What Is Rockism ?

I think mark s is asking for something which might not exist: "well-written" pieces undermined by their rockism or poptimism.

Does anyone really mind a think piece steeped in rockist (or poptimist) that is thoughtful, nuanced, insightful (i.e. well-written) as regards its subject matter? I certainly don't. Rockism is often quite a useful frame for thinking about music if the writer/thinker writes well.

The issue for me back in the day was always that ideological slanting encouraged or at least permitted bad writing and gave it a platform so long as it was consistent with certain shared assumptions between the platform and its audience. I could still pull up any number of truly awful Pitchfork reviews of pop and dance albums from 1999 to 2001 if it was necessary - but they're not "well-written", they're intellectual lazy.

The main difference now perhaps is that clickbait culture encourages writers to be intellectually lazy about everything. So, yes, there's a lot of bad writing that looks like "poptimism", but I think the badness of the writing is symptomatic of a much bigger than problem than "so who ultimately won the rockism wars?"

The reason there is no good piece on this is because no human being who doesn't have an ILX account gives a shit about any of this, which is why every single piece has to begin with a Nolan Ryan fucking windup "IN 2004 ROCK CRITIC KELEFAH SANNEH SAID BEEP BOOP MEEP MOOP"

Never forget the time notoriously head-up-the-internet's-ass content sluice the Fader commissioned the worst infographic in the history of time for their take on poptimism

http://thefader-res.cloudinary.com/images/w_2400,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:best/poptimism-other-means_xobkl6/poptimism-kelefa-sanneh-interview.jpg

A 'shame' this subreddit no longer exists:

https://www.reddit.com/r/realmusicmasterrace/

I think at least we can all agree that "Wimmels's uncle" should be adopted as a new synonym for "man on the street" "John Q Public" etc.

Heh, I'm reminded of this Morton Feldman anecdote:

My teacher Stefan Wolpe was a Marxist and he felt my music was too esoteric at the time. And he had his studio on a proletarian street, on Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue. . . . He was on the second floor and we were looking out the window, and he said, "What about the man on the street?" At that moment . . . Jackson Pollock was crossing the street.

lol

"The main difference now perhaps is that clickbait culture encourages writers to be intellectually lazy about everything."

^^^^^

Like the problem is that the imperative to create capital-C Content has forced critical writing (whether good or bad) to rub up against dipshitty SEO-baiting pieces that usually are barely worthy of Bustle, and that are drenched in celebrity-press breathlessness and cynical attempts to mimic whatever slang is big on the internet at that moment. This could be another effect of print's diminishment; lots of magazines ran both, but they were delinated by section (and even at times design). Now the flattening of Content and the way people source and surface news means that everything looks the same, so of course lowest-common-denominator stuff wins out, because it's easier to produce and has a higher ROI.

Also it really sucks that every music citation in that Wiki post upthread is from a piece written by a man, although I guess it also speaks to the overarching binary that results in this discussion inevitably tripping into a mud pit of at best unexamined, at worst bad-faith arguments nearly every time.

And finally I'm going to push back on Whiney upthread and say that poptimist critics shouldn't "ride for" the Chainsmokers et al, because that's just a perpetuation of the celeb-press ideal. But they should examine their music and take it seriously, and not shove off any surprising reactions they might have to their songs.

(Full disclosure: Whiney assigned me that two-star Chainsmokers review I wrote a few weeks back.)

I felt like this comment on the NYT John Mayer interview from a few weeks ago was a great indictment of the root causes of rockism:

"If he were a woman, someone would have told him already if he wants to stay popular, just shut up, sing and look pretty. That interviewers keep going to John Mayer for deep thoughts is perfect example of white male privilege. We don't expect deep thoughts from Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Usher, Selena Gomez. We expect to entertained. Interviewers need to stop trying to make John Mayer seem like a philosopher. Describe what he's wearing, what he ate for dinner, how he gets his hair to look so great. Would make for a better read."

Like think about how many shitty male artists get the "secret genius" pass, and how women who have similar worldviews are treated like ditzes. Etc.

But as long as men are framing the discussion it's going to be about how Beyoncé is actually an oppressor. Nice work if you can get it.

it'd require a lot of things:

- tackle this from the top down, not the bottom up. you are not going to improve music writing by endlessly haranguing freelancers who can't go to their landlord and say "sorry, I only have $150 in my bank account right now, but at least I'm not ruining poptimism."

get rid of executive cynicism, if that's even possible. get rid of editor cynicism, which is. the "deep thoughts" problem exists at the assigning level -- those Deep Thoughts Interviewers aren't "going to" major-label artists on their own volition, they were commissioned. (and in keeping with magazine writing byline distribution, those writers are usually male.) those Deep Thoughts Interviewers are then praise for being the deserving ones, writing about the deserving subjects.

