What Is Rockism ?

i’ve skipped over the reductive poptimism convo bc it reeks of “this SOUNDS like a real thing that no one actually practices”

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, December 9, 2018 10:55 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do disagree with almost everything euler said though

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Sunday, December 9, 2018 10:57 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pop's always been a way for me to square my alienation with the world as it is. to turn away from it is to turn away from the masses, and that not a politics I want any part of.
― L'assie (Euler), Sunday, December 9, 2018 10:35 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:04 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh treeship the zing hits the mark, I can't deny

brad in my world of overeducated people I hear things like pomenitul is saying all the time, which is why I like coming here, rather than talking to those people, about music

― L'assie (Euler), Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:18 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pop's always been a way for me to square my alienation with the world as it is. to turn away from it is to turn away from the masses, and that not a politics I want any part of.
I get what you're saying, and that's why I'll never disengage from pop music completely, but its triumphant prevalence can and does often preclude aesthetic diversity from seeping through. Basically, pop seeks to maintain the status quo, i.e. the fact that, genre-wise, the top 1% dominates 99% of the musical market. Sure, the analogy is flawed, in that it's not just about concentration of capital but also about concentration of collective affect, yet insofar as ears don't come with lids, we are so used to having certain sounds thrust upon us in public spaces that I can't help but feel like we've been 'groomed' to dislike anything that diverges from the Earworm God. If anything, there's a political point to be made (not that it hasn't been, but I feel like it's less audible in our current century) that exposure to un-pop music attunes us to other ways of listening, which is a potentially ethical act.

― pomenitul, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:20 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

By the way, I have also gotten into such arguments with stuffy (mostly French) academic types who in reality care very little for music, and I tend to adopt a stance similar to yours, Euler, but I'm no less wary of overcorrection, which I encounter far more often in the English-speaking world.

― pomenitul, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:22 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I get that; ILM has never seemed to me to be a home for pop-as-status-quo, so these discussion are different than when I'm talking with someone sneering at anything written during the twentieth century, which is more like the people I spend my life with

― L'assie (Euler), Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:27 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel you, those are the absolute worst. They usually care more for the prestige that ostensibly comes with such an opinion than the music itself, which they don't even listen to anyway.

― pomenitul, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:32 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you guys really need to read more late 20th century rock crit if you don’t get why poptimism became a thing in the first place. raging against the 1/99 split of pop and everything else while denigrating an ideology that came up *because* of a similar elitism (from the ruling class within media) is... ironic? utterly white dude?

― maura, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:55 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

market poptimism, which is uncritical and rooted in the hope that an artist retweets praise and lifts the social media profiles of the writer/publication, is closer to the straw man against whom you’re railing

― maura, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:56 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not exactly defending rockism here. If anything, it's a tired debate – there are so many genres that get little to no attention at all.

― pomenitul, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:03 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Incidentally, my (French) wife has far, far less patience for poptimism than I do. The whole 'lol white dude' thing is so clichéd and American-centric.

― pomenitul, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:07 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and yet it isn’t untrue if you actually go back and read old music writing and look at the bylines

― maura, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:08 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry to annoy your lady with facts

― maura, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:09 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't really get what you're arguing tbh. That the diversity I'm clamouring for is wrong because pop deserves its continued revenge on rockism?

― pomenitul, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:12 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean theres no such thing as apolitical music - every choice and every sound is the result of a political positioning, whether it's avant-garde experimental sounds or heteronormative pop love songs. Your relation to a piece of music is informed by the interplay between your own beliefs and how they integrate with the aesthetic choices made

― boxedjoy, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:17 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean theres no such thing as apolitical music - every choice and every sound is the result of a political positioning, whether it's avant-garde experimental sounds or heteronormative pop love songs. Your relation to a piece of music is informed by the interplay between your own beliefs and how they integrate with the aesthetic choices made

i agree with this! it absolutely feeds into phenomena like white rappers having an easier time of it on pop radio than their black counterparts, and rap breaks being shoehorned into songs by women in order to appease men

my argument earlier was that “poptimism” has become as empty a term as “fake news” and that railing against it mows over the conditions that led to it becoming a thing
― maura, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:20 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also, generally I find that people who claim they have no time/interest for politics are people who have the privilege to switch off from it and not constantly be engaged - lucky you if that's the case but as a gay man in a world still populated by huge numbers of people who literally dont want me to exist I can't afford that luxury. That permeates everything I do even if its on the tiniest level and to pretend it doesn't is disingenuous

― boxedjoy, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:20 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZYHP6IBoac

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:22 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean the finer points of poptimism are there for debate if you like but I really get my back up when people think it's easy to seperate aesthetics from politics and wilfully disengage with their own positions of power and privilege as a listener and consumer

― boxedjoy, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:23 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My position is that music is ever political but that it doesn't boil down to politics.

As for poptimism, of course the history of the term matters, but if anything, it didn't go far enough. So many sounds are still excluded.

― pomenitul, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:32 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

progtimism

― imago, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:34 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Poptimism refers to like a really specific opposition to a boring and homogenous canon that rock critics had built up in the US and UK. And I am for it—there was no small amount of misogyny and homophobia underneath the “disco sucks” attitude of the 70s and how that filtered down to critical consensus in the 90s. I’m proud of ILM to the extent that ILM helped undermine this specific kind of aesthetic bigotry.

