-x-x-post)

dom the charts are not a barometer of popularity! they're a barometer of popularity amongst the demographic of people who still consume their music by buying cds at shops ie not very many people at all (certainly not in the singles chart).

cf marcello's stat about how in the 70s that song sold 60,000 copies and didn't make the top 40 whereas now 6,000 gets you in the top 10.

"Come for the song, stay for the aesthetic" seems to be the rule here.

i'm still suspicious about this factlet personally.

I'd say "Helena" is a better song than "Galang".

I'm pretty sure Gerard has an art degree! He also describes painting outdoors as a way to chill out during the Warped Tour in a SPIN diary.

(Steve, those things are all great!)

Level One Pop or POP-I
Pop-as-market-phenomenon. Chart pop. Any song or album--but not artist--that makes it onto the charts ... A very strict, mathematical formulation: anything that's popular is pop.

Can be widened to Pop-I.5, or what Pitchfork is currently calling "Uncharted Pop:" music that sounds like the current pop sound but is not actually, for whatever reason, on the charts.

Level Two Pop or POP-II
Pop-as-sound. Anything that sounds like anything that's ever been pop. So when we call, say, the Rosebuds or Beat Happening "pop," despite the fact that they'd be happy to get onto the CMJ chart (which, no, doesn't count for pop-I), let alone even sniff Billboard's panties, this is what we mean: the sound, not the sales, make it pop. ... It's safe to say that this conception generally runs at least 10-15 years behind what's actually popular at the time. For instance, someone today throwing in handclaps or backup vocals going "ooh," or an analogue keyboard, would be regarded as including "pop elements"...

Level Three Pop or POP-III
What musicologists and classical music folk mean when they say "pop music." Any music that is not art music. Music that is, or that can be, made by amateurs. Depending on your views on jazz, any music that is improvised in whole or in part, or (if you want to include most jazz) which does not proceed from some master plan.

dom and ed, you're both GOTHS.

My question re Pet Shop Boys needs answering though.

Also, Sean, there's another type, that which is labeled pop despite not fitting any fo those three useful categories. Pop as label, much like III, but put on by, I don't know, critics, indie kids and such.

MIA is, as stated prior, a modern day equivalent of those Big Star-aping indie bands of the late 90s who reviewers would always say wrote "Perfect Pop Songs".

I'd say M.I.A. is 1.6666 more than 1.33333.

why do you hate grime?

http://www.automatedredemption.com/flavorcountry/postcards/rofl.jpg

2Unlimited?

Jess stop being a dick (and then maybe we will).

"Helena"'s a definite for the first one. I got to catch the Warped Tour a few months ago with a friend and we decided to hurry to another stage during MCR's last song - "Helena" - and when I turned around to walk out I couldn't believe how many kids around me knew every word. It made me realize that if I was a high schooler today it would probably be one of my favorite songs ever. Melodramatic, melodic mouth-foaming declaration of love and hurt - perfect for the kids!

"Galang" is alright, but doesn't really compare for me. It might be a rock bias, but there's plenty of pop hits from this year I prefer to "Helena." MIA's delivery just doesn't resonate for me and the word I keep coming back to when I think about why her beats rarely do much for me is "lo-fi." I may prefer "Bucky Done Gun" to "Ghost Of You" cuz I can only remember the hook of the former, and "Ghost Of You" is kind of sluggish and Gerard's note-holding nasality gets annoying without musical power behind it. I don't MIA really achieves the bubblegum people like Frank Kogan claim it does (Dan Perry's reasons for fanship are the most enticing of anybody's I've seen), and her music feels sort of alien...

actually, while typing that I realized I need to try and listen to Arular the way I listen to Here Comes The Warm Jets. People are always arguing that should could be mainstream pop when I think I might get into it if the blurred, skewed quality was accepted.

x-posts galore. Dom OTM re: Big Star, "pure" pop. Jess OTM but I'm fighting my urge to yell about British people creating sides of a war with no actual soldiers on either side. Plus now I get to say this to Jess:

"thinking gives you wrinkles!"

But, uh, aren't you saying that this isn't pop? So therefore deserves a place outside it, and the people naming it as such are just wrong?

Anyway, I think that's II or III, but that's me.

