Douglas Wolk, clearheaded, on rockism

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the reason the article works is that its written in a way that may engage people for whom endlessly hashing this stuff out in their free time isn't a top priority.

I'm one of them and yes, this piece works quite well for me.

― Je4nne ƒury (Jeanne Fury), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll say it again, rockism is an especially illustrative and acute symptom of what Derrida calls logocentrism.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Not quite, Tim.

it's too sexist/violent/homophobic. gimme someone like mia who sez something.

There is a definite value judgement there--that it's okay to be gay, women aren't for debasement and violence is 'bad.' these are common, modern american values. and i agree with all of them. but i am not Everyman.

It's more the last part of the sentence that bothers me, though. It's not saying "I like MIA" it's saying "What you listen to is bad because it is NOT like MIA." It implies that music that does contain homophobia/sexism/violent imagery DOES NOT say something, which is quite false. It does say a lot of things. You just don't like them.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:18 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost
But I don't think most people want to take the time to understand that.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I care very little about MIA's lyrics.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

(and no one has the right to tell anyone else what to like.)

xposts.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Spencer, MIA was an example, a strawman if you will. I haven't even heard all of the MIA album. Frankly, I'm just not interested.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

one difference between auteur theory and rockism is that auteurism is more a perspective than a prejudice, it exists generally to lend insight more than judgment. rockism is more a prejudice than a perspective (in fact one could argue - and the argument's on this thread and in the article too somewhat - that it isn't a perspective at all), it exists to judge, to say 'why this is good and that is bad' which is the most boring critical discussion of all.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Totally OTM Spencer, now imagine having dozens of Logocentrism: Classic or Dud threads springing up.

― TV's Mr Noodle Vague (noodle vague), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Noodle Vague: Yup, it's the critics setting the terms of the debate (or framing as Spencer suggests). Maybe the debate about rockism speaks more to the paucity of knowledge about how these issues play out in other fields. It's the anxiety that courses through these debates which is the more compelling thing to consider, really. What is at stake here and for whom?

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

You're seeing the theory after forty years of modification, Noodle V. But back in the day they did seriously believe that. See Andrew Sarris's The American Cinema and subsequent revising of opinions therein.

(n by xpost)

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Spencer: I always kinda felt like the problem with an idea like "logocentrism" is that it's theoretically fascinating and practically vague; if Douglas suggests the best thing to do with rockism is to be "aware" and "careful" about it is probably a good thing, but we might all end up doing it in different ways, which would further neuter our vocabulary. I'm not calling for grand truths or anything, but...

― mike powell (mike powell), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I usually assume that Moral and Political values underpin Aesthetic ones. This is what generates the heat.

― TV's Mr Noodle Vague (noodle vague), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:24 (twenty-one years ago)

now imagine having dozens of Logocentrism: Classic or Dud threads springing up.

One can dream. They'll probably do it on dissensus, but I'm not feeling that board completely yet.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Well what's interesting about auteur theory in film is that certain directors--usually based on extremely personal early works--are branded as auteurs, whereas many directors who have made better and deeper films are not, for whatever reasons. Neil Jordan, Michael Apted, and Hal Ashby are rarely mentioned in the same fanboy company as Kubrick, Scorsese, or Spielberg. It probably has a lot to do with style of filmmaking more than content. Or maybe I'm wrong!

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Mike, I agree. In lay terms, Douglas sets up the binary which is again why I find it a useful introduction and framing.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Far from being vague, Derrida's readings of texts are models of ultra-precision. Wolk is suggesting the same thing, I think: that the critic is aware of their own thinking in the act of thinking it.