meanwhile the Selena Gomez pieces are assigned to a bunch of 21-year-olds that the entire career advice industrial complex, if not their editors directly, are urging to believe in their own work, buy their own hype, don't be afraid to answer those calls for pitches about smart, incisive writing about pop music, et cetera. but of course nobody believes in their work, certainly expects nothing of it, crapshoot whether it's even edited, let alone edited for writing style or rhetorical clarity. getting out toward the more cynical end bad takes might even be encouraged, either because they bring in the clicks or because "it needed to be said, it doesn't have to be good" (I have actually heard this). then those writers are shat on endlessly, via twitter or via 2000-word Saul Austerlitz piece, about how bad they are and how much they are ruining, when they're reaching the low ceiling that was set for them.

tl;dr: if you're putting shit on the menu, don't be surprised when people start developing a taste for shit

look, if there's shit on the menu i'm still not ordering it, that would be crazy

I don't see you leaving the restaurant.

(not that I am arguing that having the contempt up front is the solution; it didn't make me a better writer to be told that there was nothing wrong with pieces that there was clearly a lot wrong with, but it sure as shit didn't make me a better writer to be told I don't have a voice, there's no reason anyone would read my work over anyone else's. and don't bother trying to change that.

but, stay with me here, what if there was... not contempt)

yeah, if the journalism industry wasn't largely populated by miserable sons-of-bitches whose self-loathing extends as far as everybody they work with things would be better. what's the enforcement mechanism? what makes this a policy rather than "wouldn't it be nice if people were nice?"

never said this was enforceable, or doable really

i don't like half the music writing i even agree w/sometimes because the nastiness and contempt extends into the pieces themselves...

[halo]on RYM I only review my 5-star albums[/halo]

i mean maybe if journalism as a career wasn't precariat in perpetuum journalists wouldn't be constantly miserable?

lol @ john mayer and him being a philosopher

gis'd john mayer fans

http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/jm1__oPt.jpg

https://peopledotcom.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/john-mayer-300-4.jpg

yep makes sense

HIS BODY IS A WONDERMAN

welcome to the real world

she said to me

this thread discussion has actually been good!!

"actually, it's good" - d-40, poptimist

I wonder if the problem for poptimism is that it took the existence of the marketplace too much for granted. Contextually this made sense, particularly as a way of dismantling the self-valorising semantics of rock criticism. But Poptimism can seem a realist perspective that sortof closes the loop. In becoming so entirely pragmatic about markets, it makes it impossible to think about, as an example, folk traditions and cultural production that emerges from a more communitarian or even utilitarian context.

― plax (ico), Friday, May 12, 2017 4:38 AM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This post is 10000000x right. We can talk about good poptimism and bad poptimism all day, but i feel like ive been waiting a decade plus for the conversation to have advanced enough where we can talk about (where i can properly articulate) a problem w/ the poptimist ... not consensus, but what it leaves out. historically on here i think a lot of the convo was so focused on bringing ppl up to speed on the notions of authenticity & etc that you just found common cause w/ most ilx poptimists (save maybe lex on occasion) bc the alternative was stone ages rockism & bc the poptimists here tended to be the most thoughtful

but i think the current wave of socio-political concerns actually does underline a shortcoming poptimism has had for years—and I mean both good & bad poptimists, like, common to 21 year olds and even tim f's approach (which tends to be close in many ways to my own way of thinking). which is to look at music not just as a product for you, the consumer, which has come to u naturally through those objective capitalist forces—to see The Market as a force that happens to often coincide w/ innovation.

basically i think a major shortcoming of poptimism is readily apparent when we look at a highly developed poptimist industry, and its creative output: why is K Pop so terrible? the answer is that popular music, by and large, is still driven by a post-colonial & post slave dynamic that puts black america at the cutting edge of innovation in pop music, and that poptimism inadvertently elides the ways in which the music industry co-opts those creative forces and turns them into polished accomplishments

an auteur like Prince for example (i could use recent rappers but then the thread would devolve into controversy from ppl who haven't paid attention to rap since Bush I) was ripped off left & right (likewise there was a counter-pressure from the Jam & Lewis-produced electro R&B of the era which was also ripped off) so people in the music industry made lots of money. Pointing to the fact that Prince is seen an "auteur" isn't to suggest we should buy into some uncritical cheerleading narrative (which tbh is the status quo right now lol but i dont mind) but also points to his centrality to the musical conversation and the way that it drives the entire *economy* of pop. And there are other examples who never achieve his level of fame, who toil in the industry and are ripped off but through the objective nihilism playground (or w/e) of that industry are under- or never recognized for their contributions. Much of my experience has been that the further i go into writing about music, the more i'm trying to identify those tributaries where innovation and trends really take place, and how they flow, and what inspires them; and explaining the context for it, because no one from The Industry managed to swoop in and A&R than innovation so that you didn't *need* context to "get it."