However, as a general attitude, “poptimism” is a disaster because popular taste more often than not props up popular prejudices. Is anyone here a poptimist of sitcoms? Of cable news? Of course not. Even like, with pop music, it’s idiotic to say the highest charting stuff is the best out of democratic solidarity is dumb. All this music might tell you is what the common denominators are among a vast swath of listeners. It doesn’t tell you much about what really drives any one of these listeners, because “the masses,” to quote another poster, is just an abstraction. Championing “the masses” seems at odds with being interested in people, even.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 12:51 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agree with everything Pomeniful said, and some others as well. Sorry to continue that conversation / tired debate (indeed) but:
Have people come up with a term for the belief that all things hip hop (pop rap, trap etc) are the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism ? Because I hear that a lot, while Poptimism seems to have reduced to a narrow obsession over a few exaggerated / delirious / ecstatic pop qualities (that can only be found on records that explicitly go for them and which seem forced to me).

― Nabozo, Sunday, December 9, 2018 1:24 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

However, as a general attitude, “poptimism” is a disaster because popular taste more often than not props up popular prejudices. Is anyone here a poptimist of sitcoms? Of cable news? Of course not. Even like, with pop music, it’s idiotic to say the highest charting stuff is the best out of democratic solidarity is dumb. All this music might tell you is what the common denominators are among a vast swath of listeners. It doesn’t tell you much about what really drives any one of these listeners, because “the masses,” to quote another poster, is just an abstraction. Championing “the masses” seems at odds with being interested in people, even.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 5:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gonna ignore all the silly strawmanning upthread but the reference to TV here is interesting because TV is probably more like music than at any time in the past owing to the sheer explosion of content on streaming networks, meaning that rockism/poptimism ideas possibly "map" onto TV better now than they used to. I mean, they always did to some extent, but I think that the increase in choice between cultural products has meant that the dynamics of stratification, popularity and critical consensus are more similar now.

And you do see "poptimism of sitcoms" - see e.g. this piece on The Good Place: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/04/magazine/good-place-michael-schur-philosophy.html. "Poptimism of sitcoms" is not saying "this sitcom is the most popular and therefore is the best" or "sitcoms are popular therefore we should talk about them and not Scandanavian crime dramas", it's saying "this sitcom is doing things that are worth paying attention to, and part of that is about the rules and functions of the sitcom format and how the show utilises them in new and interesting ways."

― Tim F, Sunday, December 9, 2018 8:52 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Good sitcoms have always been worth taking/writing about, same with pop music, what’s different now?

― underqualified backing vocalist (morrisp), Sunday, December 9, 2018 9:00 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, the only difference is that industry-wide comparisons between popular music and popular television are probably easier to make without necessitating so many wildly misleading conflations and analogies.

― Tim F, Sunday, December 9, 2018 10:05 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"this sitcom is the most popular and therefore is the best" or "sitcoms are popular therefore we should talk about them and not Scandanavian crime dramas"

i feel like we've been slacking and now the idiot strawman poptimism is the definition of poptimism to a new generation

― flopson, Sunday, December 9, 2018 10:33 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

disappointed in Treeship for falling for it

― flopson, Sunday, December 9, 2018 10:35 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he’s definitely not the only one

― maura, Sunday, December 9, 2018 10:42 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean i also said this

Poptimism refers to like a really specific opposition to a boring and homogenous canon that rock critics had built up in the US and UK. And I am for it—there was no small amount of misogyny and homophobia underneath the “disco sucks” attitude of the 70s and how that filtered down to critical consensus in the 90s. I’m proud of ILM to the extent that ILM helped undermine this specific kind of aesthetic bigotry.
if poptimism means keepings an open mind and not falling for facile "high/art low art" or "serious/trivial" binaries, then i definitely support it. but i think most people support this view. that is, unless you're someone who is all in for the avant garde, but then again, this kind of person wouldn't be a "rockist" in the first place. if i understand it correctly, the rockists were incurious chauvinists who had a very banal understanding of what "greatness" was.

in the field of sitcoms you don't need a poptimism because there is no dominant rockism of sitcom criticism. the critical consensus in the world of sitcoms is that "the good place" is good. in this field, if you were to talk about "poptimism" it just sounds like populism--championing the viewers over the critics.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:35 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

poptimism needs a corresponding rockism to make sense as a concept, imo.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:38 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

poptimism means keepings an open mind and not falling for facile "high/art low art" or "serious/trivial" binaries

imo this is p much it

― flopson, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:40 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

poptimism needs a corresponding rockism to make sense as a concept, imo.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:38 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

why? just define poptimism as above, then define rockism as the opposite of that

― flopson, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:41 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bc what is the "pop" in poptimism if it doesn't mean affirming popular taste over the critics? in the instance of early 2000s music criticism, this was the progressive attitude. it's not always.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:42 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not progressive and probably never was (and that was never the point anyway), it's just correct

― flopson, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:48 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There is no dominant rockism of "sitcom" criticism because there isn't really a discourse of sitcom criticism as a standalone thing, but there certainly is / has been a dominant rockism of tv criticism, and the "poptimism" of tv criticism would be e.g. critics who point out that we shouldn't automatically assume that the "prestige" television shows are more important or more worthy of consideration than, say, a trashy sitcom or drama.

A more on-point example (though not relating to sitcoms) would be this Nussbaum piece on why she prefers (preferred?) 'Scandal' to 'House of Cards': https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/02/25/shark-week

― Tim F, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:49 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's a fair point

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:51 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the "poptimism" of tv criticism would be e.g. critics who point out that we shouldn't automatically assume that the "prestige" television shows are more important or more worthy of consideration than, say, a trashy sitcom or drama.

Any critic who would think or practice the *opposite* POV is a v poor TV critic... just sayin’.