You can listen to Darcus Howe and Joan Rivers on the BBC website, in case anyone missed it. Bit of a letdown really. She didn't use the word "pantyhose" once.

Annie is Old Europe, the Cheeky Girls are New Europe.

Northampton Roadmender, he's Kano's support. I'm assuming then Kano supports Banner in the US?

Would rock-centric magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone fall under this category? And not because they aim to arbit what is "real music" "real art", but I think they are by and large a reflection of their readership. With some regularity, they enforce the idea of the canon ("The X00 Greatest...") and coverage of other genres takes a backseat to rock. Britney Spears will make the cover, but because of who she is and not because of her music. I think the same could be said of Eminem. Arguably the nation's biggest pop star, 50 Cent would likely never grace the cover unless (or until) he transcends "mere rapper" and becomes a cultural icon.

massive x-post

yes -- IE A BACKLASH.

jess, are you bored?

YET YOU CANNOT RESIST A PEEK YOU SICKO

I dunno, there's been enough unicorns on album covers lately that I could see that happening. I'm certainly getting sick of them.

So a backlash is other people coming and arguing with us rather than us going and arguing with them?

Popism is finding pleasure wherever you can and being honest about where you find it.

Popism is about eliminating barriers to pleasure.

In which case I'm probably 75% popist as most of my listening is defined by the first maxim but some factors do impinge on my listening/purchasing decisions, things like racism/sexism/homophobia.

Did this really all start because Reynolds wanted a classy reason to dislike MIA?

Popism in effect - see Alan's anecdote re his colleague not being able to accept that Alan could seriously think Rachel Stevens was great.

It's just that, you know, thinking about things and then writing about them is fun.

If popism is about describing your pleasures, then rockism would be defined as not finding pleasure and lying when you do, which seems absurd.

x-post the axis still requires the binary of logical endpoints.

Popism http://www.lib.noaa.gov/docaqua/wpiproject/arrrow.gifrockism.

I was responding to this, Tom. My point being, why should anyone award themself as gold star for liking Rachel Stevens?

I already disagree with myself though.

face lift innit

I was responding to this, Tom. My point being, why should anyone award themself as gold star for liking Rachel Stevens?

I don't think it has anything to do with people congratulating themselves on being enlightened, catholic listeners unshackled by prejudice, though no doubt there's a lot of it on ilx, but that the unfiltered emotional response is the correct one to go with.

I always remember an interview with Pet Shop Boy, Chris Lowe who said that back in the 70's he'd be at a disco having a fantastic time with his mates listening to the Bee Gees (or whatever floorfiller was big at the time). Then when they returned home to their digs they'd be listening to Pink Floyd or something of that ilk and he'd was thinking why couldn't they just keep listening to the Bee Gees. That he felt he couldn't, at least not initially, articulate this as it was considered something a little embarrassing, o.k when out on the lash but not something to sit and listen seriously to, seems incredible now. However as Alan's experience with his work colleague shows it's still happening. That's what the being honest part of it is about.

I've been a member of the Morrissey cult since Hatful of Hollow, and I like Girls Aloud, too. What does that make me? Rockist? Popist? Gay?

I always like it when my being right is annoying.

D) All of the Above

You could argue that the two sides each come at their subjects from one of two opposing directions--theory or aesthetics--but where that actually ends up putting them is not so far apart.

I try and avoid using the terms whenever possible, and I've become increasinly annoyed at the dogmatic nature of certain adherents, but they are useful shorthands and I don't think necessarily need to be abandoned. Plus, sword-rattling partisanism is fun!

-Idealized authentic/"primitive"/pure listener = fetishized Other of music-crit-nerds, often mischaracterized as "how everyone else listens" (see above "Popism is..." post); unsurprisingly this listener is often feminized/infantilized

-distasteful mind/body dualism often implicit

-tendency toward totalizing ideology, therefore "getting in the way of listening" -> internal contradiction

Hahaha, it's usually my girlfriend, based on how she, you know, tells me she listens to music. I guess I do fetishize her sometimes.

-distasteful mind/body dualism often implicit

Bwuzzah? This ain't from me, anyway--I think I said in this very thread even that thinking and writing about things is a source of pleasure in the same way pop music is, and what seems useful is considering them in the same way.

-tendency toward totalizing ideology, therefore "getting in the way of listening" -> internal contradiction

This I'm not getting.