― TV's Mr Noodle Vague (noodle vague), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the base point, which Douglas' article addresses nicely, is that rockist values are ingrained so deeply in a large portion of the populaton that it would never occur to them that it exists or that it's something that should be questioned.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

spencer i agree with you that most people that like mia are pro-hip-hop, grime, whatever. i'm talking about most of the pro-mia criticism that's been printed (key word). rockism can be used to defend anything (hell to damn anything too probably) - i've read rockist pieces about bastard pop, madonna, and i'm sure most ilmers have come across some rockist pro-techno or pro-hip-hop arguments before. hell the whole pro-'dahnce' argument a lil while back was rockist as hell. there are no actual aesthetic values at the heart of rockism (except maybe auteurism, though in rockism it's never more than a litmus test - 'is this person an artist? than this can't be art'), there are only kneejerk prejudices, it's a critical method designed to preclude thought and criticism without thought is pretty fucking useless.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

(how it applies to critics is more debatable, I think)

xpost

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Ken I guess you're prob'ly right for the most part about the evolution of Auteur. Is it too much to hope for that Rockism might move in the same direction? I.E. become a perspective for looking at certain things that music does but in a relatively value-free way?

― TV's Mr Noodle Vague (noodle vague), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

well that's true. It's taken for granted that rock music is the superior form of music, and how could anyone take anything else as seriously? I think much of it has to do with people overrating the emotional impact of lyrics and underrated the emotional impact of an instrumental track, for example. Rock is lyric-based, these guys are actually talking about stuff, man. Dance music? Pop music? Rap? that's just for dancing, no thought it involved!

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:32 (twenty-one years ago)

xxxxpost

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know, N. Vague. But it seems to have hung on for thirty years without changing too much.

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

i'm talking about most of the pro-mia criticism that's been printed

Gotcha, good point then.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I think Haikunym's first post is OTM. What I liked about Sanneh's article is that he explained that while anyone could appreciate any kind of music in a rockist manner, the practical implication was an example of how power manifests itself in criticism (the line about "is it a coincidence that rockists pit straight white men against the rest of the world" or what have you). Why critics who constantly praise KRS-1 at the expense of L'Trimm (to use an ILM-friendly example) are not sexist per se, but who are constructing popular music discourse in a way that values music that is gendered male (male listeners = more likely to identify with the music). And of course it can work with regards to gender, race, politics, culture, economics, etc. etc. etc. OR like that article Matos linked to a while back talking about how that Minneapolis radio station was buying into the myth that black artists create music for more "cerebreal" white artists to pilfer - another example of how rockism manifests itself as dynamics of power.

(I hope that didn't sound too pretentious, I hardly claim to be some sort of philosophy expert or something, i'm just trying to explain my thoughts in the best way i know how.)

I've been biting this paragraph from the "pop thread" on dissensus and showing it to people for like a week now, but I think it's a very good explanation. I hope I'm not changing the intended meaning by removing it from context, and I've been all quoting Tim on ILM lately which probably makes me a weirdo, but Tim F. said:

Deleuze writes, “What is an essence as revealed in the work of art? It is a difference, the absolute and ultimate Difference. Difference is what constitutes being, what makes us conceive being.” The function of sensuous signs in art is to bring us face to face with the mass of differentiated intensities, whose aggregation and conglomeration allow us to conceive of stable concepts and meanings. When I say art brings us "face to face" with this stuff, I mean that it forces us to recognise the inescapably differential nature of these affects, rather than proceed straight to the concepts which we have lazily attached to them, and which we imagine to be standing behind them in a signifying relationship. For Deleuze it would be a mistake to assume that art exists to be "interpreted", its signs read in order to discover some message or meaning they contain. This reduces art to a reflection of conceptual generalities - insert "auteurism" or "dilettantism" here. Instead, the function of art is to intensify our experience of difference – or, to put it another way, our awareness of the endless potential for differentiated experience.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:34 (twenty-one years ago)

(Not to sideline a pretty good debate, but "pro-mia" is a term used for those who advocate bulimia as an effective weight loss technique. Rockist dieting)

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I should have bolded the For Deleuze it would...insert "auterism" or "dilettantism" here part.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:37 (twenty-one years ago)

blount and sterling appear very OTM in this thread as well.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Jordan, I take it this is what he means by "normative." Rockism is a discursive envelope within which is contained a certain limited approach to the appreciation of music.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

* "it's too sexist/violent/homophobic."

"There is a definite value judgement there--that it's okay to be gay, women aren't for debasement and violence is 'bad.' these are common, modern american values. and i agree with all of them. but i am not Everyman."

Why does someone voicing an opinion have to speak for Everyman?