― underqualified backing vocalist (morrisp), Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:52 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

rockism of sitcoms is like, knee-jerkedly asserting that the british version is better or something

― flopson, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:54 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess so. that doesn't seem like a privileged position though, just an ignorant one. i don't feel like it's oppressive in any way.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:57 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whereas as a high school student i definitely felt like there was some kind of hazy consensus that pink floyd was important in a way madonna wasn't, or whatever. so that kind of attitude was worth challenging.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:58 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I listen to a podcast where the guys are sort of sitcom “rockists”; they make fun of The Golden Girls (of all things) and think that Married With Children was “dumb, lowbrow” humor, or something.

― underqualified backing vocalist (morrisp), Monday, December 10, 2018 12:00 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To return the topic: in high school, I read the NY Times Arts & Leisure section religiously; and I feel like Pareles and that crew treated the big new pop releases just as “seriously” as they did rock releases. Maybe it’s a newspaper thing in general (as opposed to the “music press”), but they definitely didn’t “privilege” rock, from what I can remember.

― underqualified backing vocalist (morrisp), Monday, December 10, 2018 12:03 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bc what is the "pop" in poptimism if it doesn't mean affirming popular taste over the critics? in the instance of early 2000s music criticism, this was the progressive attitude. it's not always.

FFS this was never what poptimism was about.

Please read the following articles from the Poptimist column before condescending to explain to everyone what the term means:

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/6608-poptimist-4/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/6772-poptimist-11/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7189-poptimist-18/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7549-poptimist-19/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7681-poptimist-23/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7760-poptimist-25/

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7836-poptimist-31/

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

https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/8724-take-me-to-the-river/

Read all of them actually (and as much of 'Popular' as you can) but these are the ones that provide the broadest sense of what I would consider a 'poptimist' approach to music taste from the critic who arguably best exemplified the approach.

― Tim F, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:07 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Tom's column was really the best thing ever wasn't it

― flopson, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:17 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess so. that doesn't seem like a privileged position though, just an ignorant one. i don't feel like it's oppressive in any way.

― Trϵϵship, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:57 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not about "oppressive" though. i feel like ur anachronistically trying to re-write history where poptimism is a direct precedent to late '10s online woketivism, when it really wasn't about that and there's no direct line to be drawn between the two

― flopson, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:21 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feels inconceivable that something at the level of quality of Tom and Nabisco's columns a decade ago could exist on the internet today, when they were for largely taken for granted at the time

― flopson, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:25 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wish Tom Ewing had never stopped writing those.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, December 10, 2018 12:26 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Does he write any variation of that column nowadays? I think he retired from music criticism a long time ago but I’m not sure.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Monday, December 10, 2018 12:27 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's not about "oppressive" though. i feel like ur anachronistically trying to re-write history where poptimism is a direct precedent to late '10s online woketivism, when it really wasn't about that and there's no direct line to be drawn between the two
― flopson, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:21 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not saying that, but definitely for its advocates poptimism was a more cosmopolitan attitude and it was supposed to shake off the scleroticism of how people had been thinking about music and culture. so it targeted a certain set of critical prejudices.

it just seems like it's a concept that makes sense within a particular dialectic and outside of that things get messy

― Trϵϵship, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:33 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'll read some of those tom ewing columns. i have enjoyed his writing in the past but it's been a while since i read his work.

― Trϵϵship, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:35 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with flopson.

The other important thing to note about woketivism is that in a lot of poptimism vs rockism debates it's arguably more on the side of rockism than poptimism.

Although of course there's also non-woke current music writing which is basically just celebrity gossip or stanning.

But the important thing about all three trends is that, for the most part, they signify at least in part a focus on the "real" personality of the pop star, whereas a certain throughline of poptimist criticism was that, to the extent personality mattered, it was largely imagined personality as signified by records and music videos.

Like, if you wanted to find the very opposite of current trends (and which also sheds some interesting light on what's changed in the last 18 years) it would be this earlier and quite-difficult-to-track-down Ewing piece on Jessica Simpson:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010411132451/http://www.netcomuk.co.uk:80/~tewing/jessica.html

― Tim F, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:51 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The other important thing to note about woketivism is that in a lot of poptimism vs rockism debates it's arguably more on the side of rockism than poptimism.

i think that's what this thread by Whiney was about thread to track Poptimism 2.0

― flopson, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:05 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that whiney thread is the only time i've seen someone seriously argue in favour of the strawman poptimism of "poptimism should mean liking things because they're popular" everyone was complaining about earlier

― ufo, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:11 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xpost yep totally.

― Tim F, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:12 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Also I would like to point out that I was OTM in that thread.

― Tim F, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:55 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Another "founding text" for me:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010419013349/http://www.netcomuk.co.uk:80/~tewing/realfake.html

― Tim F, Monday, December 10, 2018 2:06 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The future hot takes
And stupid mistakes
The future me hates you for

― Matt DC, Monday, December 10, 2018 3:39 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Treeship if you're seriously trying to claim that the current state of music journalism is the result of critical positions thrashed out 10-20 years ago, and not a result of the complete destruction of the economic models of both journalism *and* the music industry over that period, then you fundamentally don't understand anything you're handwringing over.

There's a reason we get 200 hot takes every time Taylor Swift opens an envelope and it isn't because editors and music journalists decided that rockism needs to stay in its box where it belongs. It's because the advertising model is completely fucked and as a result the insatiable traffic machine needs to be fed.

If you want to make this beyond tedious and utterly conventional argument that's been made a million times before then fine but at least acknowledge reality in the process.

