What Is Rockism ?

xxp given the source this is unsurprising, and it probably was a response, but tom ewing had written something, which I now cannot find for the life of me, about 20 ways of writing about pop music

this?

http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7848-poptimist-32/

i think for all everyone moans about feeling pressured to like certain pop music, i've never felt more pressure than when i was told that the greatest album in forever was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and after some initial straining to like it as much as Being There or whatever all i heard was an understandable business decision by Warner Bros.

not that one, it was more recent

there's something about making (wholly unsubstantiated) claims that poptimists are somehow "as bad as" rockists that reminds me of people who are really upset about reverse racism. yeah i'm sure spoon and muse are the victims of outrageous amounts of disrespect from poptimists, totally.

i think it's similar in that after years of lots of people just writing and talking about and praising nothing but rock music, suddenly people who do the same for pop is a bridge too far.

For that analogy to make sense to me, I'd have to be able to believe that 'pop music' was the object of years of slavery, segregation, and oppression at the hands of 'rock music'. xp

https://media2.giphy.com/media/rUMEf0ZDHamwE/giphy.gif

There's so much music out there yet all we talk about is [insert genre(s) here].

there's something about making (wholly unsubstantiated) claims that poptimists are somehow "as bad as" rockists that reminds me of people who are really upset about reverse racism. yeah i'm sure spoon and muse are the victims of outrageous amounts of disrespect from poptimists, totally.

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, May 11, 2017 1:19 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's actually more like poptimists=white conservative pundits who ignore the fact that their "side" controls the entire government and most of the economy but like, some dude's speaking engagement at a small private college in connecticut got canceled

ever since the british invasion "rock music" has been more or less overtly defined as music by and for white men.

UMS OTM

i mean as far as i know taylor swift isn't _actually_ alt-right

again, read what i actually posted. it's not saying pop music is alt right.

yah i know i'm just saying it's like i don't think rhianna or future are sitting around giving a shit that somebody at rate your music thinks muse is way better.

pop music is not oppressed in any way, it's more popular and successful and well known than like wilco or whatever

worrying about real estate getting a better review than pop music is like "oh no they had to take down a statute of jesus in dayton ohio"

this argument is so fucking stupid

dudes

there are tonnes of rockers
writing tunes with guitars
performing to a small base
playing the local art space

theyll never leave the scene
wont appear on yr fave zine
you can go see them rock out
dressed punk, nerdy or drugged out

but the best thing is
you can have a brewskie
and be all cheeky

"how can we make this already-rapidly-losing-all-remaining-coherence concept more coherent?" "I know, let's make analogies to 2017 politics"

it has produced literally no good writing on any kind of music

snrub just otm-ed whiney, which i think shd make us all look p fucking hard at ourselves

i drove across the country last month and occasionally turned on the radio to see what was going on there. a lot of country music out in kansas, a lot of "classic rock" out in kansas. not a lot of pop music. there may be two or three people at the top of the charts getting paid, but you don't actually have a better chance of "making it" as a pop musician than you do as a rock musician. the idea that contemporary pop music is some insuperable and dominant cultural force because rihanna has a navy or whatever, i'm not really buying it.

will ponder this one a while:

there's no fucking rock bands any more. The end.

― Jay Elettronica Viva (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, May 11, 2017 10:48 AM (forty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can we at least agree that pop is currently the default and therefore dominant paradigm?

What do the music critics in Kansas write about?

the monoculture is dead

ever since the british invasion "rock music" has been more or less overtly defined as music by and for white men.

I mean, way before the British Invasion, the 'pop' charts were overtly distinct from the 'race' (later R&B) and 'hillbilly' (later country and Western) charts. I just looked up a bunch of random Billboard year-end charts from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and they're all topped by white people.

xp

killed by insecticides

oh come on, try setting foot in a kansas middle or high school (actually, please don't, but) and then talk about there not being a lot of pop music

it's like framing any response to anything this way instantly injects a fvckton of unprocessable garbage into yr brain, whether yr k-punk or lord custos

kind of amazed nobody here has brought up Miley's MOR pivot

Mark S also OTM. So Yowie is like a mersh Jute Gyte? I should look into that.

"simultaneously long and under-developed on every point" is pretty much the Quietus's editorial philosophy, it seems to me.

Also, personal anecdote: One of their editors reached out to see if I wanted to review the last Metallica album, but only if I could promise them a negative review. I couldn't, and he got someone who could.

https://skingraftrecords.bandcamp.com/album/synchromysticism

So there already. This is good stuff.

but only if I could promise them a negative review. I couldn't, and he got someone who could.

this is how everyone assigns reviews

(obviously it's more often "only if I could promise them a *positive* review" but)

Can we at least agree that pop is currently the default and therefore dominant paradigm?

― pomenitul, Thursday, May 11, 2017 11:38 AM (five minutes ago)

this is not true. the industry often operates as if pop is the dominant paradigm even when it isn't, to its own detriment.

the monoculture is dead

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Thursday, May 11, 2017 11:39 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is true.

this is how everyone assigns reviews

Not in my experience. I've been doing this since 1996 and that was literally the first time that ever happened to me.

anyway i am off to watch the eurovision semis bcz i am the hegemony (all of it)

The death of monoculture doesn't preclude the idea of a dominant paradigm.

in my experience there is almost always an understanding, spoken or not, that your verdict will not differ substantially from the verdict the editor wants to commission. it's why most major publications do not assign reviews unheard

(or if they do it is generally because they have a longstanding enough relationship with the writer that they can make a guess at what the verdict will be.)

the other day i was walking by this house they are building on the next block, anyway the carpenters were working on finish the roof of the garage, and in general in Minnesota you expect KQRS (our longtime classic rock station) to be the soundtrack to any blue collar worksite but these guys were probably late 20s and playing generic EDM type stuff, and was kind of a neat the times they are a changin' moment

even in a strictly market/commercial sense pop is not the dominant paradigm in 2017 and it will cede even more space to other genres of music in the near future

from the early 90s onward the top 40 brand of supposedly 'mass-market' pop has frequently been commercially subservient to other segments of the industry (usually for a few years at a time)

y'd u quote ilx in the comment section

― i n f i n i t y (∞), Thursday, 11 May 2017 16:57 (two hours ago)

Was hoping for an influx of dunderheads but I realise now I needn't have bothered.

xp & while i would like to be sympathetic to the argument that those parts of the industry (like dance, hip-hop, r&b) are also pop, critics tend not to treat them as such -- and the rockism/poptimism debate is inherently about criticism.

xxxp

the new economy

they probs majored in ancient concrete poetry in post-cleopatra modern day egypt

even in a strictly market/commercial sense pop is not the dominant paradigm in 2017 and it will cede even more space to other genres of music in the near future

from the early 90s onward the top 40 brand of supposedly 'mass-market' pop has frequently been commercially subservient to other segments of the industry (usually for a few years at a time)

― dyl, Thursday, May 11, 2017 3:11 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Help me understand this then: http://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2016/top-billboard-200-albums

ha tim

and the rockism/poptimism debate is inherently about criticism.

i agree w/this you probably have to know who robert christgau is to be really invested in the debate

well glad we had our bi-annual shitting on pop critics