Bingo. I've strategically self-identified as a popist recently but mostly I don't think the characteristics attributed to either side correspond much to how we actually listen.

My tiresome point at this stage is that most rockists (for meaning, authenticity etc.) are actually as much popists (for pleasure), only they're afraid to admit to it because they would habe to sacrifice some of their critical k-o moves.

Conversely, most popists exhibit heaps of "rockist" tendencies (e.g. seemingly arbitrary reasons for disliking things not based on the music itself), only they express them differently.

Both strains of thought should recognise that ultimately most reactions to music (and hence most variants of taste) can be characterised as rockist or popist, because rockism/popism really only enters in at the stage of articulation: the words you use, the justifications you provide, the background assumptions that exist between you and someone else when you talk about a specific piece of music.

Arguably both are examples of lazy/efficient thinking: they provide us with shortcuts for expressing certain ideas about music which we might otherwise struggle to substantiate ("authentic" being far and away the best example; its popist equivalent is probably "fun" (as in "Do you hate....?").

One big difference between them is that popism, when pressed, is more likely to admit to its own shortcut status. Rockism is probably less prepared to do this. This is just because most of rockism's shortcuts have the appearance of objectivity, whereas popism by definition enshrines subjectivty. This causes its own problems of course.

i.e. you can have an argument with a "12 CD person" about music and they may make better, more insightful arguments than you.

So the idea is not to think less about how you engage with music but to think more: to not assume that there is some automatic ethico-aesthetic advantage to the way that you engage with music but to think through more clearly the why and the how of yr engagement.

Obv. not many people actually engage with pop music in the same way that "popists" do, which has to involve the going on the internet and writing about the music as much as the actual listening.

Nevertheless, I do think of it (the p-word) as a useful thing to keep in mind when listening and writing criticism, because it encourages you not to dismiss things quickly and to challenge your own assumptions, all of which seem useful in trying to understand music. Useful to me, anyway.

I'm still unclear how my thinking about things is inconsistent with popism. Is it too authentic? (Har har.)

I'm not trying to put you or anyone else into any boxes, but I think you'd have to be willfully overlooking a lot of the discussion NOT to see some of these tendencies, which are obviously dangerous.

Maybe it's the problem with some 'popists' valorating (or overvalorating as point of contention) what rockism scorned, i.e. female/electronic/'mindless'/constructed.

I picture you measuring this with some sort of device designed by Egon from Ghostbusters.

Make sure to note that "lack of self-consciousness" is an aspect of white priviledge.

Because black people don't like to dance?

Also, "DANCING IS NO SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS" is a good example of the distasteful mind/body dualism. Like you can't dance with self-consciousness.

Haha. You haven't seen me dance after three gin and tonics.

This strikes me as particularly disingenuous, not to mention totally false. Can you demonstrate this? Or is this more fanciful popist prattling? The nineteen year olds in my classes have rather conservative tastes, ITunes aside.

And sorry to burst any bubbles, but they have no idea who Annie is.

Certainly not. But they are less willing to ostracize someone for being a little bit queer, and are more willing to talk about the great song a friend send them courtesy of YSI the night before. I mean, I don't give a fuck about Death Cab For Cutie, but the 20 yr-old student at the paper I advise was getting off on the new album and a CCR comp and introducing the CCR to the club kids in the newsroom; they responded (to me, it was like watching a bizarre kind of scientific experiment) in kind. And these kids aren't any more liberal than the ones I see in my classes.

Where do you live? Miami's a pretty conservative town, Miami Sound Machine notwithstanding.

"But they are less willing to ostracize someone for being a little bit queer, and are more willing to talk about the great song a friend send them courtesy of YSI the night before."

Nice dodge. Could you be a little more vague?

But they've been shaped by the DJ culture too, and DJ's here tend to have catholic tastes.

I don't find it particularly relevant, I find it a little off-putting that so much critical energy by intelligent people is put into something with glaring flaws that are rarely mentioned.

We certainly cleared the room didn't we?

Presumably you mean "objectively" better or worse, because popism has no issue with contingent/provisional statements.

Why do we need objectivity to have opinions? Let's leave aside the fact that objectivity and opinions should be mutually exclusive and think about it practically: do you need to think there is objectively "better" or "worse" weather in order to have an opinion about it? Do you need to think there are objectively "better" or "worse" colours in order to have an opinion about them?