― Matt DC, Monday, December 10, 2018 3:50 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

quite pleased that the most vigorous ilm discussion in weeks has served to hide all my various 'hurr x is shit' broadsides in the jump

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:13 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

btw i love pop now, hail pop, hail rock, hail dilettantism

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:14 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Classic examples of Anglo-American pop culture’s smugly self-perpetuating hegemony ITT. All I’ll say is: there are other worlds, you don’t need to settle for a mere handful of sounds and structures.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:34 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

go and start I Love Gamelan then

;)

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:37 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Implying it’s not music. Tsk, tsk.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:38 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's like a whole culture, man. like a sort of theatre that we don't have an equivalent word for. don't they have such crazy drums? like whoa

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:40 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes a message board with a 1000-post afrobeats thread is totally closed off to outside sounds.

― Matt DC, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:41 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

being serious for a moment, the pop hegemony doesn't mind appropriating from the other traditions now and then - and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, when done respectfully - but it does have a tendency to water a few aspects down, does it not

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:42 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Afrobeats is a special case of outernational investment because it's a) self-identifyingly Pop and b) gained significant traction in the US and UK *as* Pop - it is a realised synthesis of pop tropes and indigenous art, so of course it's both catchy and interesting. imo that Serge Beynaud song that made the traxpoll is more or less the best thing that's happened in the history of the traxpoll, kiu ye fond dilettantes

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:46 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Trying to skim through some of those Tom Ewing pieces, and despite all the people who might say "you don't understand", I get the sense that he was addressing himself to music critics primarily, thinking very hard at how their attitudes might change / were changing, how possibly a defunct way of thinking about pop-the-great-Nemesis might resolve itself. It's like he has to explain it, be the "bad conscience" of his era. It's admirable and he gets to analyze a lot of things. But that certainly separates the poptimist from the pop listener.
I was young when rockism was still in full action online, and then when others "fought" it, and now we're "beyond" and all this influenced me, so I probably have my own understanding of how all of that articulates, and it might not exactly align with Ewing or the "correct" way of thinking about poptimism (still a niche term tbh), plus the fact I'm from continental Europe so possibly "outside" the debate... anyway.

― Nabozo, Monday, December 10, 2018 4:54 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've never argued that ILM as a whole is closed to outside sounds. I wouldn't be here if that were the case. What I do notice, however, is that the most vocal poptimists are almost systematically uninterested in anything that falls outside of their purview (short, accessible, earwormy songs, preferably conducive to a political analysis), barring a woke signifier or two. There's nothing wrong with that per se – but to argue that poptimism hasn't become a hegemonic (albeit less harmful) discourse like rockism (which was popist to begin with, just with more guitars) over the past decade or so is galling from the perspective of marginalized genres.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:00 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like Nabozo said, I too was quite young when rockism was the norm online, so there may be a generational component to this misunderstanding. I get the sense that older ILMers focus more on its causes whereas younger ones are more interested in its effects.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:02 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbh maybe they just like pop. the battle might not be pop vs art music (so many grey areas anyway) so much as a neurological one - omnivorous self-romanticising autistic monsters (hai) vs...well...normies people with more refined and well-adjusted tastes

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:07 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"that's some incel bullshit!" yeah probably is I'm sorry

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:08 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I tend to think that too (not quite in those terms, though), but it just seems so self-defeating. It cements the status quo (which takes us back to the politics of it).

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:11 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the neurologics of music listening are fascinating to me and I think we shouldn't be afraid to discuss them

that said it's amazing what can be done for someone's hitherto-conservative music taste with a bit of exposure. "oh wow how had I not heard this before?!" it's because you weren't looking hard enough

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:13 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

enter ilx, I guess

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:14 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ilx of course should aspire to more than simply regurgitating what *insert popular e-zine here* thinks is the hot and happening thing in popular music nowadays, and to ilx's credit it usually achieves this, if you know what threads to click

― imago, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:19 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"oh wow how had I not heard this before?!" it's because you weren't looking hard enough

― imago

i guess i'm not looking hard enough because i say this to myself at least once a month

i can't even remotely relate to the "rockism vs. poptimism" debate. i'm old and out of touch with what people like. nobody i know is even aware of anything i like except for beyonce. i mean like seriously i think if i were to bring up janelle monae to most of the people i know i'd get blank looks.

in the battle between rockism and poptimism, back baby shark.

― dub pilates (rushomancy), Monday, December 10, 2018 8:27 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Treeship if you're seriously trying to claim that the current state of music journalism is the result of critical positions thrashed out 10-20 years ago, and not a result of the complete destruction of the economic models of both journalism *and* the music industry over that period, then you fundamentally don't understand anything you're handwringing over.
I did not claim this. I made the milder claim that overall in the critical discourse we’ve moved away from the prejudices that characterized rockism (privileging the individual artist over collective efforts/ authenticity over artifice/ albums over singles / guitars over synthesizers / “timelessness” over ephemerality). Whatever the reasons poptimism is dominant

― Trϵϵship, Monday, December 10, 2018 8:28 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean, you're exemplary when it comes to trawling for lesser known (euphemism) music, rush, so it makes sense that you shouldn't relate to this binary bullshit at all. Btw, I'm all for that baby shark line, whether it's a Kafka riff or not.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 8:34 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, Treeship (unsurprisingly).

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 8:35 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanking Tim F for a morning of reading Ewing--I do miss his voice. This one's great: https://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/6772-poptimist-11/. (Has mark s ever read Harold Innis??)

There's probably some ironic point to be made about that column's Dave Marsh quote about Morrissey and the specific way his rep has changed over time. But I agree that the overly or simplistically politicized mode of pop criticism* that pomenitul and treeship are talking about shouldn't really be called poptimism. I'll allow this could be an age gap thing: I subscribed to Rolling Stone and then Spin as a kid--maybe you were reading Popular at that age. Still, you guys are smart readers and beating on this distorted image of poptimism, especially on ILM, makes it hard to engage.

