What Is Rockism ?

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

the problems with the music are self evident. you really don't have to go beyond one listen to realize they are for all intents and purposes a Led Zeppelin cover band that doesn't play Led Zeppelin covers. all of the stuff outside of the music - the marketing, the licensing, the touring, the kids themselves, the embrace of aging Boomers - is all much more interesting than the music itself, which can be fairly and summarily described in less than a paragraph. Larson did his due diligence and engaged with the music as much as was necessary. GVF work well as a jumping off point to talk about all these things, hence the attention from publications that would've never covered them otherwise.

Exactly. He says very clearly that the music is undistinctive and unremarkable. You guys just aren’t satisfied with that as a reason to dismiss it, for some reason.

Also — do you think the label sent Pfork a promo copy and press kit for review, or do you think Pfork decided on their own initiative to buy the album and assign a review?

it's not sociological. that's aesthetics

What's aesthetics, the two quotes morris posted? The review is nine paragraphs.

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

― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, October 23, 2018 9:44 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

please keep trying to position this as being about "the cool kids" even though everyone who reads and writes for pitchfork is old enough to have school-aged children at minimum

He says very clearly that the music is undistinctive and unremarkable. You guys just aren’t satisfied with that as a reason to dismiss it, for some reason.

He doesn't say how it's undistinctive and unremarkable. I'd be satisfied with it as a reason to criticize it if I knew why he was saying it.

Like adults don't ever do similar things!

xp

He says it this way!: 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.

If you want a song-by-song description of an album, you can read a college newspaper.

i actually think kids today are less invested in cultural positioning based on taste than other generations.

You like to put words in my mouth

xp

saying that it's a dull and unremarkable blues rock album is a description of the sound, not the sociology

morris, I will listen to the album and see how I think his two statements hold up.

sometimes i forget i'm in a place where people who haven't listened to the music posted v. spirited attacks/defenses of the criticism of the music.

i definitely have never listened to this band

Thank you for answering my question, though. There are two statements.

1) nothing a bar band couldn't do
2) as much personality as a Youtube video of Jimmy Page style pentatonic solo or Bonham shuffle

I have listened to one song, fwiw, and don't think I agree with statement #1 already

Oh my god, Tim. Have you listened to the album? If its problems are not immediately obvious to you, I got nothing.

Jesus

the second one is probably hyperbole

fwiw, i listened to some of the songs after reading the review, and it sounded pretty much exactly as i thought it would

xp

they can't even *play* a bonham shuffle

I have listened to one song and experienced the zep-ness

Where is the evidence that they cannot? I will gladly listen to that song or group of songs.