By what criteria could we judge whether colours or types of weather are better or worse? The problem is not that there's no criteria: the problem is that there are too many, such that trying to reduce them to a universal, objective rule is foolhardy. The more pertinent issue is what works when/where and why/how (e.g. if I'm on holiday on the beach I don't want it to rain; if I'm a farmer and it's been a dry winter I do want it to rain).

I always like noticing that the Mission scored pop hits in the late eighties in the UK. As they are no more or less or better or worse than My Chemical Romance, ergo goth is pop, whether as done by hippies or Hot Topic. Now, a guitar solo.

I would have thought the point of the conceit is precisely to explore how each #1 is not the same #1 - i.e. the fact of lots of people liking a record means something different depending on the record.

"I guess that might be summed up by asking whether a lot of people liking one thing means that there's meaning in the object, or if the meaning is just that a lot of people like it. "

Well we could ask the same question vis a vis Morrissey - what is the meaning of the Morrissey cult apart from the fact that a lot of people like him? As per above, popularity doesn't mean one single thing, it's an index of different meanings - this is a truism that can apply to any concept of course.

To say nothing of lots of people liking the same record in lots of different ways.

(My flippancy on these matters combined with the string of Reformation etc. references is intentional -- there's much thought and humor on this thread which is important, yet at the same time I'm not sure I'm sensing an entire challenge on the whole notion of emotional primacy at the heart of music love which regards one's own surrenders with the necessary dry chuckles. I don't think we need an Erasmus or anything, but better that than an Augustinian-obsessed Luther.)

Well yes exactly. But yr point is a popist article of faith so I'm not sure what you're arguing against.

Among my circle of friends, it seems to be more the norm to like Britney Spears than to not (though I do not), and certainly at least to think that mainstream hip-hop yields more good listening than underground hip-hop, and few people I know are dismissive of anything because it's "pop". I don't think I know anyone who would solidly qualify as a "rockist", but I also don't know anyone who holds the opinion that "boys with guitars" are dreary etc. Actually I have one friend who is not only an apparent rockist but also appears to own records by only one black artist (Dionne Warwick).

There is no popist backlash, because popism is a barely defined, generally pretty fringe viewpoint with little currency or influence outside the insular, over-shoulder looking blogosphere in the middle of ILM.

And My Chemical Romance are better than MIA.

(yes, being a twat)

whereas the other "popist" as the ‘popist of self reflexive variety (ie those who know what popism is)’ appreciates pop as a form rather than for its function which is in itself ultimately ‘rockist’, it is this the very criticism and debate on pop music is merely a form of "rockism" of sorts by applying their own principles, guidelines and aesthetic judgements (even though these are different judgements to those common in rockism and some time diamtrically opposed) to judge the popular being accepted not being on its own terms.

This makes sense in my head but i've articulated it really badly
...

ok some time ago was talking to a friend about some shit going down and my weird mixed feelings to it. they dismissed my feelings as "bullshit." i responded with what i still remember coz it seems a canonical popist move -- emotions, by defn., cannot be bullshit, but rather they have a genuine material existence.

this relates to something tim was saying way back.

i'd actually like to see more popist self-defn, coz i think its valid to privilege a critical stance that is about opposing the privilege of musical stances and this leads to no contradition at all.

as illustrated above, my popism is rilly a cornball route to humanism anyway (which is, to go waaay back, i think precisely what k-punk has a philosophical agenda against to begin with anyway)

Actually, I like Tim's articulation a lot. Most people don't think it through though, they just use it for quick shorthand. Instead of exploring the "how" and "why" of records, I've seen plenty of reviews take an easy outs of "it's good for dancing" or "it's fun" which seem not only lazy but condescending.

