What Is Rockism ?

Judging by the scope of their "Best of the (Decade)" lists, Pfork seems to now view its scope as encompassing all popular music. Tho it's true they don't seem to have covered anything else on the top 10 here (until you get to Alice in Chains): https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-mainstream-rock-tracks

(ed. - pls substitute "mandate" for the 2nd instance of "scope" - thx)

After reading the Pitchfork review I am willing to like this band just so I can hate the review a little bit more.

double reverse payola

only thing I ever remember about Greta Van Fleet is how the singer's voice does not match his face. he looks like he's lip syncing all the time.

Stirring conclusion to this RS feature:

“That’s the thing that destroys a lot of good art now: chasing trends,” the guitarist says. “There’s comfort in knowing that you’ll make that money. The record company will hire writers to make sure they see the a return on their investment because — structurally, scientifically — the song will work. It’s catchy. It’s a mathematical fact that people will perceive it one way or another. That’s why it’s difficult in our world to cut through. When you are doing something truthful, it’s easy for someone to say, ‘That sounds like this band from the Sixties and Seventies. It’s the throwback sound.’ In that response is the answer: That is because music meant something during that period — a lot more than it does now. It was done by the artist for the artist. It was music for the people.

“But rock & roll has become a novelty,” he continues. “It doesn’t have the essence of what it was — its greatness. People say it’s dead now. But it’s a minority. It’s an endangered species. It’s gonna take young guys like us in our generation to see that.”

That's the stuff.

someone give these kids a Don Cab record or something. actually, better make it U.S. Maple

25-year-old influences vs 50-year-old influences

When reading that quote, keep this image in mind for best results.

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2018/05/Greta-Van-Fleet-Christopher-Polk.jpg

xps

“It doesn’t have the essence of what it was — its greatness. People say it’s dead now. But it’s a minority. It’s an endangered species. It’s gonna take young guys like us in our generation to see that.”

chilling

thank you, young airheads, for opening my eyes. rock is less popular than ever before. how did i not see this???

Fwiw my wife is a huge Zep fan and generally more of a rockist than I am. She merely laughed when I sent her 'Highway Tune'.

Anyway, we should probably retire this thread once the GVF exegeses run their course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rT_pExHLRNU

When reading that quote, keep this image in mind for best results.

lol, that image makes the quote slightly more tolerable imo, the fact that they're dumbass goofy teenagers means it's almost endearing rather than just eyeroll inducing

lol wow i'd never seen that singer, marty balin cosplay!

like if it was some grown adult telling me about music used to really mean something back in the 70s, that would be more aggravating surely

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jTKCc9GOIc

that's dope

the bass player has a very interesting pickup configuration

Ah, this question may have been radical in 1981, inbetween Malcolm McLaren's 'playing rock'n'roll is as revolutionary as joining the army' and Vic Godard's 'we oppose all rock'n'roll. But its 2018. ILM, c'm ahn now, let's rock out, wantoofreefah....

good to know that both of you are not like those other people who sneer at Those Other People

― voodoo chili, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 9:20 AM (six hours ago)

Yeah, it is, actually!

Am I right in noting that, apart from mentions of the lyrics, there is basically one comment on the music in this nine-paragraph review (the assertion that any bar band could write their songs)? Some people here are calling that a good piece of music criticism?

Seems to me it talks as much about "the music" as any typical album review.

Anyway, this is as on-point as is gets about the vocals: "The singer, the wretched and caterwauling third brother"

aping the velvet underground: good
aping led zeppelin: bad

The Greta Van Fleet album is bad. (I listened to it front to back this morning, so I know.) But the Pitchfork review is not about whether the album is good or bad. It's about social positioning. Greta Van Fleet are Not Our Kind, and their music is for Those Other People.

― grawlix (unperson)

versus what, we're all INDIVIDUALISTS who make our decisions on an empirical and independent basis? music is social and should be social. i will cut a pitchfork a lot of slack not just because i fundamentally agree with their conclusion that greta van fleet is bad, but because their badness isn't entirely because of their music.

and yeah, writing in a detailed way about music for the benefit of people who don't read music is not the ideal to which i think criticism should aspire.

I'd like to think that if a band aping the VU was this shitty, reviewers would slam them, too... but who knows.

xp "writing in a detailed way about music" doesn't mean discussing flatted ninths and counterpoint. It means, err...engaging with the actual content?

He does, throughout the piece. What are you looking for? “The rhythm section sucks, too”?

Am I right in noting that, apart from mentions of the lyrics, there is basically one comment on the music in this nine-paragraph review (the assertion that any bar band could write their songs)? Some people here are calling that a good piece of music criticism?

― timellison, Tuesday, October 23, 2018 7:47 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, you are not right

Sure.

"What are you looking for?" Actual engagement with the music.

Seems to me it talks as much about "the music" as any typical album review.

So it's all good then

belatedness is a real thing. you can't just be led zeppelin in 2018. it's not an option open to bands--it will sound hackneyed, even though led zeppelin themselves still sound incredible

i wouldn't give them a 1.6, but a retro act doesn't really merit too much praise unless there is something really interesting about them. a band that is trying to do something new or at least shows evidence of original ideas is more worthy of praise no matter how much they suck.

ah, you know, i don't mind imitation! for me a lot of it is about issues of style, taste. it's _crass_ imitation, and that irks me more than the imitation itself.

Tim, he engages with it this way — they mollycoddled every impulse of late-’60s rock‘n’roll into an interminable 49-minute drag. Each song here could be written or played by any of a thousand classic rock cover bands that have standing gigs at sports bars and biker joints across America. Then he talks at length about the terrible lyrics, the songs’ most notable feature.

You just want him to have a different opinion, it seems.

That's the one bit of engagement with the music that I already mentioned!

And this:

Tons of people in those cover bands play their instruments better than Greta Van Fleet, who are, currently, proficient at best. No one in this band offers anything in the way of personality that doesn’t sound like your average YouTube tutorial for a Jimmy Page-type pentatonic solo or a John Bonham-type shuffle.

Those are not real insights, I'm sorry! They don't tell me any damn thing at all.

If that’s his opinion of the music and playing, what more is there to say about it? (He does call one song “a fun stomper” later on.)

ah, you know, i don't mind imitation! for me a lot of it is about issues of style, taste. it's _crass_ imitation, and that irks me more than the imitation itself.

― dub pilates (rushomancy)

imitation that isn't crass isn't really imitation, it's just drawing on influences. the thing that i understand to be objectionable about this band is that they aren't doing anything interesting with their source material. they're just in love with this dessicated idea of cool—the most decadent possible attitude

If there's nothing to say about it, WHY WRITE A PIECE AT ALL?

maybe the critic thinks that kitsch is a scourge and needs to be stamped out wherever it's found

He has plenty to say about it — and entertainingly so — just not about the technical aspects of the playing or whatever you’re looking for.

(I concede that if you’ve never heard Led Zeppelin, you may be left with an imperfect impression of what this band sounds like. So it assumes that much of the reader.)

If there's nothing to say about it, WHY WRITE A PIECE AT ALL?

Like I said before, social positioning. This review is "You can't sit with us" blown out to 1000 words.

I'm not asking for musicology. I would, however, actually like to know why the reviewer doesn't like the actual music and not just the sociological aspect of it.

unperson otm

he doesn't like it because it's derivative? it makes him sad to think that people out there are in thrall to a dead aesthetic

it's not sociological. that's aesthetics

it's just not populist