What Is Rockism ?

Is rockism the liking of rock or the preference for it? Should we distinguish between anti-rockism and pop separatism? ;)

A lot of the anti-rockism mentality seems to imply that the only way someone can possibly dislike, say, Destiny's Child, is by filtering their music through an outdated set of rock-dude values - I say it's entirely possible to listen to both DC and Television with the same open ears, come away prefering Television by miles, without being a ideologically-rigid pop-hating wet-blanket.

I'd kinda like to quote the original Pete Wylie interview in which the term arose, but you know what — I lent my copy of NME that week to Matt Black of Coldcut (then Matt Cohn of the Jazz Insects), because it contained a review of the first A Certain Ratio LP — and he THREW IT AWAY instead of returning it!! When I complained — noting that Ian Penman had written said review — Matt replied: "Mark, you ARE Ian Penman."

So can I be Everett True yet?

The origins of the term don’t matter too much. For me rockist means an approach – current irredeemable rockers include U2, Primal Scream, Manic Street Preachers, Pearl Jam. If you can air guitar to it, it’s rock. Whether you care for redemption is a separate issue.

Best definition of rock. Ever. :)

Who says ILM debates never get anywhere?

Surely this would mean that Smiths and Belle & Sebastian fans = rockists, and Rolling Stones fans = non-rockists ?

Stones = MOST INAUTHENTIC ROCK GROUP OF ALL TIME BAR NONE, and that's what's GRATE abt em of course. Rockists SAY they like em, but when you go deeper, it's all talk.

(Patrick, is that you moved and back and settled in? Or are you another anti-anti- rockist Patrick joined forces with the first?)

Did I get that right?

Albums over songs. "Feeling" over, uh, other stuff. Individual performance and "real" performance over the "fake" (think synths and drum machines). A focus on lyrics. Narrative. "Development".

says Josh.

AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH IT!

As a side point, I don't think that the world is rockist at all. It only turns into a rockist review when a reviewer who's only used to reviewing rock tries to review somethign else - not equipped with the tools maybe? If you're used to talking about how an album flows from song to song (which is often, for me, an element in the enjoyment of music) how do you cope if there's only 1 track? Or 12 indistinguisble tracks? How do you give a drum machine a mark out of ten for the drumming?

P.S. I'd like to append all of this by saying that I really don't knwo what I'm talking about. Thank you.

Privileging of received wisdom over new discourse
Privileging of credibility / authenticity
Privileging of numbers and categorisation / lists

Mythology making the arbitrary appear necessary / essential

Making the cultural appear natural by making it appear to be invisible

The pursuit of objectivity

in america some seem to appreciate the post-punk 79-81 'real uk independant scene that we in uK have 'misplaced'and are refinding - see the Messthetics albums - brill bootleg compilations...

sorry am rambling and losing the thread..

jimmy

yay van dover

I prefer k-punk's "romantics of production vs romantics of consumption"

In a funny way "romantics" captures something hard to define but essential about both rockism and popism in a way that "authenticity" doesn't - at a stretch I'd call it their emotionally charged inconsistency.

Conversely, pop-discourse treats the pop star as the primary source of production, when in fact in reality many pop stars do not actually produce most of their own music beyond providing vocals - however if listeners ascribe to popism and/or pop discourse, they may choose to act as if the pop stars are the primary producers.

So rock involves a fantasy of consumption in order to preserve the primacy of production, whereas pop involves a fantasy of production in order to preserve the primacy of consumption.

It is irrelevant here that pop listeners "know" that their favourite pop star is not actually writing the songs, just as it is irrelevant that the rock listeners know that they have not actually seen their favourite hot new band live yet, or listened to their album on vinyl in a room. It's the acting as if these things are true in the face of knowledge to the contrary which is the very essence of the fantasies.

I seriously disagree with this, Tim. Rock-discourse actually values an album after it's been listened to repeatedly; masterpieces "hold up" after three dozen listens.

obviously one can listen to an album in one go many times over the course of a lifetime.