Yeah. That's the only definition of poppism that's ever made sense to me. And I don't understand what's supposed to be so hard to understand about it. It's not about saying that Dylan sux and Justin roolz, it's just saying that in making your case for why Dylan roolz you can't fall back on lazy assumptions about artistic or aesthetic "legitimacy" (he writes his own songs, not like Britney! he writes about politics and death and god, not like Avril!).

interesting to note that in the recent Dylan doc when he starts playing "rock" the "folk" crowd roundly poo poos him for playing "pop" ---

maybe we need some folkism up in the mix here --- one reason MIA has struck a chord I think is that she plays off a lot of those old folk tropes, pulling up the people etc. -----

your classic folk aficionado is all about auteurship and perceived authenticity but also has that deliberately populist 'we like to listen to what regular [poor/black/other] folks listen to' thing going on ----

one important "then and now" distinction seems to be that 60s folk fans were idealizing a sort of pre-corporate musical era when being populist didn't mean having to cozy up to mass-marketing ----

it seems like stuff like going to Indonesia to record gamelan ensembles or Rio to get your funk mixes is also pretty extreme in its pursuit of authenticity ---

it doesn't pursue what's old-fashioned or american necessarily ---- but it still privileges some kind of ideal which is related to what the 60s folk crowd was into ----

and this sort of "ghettos of the world" stuff certainly doesn't seem to fit in with what people are calling rockism ----

Have to disagree here. The populist bent of folk precludes it from being an auteur's music. Melodies, words, and titles are freely borrowed in folk songs, undergoing mutation after permutation, and the best ones presumably become part of the canon. Folk music is rarely self-conscious enough to pursue authenticity or that which is old-fashioned or that which is American; and anyways folk music was never essentially about fingerpicked guitars and songs with the word "blues" in them in the first place.

folk=authentic is definitely a common stereotype if nothing else.

Pop also has an idea of authenticity, I guess, but it's more diffuse.

Maybe in all cases authenticity is like a spirit which infuses the music from outside, but where folkism and rockism translate this process into a religion - by trying to give determinate body and shape to authenticity, and in the process determining what it can't be, what are the false idols etc. - popism thinks of the spirit as being able to be in all things because we choose put it there.

This is too much like both new agism and commodification (e.g. the spirtuality of the commodity) for nu-rockism (and, indeed, old-rockism) and I can see the point which nu-rockism is trying to make here, and it's partly valid.

But the alternative it proposes strikes me as something like wilful blindness: reinvesting in rockist tropes even though we know they're kinda false because it's less depressing than openly admiting you're a slave to consumerism. It's like deciding that materialism is bad and, therefore, committing yourself to buying figurines of the Virgin Mary from some All Christian Idols All The Time website because they are invested in "real" spirituality.

My point is that, along with the redefinition of sexual roles, one of the more awesome things about today's crop of 19 yr-old's is that they listen to whatever (this is thanks to iTunes and mp3 file sharing, not Clear Channel). There are no ethics or paradigms to which they hold their favorite acts guilty; Arcade Fire, Annie, and Kanye West inspire the same kinds of pleasure.

-- Alfred Soto (sotoal...), October 20th, 2005.

I mentally lock the thread at this point. Yay for Alfred.

but... not.

Everything these days is just boring old music.

Except emo. It's more than that.

i didn't even realise when i wrote this but my argument here basically conflates nu-rockism with neo-conservatism - at least in that strategic commitment to certain notions and values which you logically realise are contingent, baseless or even insupportable.

1. Boring simulacrum of old AoR.
2. Bad Rick James impersonation trying its damnedest not to be pop.
3. Pop. Bad pop, but pop nonetheless.
4. Tedious recycling of ten-year-old musical "tricks."
5. Meatloaf, will probably outsell every other single this year except "Crazy."
6. A plot lost.
7. A Proper Hit, I suppose, but rubbish and not very pop.
8. AoR balladry to be filed next to Richard Marx.
9. AoR balladry to be filed on the other side of Richard Marx.
10. zzzzzz

I assume the sarcasm tags should have been inserted here?

2 2 (4)
Justin Timberlake
Sexyback

3 25 (2)
Fergie
London Bridge

4 3 (3)
Nelly Furtado Ft Timbaland
Promiscuous

5 NEW
New Entry (-)
Killers
When You Were Young

6 4 (3)
Robbie Williams
Rudebox

7 5 (14)
Shakira Ft Wyclef Jean
Hips Don't Lie

8 6 (9)
Snow Patrol
Chasing Cars

9 9 (4)
The Feeling
Never Be Lonely

10 28 (2)
Jamelia
Something About You

I really like 2 out of those 10, like 4, think two are bad but interesting, loathe 1 and haven't heard 1. I think I am still a 'popist', oh well.