* "gimme someone like mia who sez something."

"It's not saying "I like MIA" it's saying "What you listen to is bad because it is NOT like MIA." It implies that music that does contain homophobia/sexism/violent imagery DOES NOT say something, which is quite false. It does say a lot of things. You just don't like them."

That's kind of semantic hairsplitting. It's fairly clear what the person means by "saying something." The person is saying that there's more value in the words. (Yes, more value for himself or herself personally.)

"and no one has the right to tell anyone else what to like."

Expressing an opinion /= telling other people what to like

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

they don't tim. the point is that they don't have any obligation to speak for anyone beside themselves at all.

this whole discussion is awful. go back to graduate school.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I've never been to graduate school. And I think this discussion is important because lots of people, including critics, don't stop and look at the effect they have, the way they participate in a system that creates an artifical heirarchy.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Jordan, I take it this is what he means by "normative." Rockism is a discursive envelope within which is contained a certain limited approach to the appreciation of music.

I know, I was just saying that was the part of the article that stood out for me the most and trying not to get bogged down in the current morass of discussion.

And, uh, no offense but your definition doesn't exactly make it more clear.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Jordan, none taken. What I mean is that a rockist discourse limits how we define and therefore appreciate and, in many ways, experience music.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"i don't like yr usual hip-hop/grime/dancehall - it's too sexist/violent/homophobic. gimme someone like mia who sez something."

If the point is that the person saying this is generalizing too much about hip hop/grime/dancehall then, yeah, it's bullshit.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

More that they are being misleading with their criticism. "gimme someone like mia who sez something that agrees with my worldview" might be a better way to say it.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

But "says something" shouldn't be taken literally. We understand that the person who says that a certain music "says something" is really saying that he or she finds more value in what is being said.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:51 (twenty-one years ago)

... than they do in whatever music they're comparing it to.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I wouldn't say that, Tim. Its not that they find more value in MIA, it's that they find a different value in MIA.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

What's worse, Ian, grad students or people who heckle them?

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"I'm not going to participate in this discussion, it's stupid. In fact, I'm going to make a point of not participating in this discussion because it's stupid, and by so doing I will make myself look smart in the bargain. Yep."

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Friday, 6 May 2005 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Rockism discussions usually make my head hurt, but I thought that Wolk piece was ace.

― darin (darin), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

David, I'm pretty interested in this idea of differing values; I guess my question is if you think they're ever compatible, because it would seem like it's only to a certain music's credit that we could come to a concensus on not its quality per se, but maybe just the fact that it compels us, which would kinda transcend the whole notion of a multiplicity of values- unless I'm misunderstanding it.

― mike powell (mike powell), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

"Says something" could also mean the sort of logocentrism that Spencer mentions -- you're privileging the kind of music that's designed to make you think, music that is "meaningful," music that commands you to pay attention -- as opposed to, say, ambient or easy listening, for instance.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

But designed suggests that the intention of the artist is more prominent, right? I mean, ambient music might make someone think very deeply; the ubiquity of John Cage's "4:33" isn't a testament solely to the formal qualities of its "sound," but the pure power of the idea.

― mike powell (mike powell), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

what's funny about that is most music that strains for meaning evokes no emotion in me whatsoever, which might explain my dislike of Springsteen for the most part (but doesn't explain my like of U2, ha). But I think it's much easier to write about/assess narrative music than it is to discuss an instrumental or ambient music. Which explains why many reviews quote lyrics at length as a way of conveying how much the music means and why many people believe (whether passionately or because they've been taught that this is that case) that non-narrative music is meaningless and dull.

― Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (Gear!), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, I think you're right, if I understand what you're getting at. Music I love usually transcends "my values," at least how I consciously construct those values, by provoking me in some regard. I suppose I respond sort of subconsciously first. That idea of "experiencing difference," I guess.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I like lots of music by assholes.

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:16 (twenty-one years ago)

(plz ignore obvious joke)

― Lethal Dizzle (djdee2005), Friday, 6 May 2005 21:17 (twenty-one years ago)

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Yeah, that bullshit set me off on fb.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 10 February 2015 05:37 (eleven years ago)

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