Simon Reynolds - C or D

second category is reliant on sounds and soundscapes NOT words and conventional songs that fit into radio playlist agendas

I meant radio stations like WXPN, look at their music charts.

Looking at the grand decades-spanning scheme of American critical consensus, there’s a sense in which even art-rock is marginalized (the relatively low presence and this year and every year of instrumental or mostly-intrumental abstraction--prog, fusion, ambient, industrial and the more abstract forms of postpunk, post-rock, experimental electronics; the abiding suspicion of artifice in re. glam or New Pop). See, rather than art-rock, what the critically esteemed stuff really is, most of it, it's lit-rock: music as dramatic backdrop to words. Stuff that is purely, sheerly sonic is still felt to be de trop, suspect because self-indulgent, decadent, music for music's sake, mere ear candy with no "improving" aspect. And stuff where there are words but they're "inane" or incidental is completely marginalized (look at the almost-utter non-presence of functional dance music, the near-absence of non-auteurist, non-socially redeeming hip hop).

"For most of the past decade, street Rap and R&B has been the engine of Pop culture, both in its pure form and various teenybop dilutions. Give or take a gem – Amerie’s ‘1 Thing’, Three Six Mafia’s ‘Stay Fly’, Kanye West’s ‘Addiction’ and ‘Crack Music’ – its remorseless rate of innovation stalled this year. And formal advance was always the compensation for its counter-revolutionary content of bling and booty-worship." Reynolds from Frieze

So if Reynolds doesn't like a supposed emphasis on lyrics, why does he in Frieze attack hiphop lyrics as counter-revolutionary, and on his blog he recently criticized them as well. But then in his latest posting he seem to be taking folks to task for not including such allegedly non-auteurist hiphop in their p & j ballots.

So what kind of hiphop is acceptable under nu-rockism? When can hiphop lyrics be discussed under nu-rockism? I mean if I am gonna get with his program and not endorse popism, and take the good but not the bad aspects of rockism, and call it nu-rockism, well then...
I give up...

so much has changed over the past few years. oh wait. [WINKY]

Eric B & Rakim mixed with 80s electro + Felix Da Housecat + DJ Krush + DJ Shadow

excuse me for babbling, I hope I made some sense in there.

No, there are pretentious people outside of it too.

Now Reynolds like the wordplay in grime--check this quote from his Frieze article-

"As a critic championing Grime, one of my angles – beyond the sheer excitement of the music, the brilliance of the wordplay, the charisma of the MCs – has been ‘you really ought to check this, it’s the voice of the UK streets.’ But I suspect that not many people actually want to hear what the voice of the streets has to say: partly, because it ain’t pretty, and partly, because most people honestly don’t give much of a fu k"

(also that other time i heard a small pirate behind a hedge jumping about by himself and shouting "Ahoy! Ahoy!") (also v.quietly)

Also I'm confused about how Simon can rep for grime lyrics and then wholesale dismiss American rap lyrics.

no offense, but this kind of thing is exactly why rockism vs. popism is not useful. every little thing becomes something to be interrogated according to which paradigm it fits and whether its consistent with that paradigm.

reynolds flits back and forth between rockism and popism depending on whichever one he decides is dominating at any given moment. six months ago, popism was apparently in the ascendent, so rockism must be revived. now rockism is back, and so he can find common cause with tom ewing.

but really, what are the stakes in rockism vs popism anyway? what do they matter other than as markers in a very abstract aesthetic debate?

So you think Greg Tate should not write critically about what is said on rap cds, and that Julianne Shepherd should not be expressing her dislike for what she thinks is sexist in lyrics? Isn't there a middle ground somewhere between talking about only beats/hooks/flow and on the other hand the 'are these lyrics reflective of my morality or of the ethics of everyone in a certain economic and cultural strata'.

I wasn't suggesting that Sanneh had to point out every use of non-mainstream language in his review, but I was hoping he could have briefly addressed whether he felt that the use of such terms was sexist or not.

Maybe Reynolds will expand on his nu-rockism approach and clarify how or if he chooses to examine lyrics.

but really, what are the stakes in rockism vs popism anyway? what do they matter other than as markers in a very abstract aesthetic debate?

-- justsaying (jus...), February 2nd, 2006

Connecting it back to the insular P & J critics poll world, I thought it once meant is it ok to like a song by an American Idol contestant as much as one by Sufjan Stevens, but Reynolds is looking at it in terms of MIA versus abstract art-rock and certain types of grime and hiphop.

Well you would certainly think that looking at ILM. Is there even a rolling dancehall thread these days? Lame.

http://www.nctc.net/~hazard/conrad/album/sleeve2/

This is the primary reason why I've been so irritated by "nu-rockism" as a rallying point, it seems like an unnecessary allegiance which adds nothing to Simon's long-standing critical project. I'm glad that in Simon and Mark K-Punk's most recent posts linked to here they're both demonstrating some ambivalence towards the notion that the underlying conflict is between nu-rockism and popism (and I say that as someone who has done more than most here to give rise to the notion that most debates can be reduced to r vs p).

(as Matos points out: "given what it's surrounded with--several records I voted for included--who, precisely, thinks that M.I.A. got to no. 2 on the plastic-fun vote?")