8. AoR balladry to be filed next to The Feeling.

Have you guys been checking out the comments Idolator is getting on some of its posts? And/or Stereogum? And/or Louis Jagger? Just not true.

Oh hey, I forgot I posted on this thread.

2. If it is possible, is it desirable?

I'm leaning towards "no" on both, but I haven't yet properly articulated my position to myself. Why do we have to accept music on its own terms? What if we think those terms are lousy? Can't we reject them and still sleep easy at night?

But I don't think it harmful to hold it to multiple paradigms, or for the ethic and paradigm to change based on your social and personal situation. Maybe this is equivalent to holding it to none, I don't know.

justin timberlake
fergie
nelly furtado
shakira

Than you're lying.

I'm guessing you loathe The Feeling? Or is it Snow Patrol?

xpost, Ronan - Snow Patrol: loathe (even more than the last Snow Patrol lot!). Feeling: not had the pleasure.

Really like: Justin and Nelly, actually Justin is really REALLY like, and Nelly is like more than average.

(x-post)

I was clearly referring to the kids, not yours truly.

Arcade Fire, Annie, and Kanye West inspire the same kinds of pleasure.

but... not.

See above.

I'll admit he could have chosen better examples.
-- Space Gourmand (papiermachealamphibia...), September 18th, 2006.

My post last year was inspired by flipping thru a student's iPod.

No need to be flippant, this was a serious question, not necessarily a criticism of you personally or even your post. I find the avg. 19y.o. (whoever that is) has more of an ideological stance towards music than people here.

If we don't exempt ourselves from "ethics and paradigms" (not scare quotes, I just like this turn of phrase really), should we make them transparent (and how)? The slide to what "kids today" like(these are scare quotes) that always seems to happen in these debates seems to be a certain kind of "e&p" argument, although one I really hate -- I listened to some crap when I was 19, don't know about the rest of you.

I'm supposed to write a long essay on the listening habits of my stduents, based in part on the responses I got last year. From what I've experienced the last 12 months, the idealogical purity of 19-y-olds is a chimera. Just this morning I overheard a group debating Chris Brown vs Ne-Yo and the merits of the new Timberlake album. One guy (the class wise-ass) was quite sincere in his love for the JT: "It's got a great beat and I dance to it in the car," he said when I quizzed him.

They do love purported autobiographical narratives, though. The same JT-loving guy said Nas was "the greatest rapper ever" because, according to this white 18-y-old, "he told you what life on the street was really like."

(I like 4 of top ten. 5 I've not yet heard, and the Justin single is rubbish).

At the start of popism in its current form (1999), the top 10 was awash with manufactured pop acts, and indie was on its deathbed. After nine years of popist cheerleading, no new pop act has had a major impact on the charts since 2002, and the biggest female solo star in America is the chick from the Moldy Peaches.

Maybe you guys shouldn't have bothered?

Had absolutely no idea that Amy Winehouse was in the Moldy Peaches.

Wait. Peaches is doing Amy Winehouse?

She got bored with the Stranglers.

peaches and whitehouse, together at last

If only Ms Whitehouse had attempted to "fuck the pain away" then perhaps she wouldn't have needed to become addicted to these so-called "drugs".

And feebly attempt to make up for it by inventing the so-called National Viewers and Listeners Association.

Snakes on a Plane!

So the guy from Whitehouse is a woman now and is starring in the sequel to Snakes on a Plane!?

Yah. Cuba Gooding Jr.'s set to direct.

Unfortunately Javier Bardem was not available to reprise his BAFTA-winning role as The Pub Landlord.

Four candles.

We are now paying the price for disregarding the warning that Rui Da Silva Featuring Cassandra gave us many years ago, viz. "We can only understand what we are shown."

Couldn't inspire Portugal to a trophy tho could he

Can we Sin Bin 'That one guy that hit it and quit it' and 'Dom Passantino'

When the, streets is watching
Blocks keep clocking
Waiting for you to break, make your first mistake
Can't ignore it

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/17/business/17music.xlarge1.jpg

In the end, popism lacked its John Carew.

It had plenty of Zoltan Steibers, though.

I don't think AMM-style free improv would've helped the cause any.

Occupation: Angry waiter and musical theater legend

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