* I guess? There's no evidence in those posts, and without any links or names I don't know what dire shit you guys are referring to--or even if you're talking about ILM? Who even are "the most vocal poptimists" on this board in 2018?? As Matt DC basically said, I wonder to what extent you're attacking engagement-driven clickbait rather than a serious critical position. Maybe we should call it poptimization?

― rob, Monday, December 10, 2018 9:46 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don’t think I’m attacking anyone, I’m just wondering whether “poptimism” is still relevant as a critical lens. These things are often circumstantial—no one says they’re a “New Critic” anymore even if they still draw on some of the ideas from that school.

― Trϵϵship, Monday, December 10, 2018 9:54 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'll read some of those tom ewing columns.

maybe go do that? you really aren't making much sense, Matt DC otm

― sleeve, Monday, December 10, 2018 9:56 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Due to its ubiquitousness, pop music doesn't need intelligent critics to lavish their optimism upon it in 2018, other genres do. It's time to move on: less pop music, more of everything else, thanks.

I'll leave it at that, as I've think I've already hit my quota of variations on a single theme for the week.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 10:17 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there may be a generational component to this misunderstanding. I get the sense that older ILMers focus more on its causes whereas younger ones are more interested in its effects.
Fwiw, I'm old enough to have been on the first ILM thread and to have written 30 pages about one Avril Lavigne song in a grad course in 2003 and I think a lot of what you're saying is OTM.

(I'm also pretty sure "poptimism" meant something more than just a synonym for "open-mindedness" btw; that would have been completely uninteresting. It was a critical stance that had actual principles, which can be debated. There are a lot of ideas in the Tom Ewing 'interview with Jessica Simpson': about download/mp3 culture, about 'authentic' vs 'manufactured and fake' and why that is a false binary, about whether the artist's intention and investment does or should matter to the listener or the critic, about whether formal innovation and progress matter, about the relationship of culture to politics and economics and whether that matters, about the aesthetic attractiveness of three-minute songs about romance. To Tom's credit, these were bold and thoughtful ideas, which can be argued.)

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Monday, December 10, 2018 10:43 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sund4r otm

― Trϵϵship, Monday, December 10, 2018 10:45 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these were bold and thoughtful ideas
Very much agreed. This kind of poptimism, narrowly defined, has greatly influenced my own understanding of music over the years. But since rockism manifestly lost the war, poptimism – in no small part due to the term's suggestive versatility – is no longer 'anti-establishment' in 2018. Quite the contrary, which is why it deserves a bit of a ruffling.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 11:03 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What I do notice, however, is that the most vocal poptimists are almost systematically uninterested in anything that falls outside of their purview (short, accessible, earwormy songs, preferably conducive to a political analysis), barring a woke signifier or two.

it's hard to concentrate on complex songs when you are made of straw

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Monday, December 10, 2018 11:07 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Between the idea
And the reality…

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 11:11 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i do think your points about wider listening are valid and necessary, especially today. but if you think rockism “lost the war” can i introduce you to the writings of steven hyden and chuck klosterman, both of whom are highly prominent critics among the outside-of-ilm masses (never mind the lack of turnover at most dailies in america, where rockism really takes root)? or play you some banter by djs on classic rock stations, which remain stalwart on the fm dial in the face of encroachment by talk and sports stations?

sorry to beat this like a horse but the wider picture is a lot more status quo and it’s depressing

xp
― maura, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:42 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Fair enough. Some of the elder statesmen of rockism are definitely still around and I'm sure they continue to carry clout with audiophile types, but I doubt a lot of young people care for what they have to say. Not saying none of them do – you'll occasionally find them complaining on reddit about how no one plays real instruments anymore –but it's a far less prevalent stance nowadays.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:53 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a good place to find rockism these days is the stereogum comments section

― ufo, Monday, December 10, 2018 12:56 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Guardian comments is 90% rockism, 10% "never heard of them"

― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, December 10, 2018 12:58 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or any comments section, really, or any person you encounter in real life (there may be overlap)

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine), Monday, December 10, 2018 1:07 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tell it to my students' introductory surveys, pomenitul

anyway whatever

― maura, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:07 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maura relentlessly otm itt

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, December 10, 2018 1:13 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't know any rockists under the age of 50 so my anecdotal evidence doesn't match your anecdotal evidence. The overwhelming majority of people I know are vehemently opposed to the idea that there is such a thing as 'real' music and primarily listen to pop. Also, I've never lived in the US.

― pomenitul, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:23 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't think Chuck Klosterman was what people meant by 'rockism' at all, although I haven't kept up with his recent work. The famous Ramones vs Ratt was totally an argument that popular but critically derided 'corporate, fake, pedestrian' music should be discussed at least as seriously as critically acclaimed 'important, authentic' music.

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Monday, December 10, 2018 1:27 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*Ramones vs Ratt piece

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Monday, December 10, 2018 1:27 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That may be just "neurological", but teenagers have a high attraction for pedantism and conservatism. 16 years old who discover Pink Floyd or Led Zep etc. That has never really changed and never will. But yeah in real life people are mostly casual, most don't care to have a logic to their listens (god bless them). When you move online, you see everything, including people who should really be made of straw... as maura said.

― Nabozo, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:34 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

katherine said* (in that particular way)

― Evan, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:36 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Klosterman is just Diet XhuxK is how I break it down to an extent

― No Smockin' (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, December 10, 2018 1:44 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that’s an insult to xhuhk

― maura, Monday, December 10, 2018 1:47 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

revisiting all these Ewing essays is really edifying, and it also makes me wonder how you might conceptualize something that follows poptimism around the current (perceived?) dominance of the Atlanta sound and other streaming-centric hip-hop. a lot of times it feels like that stuff is intentionally pushing against Ewing's (more often implied than explicit) ideas about what populism *sounds* like, musically, and also leans more towards rabid fandom as way to leverage oneself into popularity than reaching across the aesthetic aisle.