This isn't so much a critique of poptimism as a "but also...."

as katherine and maura have already discussed this debate is way more about the changing nature of journalism and its inability to monetise the internet than the particular music that critics like

there's def a big irony in that we live in a mega-auteurist age now - vast swathes of pop, both popular and not, are still dismissed as frivolous or meaningless or dumb. but then a lot of the big pop megastars have always forced critics to Take Them Seriously just by dint of sticking around, i guess.

(save maybe lex on occasion)

!

i feel like 90% of the debate about poptimism over the years has been based on misunderstanding what it is and how deep it's meant to be. precisely zero "poptimist" critics have ever focused solely on pop as genre or pop as success

haha not a diss i just never came around on paris hilton

still time tbh

there's def a big irony in that we live in a mega-auteurist age now - vast swathes of pop, both popular and not, are still dismissed as frivolous or meaningless or dumb. but then a lot of the big pop megastars have always forced critics to Take Them Seriously just by dint of sticking around, i guess.

― lex pretend, Friday, May 12, 2017 1:51 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

for what its worth the POV im articulating above is *also* critical of this—i'm suggesting lots of 'innovators' are marginalized by the Fame Industry for various reasons

Taking the existence and the exigencies of the marketplace for granted strikes rather too close to home -- critics who deal with pop as libs or, in the eyes of rockists, cynics.

well, sure, there is a broad, almost tautological assumption that music only becomes worthy of consideration when touched by a celebrity, so the exact same song is treated as unremarkable pop sluice when recorded by Bonnie McKee or Wynter Gordon and then a masterpiece when recorded by Katy Perry or Beyonce. sometimes you'll get a blithe statement of "it's how they inhabited it, it's their conveniently unrefutable presence," but it always comes off as justification after the fact

but this is at least 102-level stuff. the discussion hasn't even gotten past the pre-101 tautology of "pop music is bad." I haven't heard the Harry Styles record beyond the two singles, which are okay, but nevertheless: why *can't* it be good? "Because it's a boy band member trying on classic-rock clothes." OK, but what if it's still good? "Because the market rewards Harry Styles writing to the exclusion of Hardworking Busker Misty." OK, but that still does not prevent the Harry Styles record from being good. Nothing answers this question but the tautology: "because it's pop music, of course it's bad."

innovator is perhaps too narrow a term for what i mean but you get it

i think a major shortcoming of poptimism is readily apparent when we look at a highly developed poptimist industry, and its creative output: why is K Pop so terrible? the answer is that popular music, by and large, is still driven by a post-colonial & post slave dynamic that puts black america at the cutting edge of innovation in pop music, and that poptimism inadvertently elides the ways in which the music industry co-opts those creative forces and turns them into polished accomplishments

deej, you've got a conference pitch for next year. Start polishing.

"well, sure, there is a broad, almost tautological assumption that music only becomes worthy of consideration when touched by a celebrity, so the exact same song is treated as unremarkable pop sluice when recorded by Bonnie McKee or Wynter Gordon and then a masterpiece when recorded by Katy Perry or Beyonce. sometimes you'll get a blithe statement of "it's how they inhabited it, it's their conveniently unrefutable presence," but it always comes off as justification after the fact"

isn't this part of the theater of pop music though? Stars are canvases for our anxieties & neuroses and uhhh the good stuff too

have to disagree with the premise re: K-Pop

i am suspicious of the current vogue for Celebrity but dont want to throw the baby out w/ the bathwater, is what i mean

xp

I feel the line between using the star as canvas to project on to (with all the...magic??? that entails) and assessing them for what they actually are is not one writers currently show much self-awareness of

though maybe seeing 30yo buzzfeed staffers desperately mimicking tumblr teenspeak every day on twitter has got to me a bit

This has been a tendency in criticism about Hollywood film too.

Also, whenever the star-as-canvas line comes up someone in the audience inevitably goes, "Yeah, well, she means nothing to me" and it's the star-sucking population that's deluded. In 2017 this person is a man in skinny jeans who likes egg foam on everything.

i made a thread about that jpop documentary that talks about how toxic it is (k-pop is relevant to this i think) and no one budged

I feel the line between using the star as canvas to project on to (with all the...magic??? that entails) and assessing them for what they actually are is not one writers currently show much self-awareness of

― lex pretend, Friday, May 12, 2017 2:00 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes agree

there's a distinction between "using the star as canvas to project onto" = "writing about one's subjective experiences" (excellent, when done well; banal, when not) and "using the star as canvas to project onto" = "absorbing the stew of memevertising and PR and tabloid journalism and Wikipedia credits as truth" (terrible, everpresent, nearly impossible to dislodge)

Yeah. And sometimes a blank canvas remains a blank canvas with gelled hair drawn (Posner, Chainsmokers, Twenty-One Pilots) yet they don't inspire 1200-word essays.