What Is Rockism ?

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

no chillax no cred

"Rockite: A member of an Irish organization associated with agrarian disorders in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. Also Rockism."

Not online yet then.

sheeeeit.

that's big.

GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT GEIRBAIT

So is this thread ground zero?

I like how most of the other words there are only used by corny nitwits as well

I used to refer in a derogatory manner to someone in University in the late 80s for being to rockist, i.e they use to read only Raw magazine and their music tastes were too rockist.

While I listened to a wider variety of music Talk Talk/Spacemen 3/ Cocteau Twins/ Yello/Colourbox/ The Fall/ Happy Mondays/ My Bloody Valentine/ arkane/ Front 242/ Husker Du/ Mary Margaret O'Hara/ Kate Bush/Detroit techno/ Wire/ Lowlife/That Petrol Emotion/ Throwing Muses/ Sonic Youth/Phillip Boa & the Voodoo Club/ The Young Gods/ The Chameleons/ Blue Nile/ Voivod/ Sisters of Mercy/ Skinny Puppy/New Order/Killing Joke etc

-- DJ Martian, Thursday, 14 December 2000 01:00 (6 years ago) Bookmark Link

you couldn't make it up.

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.