― austinb, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:28 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's also interesting to see how little extramusical ethics plays a part in these columns, considering how dominant it is in the discourse now

― austinb, Monday, December 10, 2018 5:33 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

More to say soon but: I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "extramusical ethics" but I think that part of the backlash against evaluating music in terms of 'authenticity' and/or authorial intent in the early poptimism days (as seen in the ca. 2000 Ewing essays that Tim linked) might have involved a conscious move away from or reaction to evaluating music in terms of certain types of extramusical ethics, whether in terms of looking for explicit statements in the music, concern with the identities or backgrounds of stars, or valuing smaller-scale or non-corporate modes of production or dissemination. If anything, it was probably the 'rockists' who had venerated Tracy Chapman and Arrested Development 10 years earlier. ('Rockism' is almost definitely even more of a strawman than any take on 'poptimism' imo, esp considering that afaik literally no one positively identified as a 'rockist' before the term was coined as a put-down.)

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Thursday, December 13, 2018 12:26 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The overwhelming majority of people I know are vehemently opposed to the idea that there is such a thing as 'real' music and primarily listen to pop.

do you work at the mall?

― Paul Ponzi, Wednesday, December 19, 2018 7:04 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is it really that unusual? I've met very few proper rockists in my life and almost no music snobs.

― pomenitul, Wednesday, December 19, 2018 7:09 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
xp I don't really hang out with rock critics or teenagers, so yeah, it's unusual to me. And a lot of so-called poptimists seem to frame a lot of the stuff they claim to enjoy in rockist terms anyway; I never really think of rockism = a preference for rock music but an antiquated way of discussing music that seems to very closely resemble the celebrity-watch of the kind of modern music criticism you see on Pitchfork et al

― Paul Ponzi, Wednesday, December 19, 2018 7:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what the fuck are you talking about

― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Wednesday, December 19, 2018 7:25 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Tbf, the "what is rockism?" thread was started in 2000 because people couldn't make sense of it then either.

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Wednesday, December 19, 2018 8:02 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(although, amazingly, Tom 3wing did think it had to do with privileging rock music and "the ways rock music gets talked about", and was probably not a catch-all for every possible type of snobbery, prescriptivism, or prejudice, while recognizing that it was a "silly term".)

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Wednesday, December 19, 2018 8:08 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

imo the discourse is missing the point, but largely because it's tough to describe the nuances of music-consumption..

There are people who are whole and feel comfortable with themselves, and do not know oppression firsthand, and these people feel OK with music that is nothing more than the fruits of the training and rehearsing of individuals who, like them, exist entirely within their own selfhood (that is, they don’t feel any conflict in their life), and are completely content to simply enter a studio or walk on a stage and demonstrate the fruits of their labour without any concern as to, say, “who they’re borrowing from”, “what they’re saying”, “who they are”, or “the potentially detrimental effects that their complacent ‘craftsmanship’ might have on individual listeners who do not have the same access to the methods with which this music was created.”

Those people are “rockists”, broadly, but also essentially include any Steely Dan or Fleetwood Mac fan who would never consider themselves a “rockist”— in fact, they may simply have, sometimes, “rockist” tastes, sometimes, and wouldn’t think it beneath them to rate their favourite Beatles when it came down to it. (What I mean is: everyone is a rockist, sometimes.)

And there are other people, who think that whole process is full of shit, and doesn’t take into account intersectional politics, or current or past politics, and have other approaches to music listening.

There are those who think that everybody is entitled to a career in music and actively stan music made by neophytes (because of the originality and interest created in every individual’s approach to music-making)— but also because it reflects a far more societally ecumenical approach to culture-creation— that we are all music-makers. It reflects our own amateurism with regards to music-making, and makes us feel good about ourselves that our content creators are also prone to accident and amateurism and moments of greatness.

There are those who think that music (or culture in general) is an effective venue for corrective measures for socio-economic oppression, and prioritize the genius of black people, poor people, trans people, and see the previously-described “canon” as being, as stated earlier, the product of privilege, and thus, one that should be subverted, if not destroyed.

And there are those who wish for a completely consumerist attitude toward pop music, because we are in a culture war, after all, and because a consumerist attitude un-ironically reflects the true intentions of a culture-industry, and so their unabashed adoration for (say) Ariana Grande not only unites the listener with the “working class” but also commodifies the intention and the body of the artist/performer/creative group as being, essentially, what they are, as the culture industry would dictate: expendable. It makes people feel OK with themselves to turn humans into cultural objects to be used and destroyed.

In short, to try and reduce things to a dichotomy of rockism-popism is frustrating (for me) to see people do. People listen to different musics at different times for different reasons. I am “rockist” because I adore extremely talented and privileged classical musicians making wonderful music in expensive concert halls. (I don’t actually care for “rock music” made by men except for Jon Spencer and Black Sabbath, don’t ask me why, maybe because it’s a caricature of white maleness.) I am “neophyte-ilic” because I enjoy the music of young people picking up their guitars for the first time. I have “intersectional tastes” because the music industry has generally left women and black people with lower salaries, despite their greater achievements. And I enjoy the experience of “consumerism”, because I’m a human, and I experience schadenfreude when a pop star fails, and enjoy a redemption narrative when same pop star (or a different one) makes a comeback— I, too, enjoy turning human musicians into objects of cultural consumption.