OK, I getcha.

i miss the days when all new posters like this were considered to be a sock

sockism

lol

it's more fun if you call them shit instead of not relevant - you'd be half wrong but have some courage in your own subjectivity

what's the rockism of appeals-to-relevance? it's a real thing and you can do it for or against rock or pop or whatever

It’s a far cry from previous decades, when artists like Elton John, Kate Bush and Phil Collins – who made music about grown-up concerns, which could be enjoyed by teens alike – soundtracked our lives. (It’s no surprise that this is the current state of pop in a country whose music industry is, according to the charts, propped up by a holy trinity of po-faced men: Ed Sheeran, George Ezra and Lewis Capaldi.)

I like Phil Collins but also it's very funny to use Phil Collins as an example here (and surely Phil is at least as po-faced as Sheeran, Ezra and Capaldi?)

I want someone to write a take on rockism that explains how Phil Collins and Steely Dan were the two uncoolest things imaginable to rockist gen x-ers but are both loved by rockist millenials. I have no idea what zoomers think of them, if anything

the early definitions on this thread are interesting in how diverse they are. what I'm getting is that rockism is a lot like fascism in how syncretic and incoherent it is and how many different guises can wear. someone could write a thing on ur-rockism like umberto eco did for fascism

"We wanted go back to the sound of just four guys in a gym."

i prefer 'whinerism'

Why don't we ask Freddie deBoer

runner up: crypto-poptimists & crypto-rockists

Kelefa Sanneh, Robert Christgau, and Douglas Wolk are the sages quoted in this. 2024 rockism style. the battle never ends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c7Boc2CPMg

Intergenerational!

i will never watch one of that person's videos, not sure if that makes me pro or anti rockism

idk this person + they just said, "it's almost like the more critical your opinion is, the more valid it is" and i like that they're calling this out, especially in re:"flops." he isn't making this point outright, but my conclusion to be drawn from his points is that "rockism" is kind of anti-appreciation, unless a very strict set of arbitrary and ill-defined rules are in place. i like that being called out.

otherwise, good video. brings up relevant new examples to support the old anti-rockism tropes.

it sucks people can’t write stuff down instead of requiring people to stare at their face while they talk at them

that guy is okay. i actually enjoy his genre videos. he does good quick histories of things and he brings up examples that you wouldn't expect him to bring up. he makes good connections. he's more of a metal/punk person.

He was less cringe inducing than most Talking to the camera guys

it sucks people can’t write stuff down instead of requiring people to stare at their face while they talk at them

― brimstead, Tuesday, 21 May 2024 17:59 (forty-two minutes ago) link

taking an online course right now and the prof loves making videos and barely types anything up, there are times where i have to scroll through a 17-minute video to discover a class policy that would take me 10 seconds at most to find on a legit syllabus

unrelated to rockism i suppose but i also wish people wrote things down instead of making videos

We’re entering the post-literate society

Writism

Writing is the rockism of human comm

One guy in a room with a typewriter

So where's the thread for complaining abt video (audio to tbh) as preferred mode of communication? Ours is undoubtedly a civilisation in decline

Images of text too... What is the fucking deal? I get meme templates, at least I know where they originated, but wtf is up with images of small chunks of horribly formatted text?

hot medium/cool medium iirc

i just heard about civilization in decline on a vid by plato, why do new school kids need to have one name all the time

we do have this fwiw

Music Criticism in Video Form

ah yeah forgot about that one.

hey scott, thx again for posting this video. i don't love our friend overall, but there's a sentiment he's getting at here that really stuck with me...

re:being extra critical or having a set of arbitrary and ill-defined rules that things have to adhere to in order for the rockist to give it a fair listen... that's so real ime. some people don't even know much about technical aspects of music, but will still have these staunch rules of engagement before a band/artist even gets taken seriously.

(honestly, how do you not have the ability to distinguish between major/minor tonality and yet still want me to take your opinion on "songwriting" seriously? not saying everyone has to be a scholar, but at least don't be ignorant. strawman here maybe, but c'mon)

it seems like some of those folks are listening to music for the sole purpose of taking it down critically. why even bother, do they even enjoy music to begin with? it's sad/annoying/scary when it's not even traditional "rock" fans who do it and start applying those rockist attitudes to non-white, non-establishment music.

that video really illuminated this with a lot of impact.