What Is Rockism ?

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.

Hmm...ideas for future Teena Marie album liner notes.

I mean that, in 2006, it is not "natural social behaviour" to listen to an album in one go on vinyl in a room, but it IS to listen to MP3s in bits on the bus. The rockist constructs false environments in which to consume rock because rock needs to be consumed "properly", that's how it's designed - the popist consumes pop whenever and wherever he/she can, because that's what pop is for. Ergo the consumption of pop is more authentic, because it doesn't require falsely-constructed environments, and I would argue that, say, Lex (as definitive strawman popist!) would see it as a positive thing that people listen to Ciara on the bus, because that(consumption)'s authentic, and who gives too figs whether the music was made "because Ciara was feeling it, man, and needed to express it", or because some producer had a tune and some A&R man had a face for the tune (which is inauthentic, because it is manipulative.

And we all know how rock is (supposedly) produced - friends-from-childhood in the garage.

So, pop manipulates you when it is produced, because of the (supposed) unnaturalness of it's production, but not when it's consumed, cos you can consume it whenever and wherever you like. Rock manipulates you when it is consumed, because it ought to be live, or all in one go, but not when it's produced because kids in garages with cheap guitars is "natural".

Of course, pop lies about it's autheticity of consumption just as much as rock lies about it's authenticity of production; the lies necessary tools in the pop playbook in order to construct myths which fit the music into the right slot in order to attract the pre-ordained fanbase necessary for it to succeed. Which is why Scritti Politti "fail" at pop and The Kooks "fail" at rock.

this is just wild, unsupported assumption stated as fact, on the basis that there is such a quantifiable thing as 'natural' social behaviour in the first place. social behaviour is in no way homogenous, and both can be seen as as 'natural' as each other. there's nothing unusual about the fact that many people who are into music can and do engage in both of these activites, albeit not usually at the same time. there's nowhere to plug in your turntable on the N73.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1663591,00.html

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.