Oh there’s also that weird strain of “obscurantism” or something? maybe the wrong word, but it’s that human psychological tendency to prefer music that is less popular, or undiscovered. I don’t really go for that, personally, because it smacks of Bad Thoughts (i.e. colonialism), but I recognize that sometimes as a curator you have to surprise people to be of value, rather than playing them shit they’ve already heard.

But anyway, all these different approaches to music listening are inherently contradictory, and result in various contradictory statements that I’m myself inclined to accept and embrace, and have repeatedly stated, such as:

Beyonce’s “Lemonade” is the greatest album of all time
Electrelane is the greatest rock band of all time
Big Thief is the only good band in the world right now
“Thank You, Next” is the greatest song of all time
“Escapade” is the greatest song of all time
“Uptown Top Ranking” is the greatest song of all time
Xiu Xiu is my favourite band
When I’m cooking at home I only listen to Low on repeat off of Tidal
When I’m at my boyfriend’s house (by myself) I only listen to Stockhausen on vinyl while cleaning up his shit
When I’m at my boyfriend’s house (with him) I might sneak in some early Stereolab or Young Marble Giants in between his insistence that we only listen to New Order and Lionel Richie on repeat
Foxy Brown’s “Ill Na Na” is the greatest album of all time

Music listening is a present-tense act and so things shift and are malleable and I will totally cop to being an enormous stan for the execrable “Love Yourself” (Bieber/Sheeran) because it always plays at 7am when I have woken up to early and am shopping for raspberries at the supermarket to make morning smoothies and am consumed with thoughts of my abusive ex from my anxious dreams the night previous, and sing the song to myself while thinking of his abusive ass.

I hate Madonna, because 90% of her music is ass, but I also love Madonna, because I like seeing a 60-year old white woman continue to be a pop star, it is beautiful.

Functional listening, present-tense listening, you see? It shifts and changes.

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, December 19, 2018 10:06 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Which Stockhausen records?

― Locked in silent monologue, in silent scream (Sund4r), Wednesday, December 19, 2018 10:30 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(Link for the Ramones/Ratt Klosterman piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/magazine/the-lives-they-lived-the-ratt-trap.html )

whether the artist's intention and investment does or should matter to the listener or the critic, about whether formal innovation and progress matter, about the relationship of culture to politics and economics and whether that matters

I talk about this stuff in relation to jazz all the time. For Stereogum.

Speaking of being reductive “liking unpopular music is basically colonialism” is pretty well up there

I don’t think what you’re describing as “rockist” is really rockist though ... the temporal nature of an allegiance to a cultural hierarchy undermines rockisms absoluteness ... the prob w rockist thinking is it adopts a frozen set of rules across all contexts, what you’re describing fgti is much closer to my understanding of poptimism

That said i think austin’s Points are good ones.... something as a rap fan that could make being on classic ilx a contradictory exp at times

Speaking of being reductive “liking unpopular music is basically colonialism” is pretty well up there

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, December 20, 2018 8:57 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

To elaborate, the idea that obscure music is an effort to colonialize or Columbus music is a fundamentally consumerist way of experiencing music ... to act as if the way other music reaches you is somehow independent of that dynamic instead of merely offloading your personal responsibility for it... because you don’t see the slaughterhouse it’s ok to eat beef

rockism of sitcoms is like, knee-jerkedly asserting that the british version is better or something

― flopson, Sunday, December 9, 2018 11:54 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah, it's single-cam > multi-cam

Laugh track = poptimism

There's no rockism of sitcoms, real rockists only watch the new prestige TV.

The question about poptimism across different media was discussed in 2001 here: PLEASE CONSIDER: MUSIC Vs. FILM Vs. LITERATURE

and imo, less interestingly here: Why are there far fewer advocates for popism/poptimism related to art forms OTHER than music?

On the one hand the obscurantism as colonialism thing kinda makes sense, even in an unconsumerist framework. That is, obscurantist musos may get into obscure stuff out of a desire to be first to exploit it in the economy of taste/cultural capital.

On the other hand, finding something amazing that you've never heard of before, and that no one else you know has heard either, is pretty special, and no one records music with the intention of it not being heard.

So keep digging, folks!

There are people who are whole and feel comfortable with themselves, and do not know oppression firsthand, and these people feel OK with music that is nothing more than the fruits of the training and rehearsing of individuals who, like them, exist entirely within their own selfhood (that is, they don’t feel any conflict in their life), and are completely content to simply enter a studio or walk on a stage and demonstrate the fruits of their labour without any concern as to, say, “who they’re borrowing from”, “what they’re saying”, “who they are”, or “the potentially detrimental effects that their complacent ‘craftsmanship’ might have on individual listeners who do not have the same access to the methods with which this music was created.”

lots of ppl who know of oppression want music to be something not directly connected to their experience of oppression. one of the wonderful things about music is that it can be entirely divorced from human language - it can connect us to things beyond our material circumstances.

Mordy is right, I think even people who are oppressed are often interested in music-for-it's-own sake that has no necessary connection to oppression. Sometimes people like things because it makes them feel good. I know how absurdly reductive that sounds (of course tastes and desires are always grounded in a social/political context), but I do think music has a unique capability to short-circuit language & context and cut right to someone's emotional center (this is why music makes such effective propaganda).

Can someone give a TLTR summary of the past 24 hours?

obscurantist musos may get into obscure stuff out of a desire to be first to exploit it in the economy of taste/cultural capital.

― days of being riled (zchyrs), Thursday, December 20, 2018 11:00 AM (fifty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

D-40, this is kind of what I meant.. and that point (in my original post) was a little tossed-off.. I don't think "crate diggers" are literal colonizers, but I do think that there is a brain-mechanism that moves a music consumer toward that particular form of consumption

for me personally, it's that I can just enjoy a piece of music without fear of being judged for it because of associations/takes/cultural detritus/etc.

xp Maybe, but music listening has to be one of the most benign outlets for that brain mechanism.

I think katherine’s pt is good but leads to others ... there’s lots of v good reasons to want to experience music independent of (or tenuously connected to) the culture industry ... personally I find I learn a lot about my own ears & tastes & self by experiencing music at various levels of intersection w (press/critics/industry/murder dog magazine) etc ... But I’ve come to respect ppl who go through the effort of pushing against a kind of passive consumption, that the work required tends to train someone’s ears to be open to other ways of experiencing music

This relates to austin’s Point about poptimism of you’re having somewhat quaint ideas of what makes music “pop”

And why contra the earlier convo I think of contemporary poptimists of being more Carly Rae / Robyn boosters than Beyoncé or Kanye fans per se

(Obviously I think of poptimism first and foremost more as a way of thinking than specific artist advocacy but that way of thinking led to certain aesthetic avenues getting critical traction imo)

Have people come up with a term for the belief that all things hip hop (pop rap, trap etc) are the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism ? Because I hear that a lot, while Poptimism seems to have reduced to a narrow obsession over a few exaggerated / delirious / ecstatic pop qualities (that can only be found on records that explicitly go for them and which seem forced to me).

― Nabozo, Sunday, December 9, 2018 1:24 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And fwiw to this point I think this idea would be seen as pretty passé ... tho I could see it being confused w the argument that black music in total is the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism, which there’s a strong case for

Xxxp “poptimism of yore” not “poptimism of you’re”... autocrrct

tho I could see it being confused w the argument that black music in total is the rightful cultural compass and center of all musical dynamism, which there’s a strong case for

what does this mean?

I’m saying the argument he applied to “hip hop” has more currency in the discourse when applied to black music as a whole ... the idea that black popular music is the “culture compass and center of all musical dynamism” (his words) is a a popular one w lots of evidence to back it up

I mean it’s kind of the underlying logic of “appropriation discourse” no?

i guess i'm not sure what 'musical dynamism' is (i assume he doesn't mean 'music dynamics'?) and we're just talking about particular pop/rock Western vernaculars? bc i assume we're not positing that hip hop or black music is the center of whatever 'musical dynamism' is in say eastern european or middle eastern maqam or western art music?

maybe i'm just going back to pom's point that there's a lot of music out there and sometimes these discussions seem to take as granted that the musical forms that exist are a) top 40 pop radio formats and b) rock radio formats.

yeah, BOTH kinds of music!

I mean when I hear what contemporary music people actually listen to in Eastern Europe or the Middle East or especially European “art music” (certainly the avant-garde) popular forms & especially ones influenced by ie house/techno/hip hop etc have a pretty heavy influence on the form and marketing of that music

Obviously there are traditional musical forms that don’t really ever “update” but

ime "traditional" musical forms do update and evolve but you have to be intimate with their discourses to hear the changes

If you listen to contemporary Eastern European or middle eastern or especially European avant- garden music are you claiming you’re not liable to hear the influence, forms, styles built on house or techno or hip hop or R&b? Incorporated with local and traditional sounds?

Sorry for the similar post I thought my last one had deleted so tried retyping

ime "traditional" musical forms do update and evolve but you have to be intimate with their discourses to hear the changes

― Mordy, Thursday, December 20, 2018 12:02 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sure I can agree with this... I do think regardless if someone is looking for music that is “not traditional” it tends to be incorporating popular black forms of music

well all music permeates border and boundaries by nature so i expect to hear different genres bleed into each other all the time but is it the primary driver of 'musical dynamism' in those genres (still not clear what that means)? i'm not confident about that.

I mean certainly in the United States the notion that rhythm (& therefore innovations stemming from black music) is a dominant driver of the sound of music’s evolution is even a widely accepted idea... (which classical composer was it that said something along those lines?)

Speaking on a global level it gets infinitely more complex of course but if I pick up a random Bhangra mix cd on Devon there’s a good chance it will have rapping on it

There's plenty of European avant-garde music that doesn't sound especially beholden to house, techno, hip-hop, or R&B to me? You hear those influences in Kurtag or Lachenmann?

(And, obv, even those musics have plenty of European influences; European musics have Indian and Middle Eastern influences, etc.)

the euro avant garde not just in music but in many forms of art has an ongoing relationship w africa via primitivism & going back to african art influence on picasso etc. ...

i didnt say "all european art music sounds like house techno hip hop or R&B" lol

at any rate making this into a global question is mordy's way of muddying the waters imo ... im not claiming to have knowledge on the level of relation between every global genre of music + african roots, and didn't claim that I thought this argument was the capital T Truth, I just said its a dominant argument & there's lots of evidence (undeniably) of the centrality of black music to the evolving sound of contemporary music ... i think you'd have to be a fool though to imply traditional irish music or eastern european music has more of a global footprint than hip hop, techno, R&B, or house

Well, I was responding to

If you listen to contemporary Eastern European or middle eastern or especially European avant- garden music are you claiming you’re not liable to hear the influence, forms, styles built on house or techno or hip hop or R&b?

but the broader claim you're making now definitely makes more sense (although in the same sense that all musics reflect cross-cultural interaction and influence).

xp

i feel like when ppl start to say "all musics reflect cross cultural interaction and influence" and bring up timbaland sampling an egyptian record or something it implies an equality of influence that isn't really reflected by the record ... like if you listen to popular songs in eastern europe & they basically sound like house music filtered through a local sensibility its hard to say 'oh just the usual cross cultural exchange' like this is a house record