What Is Rockism ?

Who says ILM debates never get anywhere?

Surely this would mean that Smiths and Belle & Sebastian fans = rockists, and Rolling Stones fans = non-rockists ?

Stones = MOST INAUTHENTIC ROCK GROUP OF ALL TIME BAR NONE, and that's what's GRATE abt em of course. Rockists SAY they like em, but when you go deeper, it's all talk.

(Patrick, is that you moved and back and settled in? Or are you another anti-anti- rockist Patrick joined forces with the first?)

Did I get that right?

Albums over songs. "Feeling" over, uh, other stuff. Individual performance and "real" performance over the "fake" (think synths and drum machines). A focus on lyrics. Narrative. "Development".

says Josh.

AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH IT!

As a side point, I don't think that the world is rockist at all. It only turns into a rockist review when a reviewer who's only used to reviewing rock tries to review somethign else - not equipped with the tools maybe? If you're used to talking about how an album flows from song to song (which is often, for me, an element in the enjoyment of music) how do you cope if there's only 1 track? Or 12 indistinguisble tracks? How do you give a drum machine a mark out of ten for the drumming?

P.S. I'd like to append all of this by saying that I really don't knwo what I'm talking about. Thank you.

Privileging of received wisdom over new discourse
Privileging of credibility / authenticity
Privileging of numbers and categorisation / lists

Mythology making the arbitrary appear necessary / essential

Making the cultural appear natural by making it appear to be invisible

The pursuit of objectivity

in america some seem to appreciate the post-punk 79-81 'real uk independant scene that we in uK have 'misplaced'and are refinding - see the Messthetics albums - brill bootleg compilations...

sorry am rambling and losing the thread..

jimmy

yay van dover

I prefer k-punk's "romantics of production vs romantics of consumption"

In a funny way "romantics" captures something hard to define but essential about both rockism and popism in a way that "authenticity" doesn't - at a stretch I'd call it their emotionally charged inconsistency.

Conversely, pop-discourse treats the pop star as the primary source of production, when in fact in reality many pop stars do not actually produce most of their own music beyond providing vocals - however if listeners ascribe to popism and/or pop discourse, they may choose to act as if the pop stars are the primary producers.

So rock involves a fantasy of consumption in order to preserve the primacy of production, whereas pop involves a fantasy of production in order to preserve the primacy of consumption.

It is irrelevant here that pop listeners "know" that their favourite pop star is not actually writing the songs, just as it is irrelevant that the rock listeners know that they have not actually seen their favourite hot new band live yet, or listened to their album on vinyl in a room. It's the acting as if these things are true in the face of knowledge to the contrary which is the very essence of the fantasies.

I seriously disagree with this, Tim. Rock-discourse actually values an album after it's been listened to repeatedly; masterpieces "hold up" after three dozen listens.

obviously one can listen to an album in one go many times over the course of a lifetime.

OK, I getcha.

Hmm...ideas for future Teena Marie album liner notes.

I mean that, in 2006, it is not "natural social behaviour" to listen to an album in one go on vinyl in a room, but it IS to listen to MP3s in bits on the bus. The rockist constructs false environments in which to consume rock because rock needs to be consumed "properly", that's how it's designed - the popist consumes pop whenever and wherever he/she can, because that's what pop is for. Ergo the consumption of pop is more authentic, because it doesn't require falsely-constructed environments, and I would argue that, say, Lex (as definitive strawman popist!) would see it as a positive thing that people listen to Ciara on the bus, because that(consumption)'s authentic, and who gives too figs whether the music was made "because Ciara was feeling it, man, and needed to express it", or because some producer had a tune and some A&R man had a face for the tune (which is inauthentic, because it is manipulative.

And we all know how rock is (supposedly) produced - friends-from-childhood in the garage.

So, pop manipulates you when it is produced, because of the (supposed) unnaturalness of it's production, but not when it's consumed, cos you can consume it whenever and wherever you like. Rock manipulates you when it is consumed, because it ought to be live, or all in one go, but not when it's produced because kids in garages with cheap guitars is "natural".

Of course, pop lies about it's autheticity of consumption just as much as rock lies about it's authenticity of production; the lies necessary tools in the pop playbook in order to construct myths which fit the music into the right slot in order to attract the pre-ordained fanbase necessary for it to succeed. Which is why Scritti Politti "fail" at pop and The Kooks "fail" at rock.

+1 to that

people are writing about poptimism and rockism, in this economy??????

Aimee Mann:

By 1990, everything on the radio was starting to be Whitney Houston, Taylor Dayne, Tina Turner—it was very pop. Then Michael Penn comes out with this Beatles-esque, melodic song, but still with a little bit of a big snare drum sound. I was like, “Finally, somebody broke through with an actual song.”

A poptimist would have married Taylor Dayne.

The 1975’s Brits nomination proves great pop isn’t always drowned out by mindless gym music

lol amazing

While making the album, The 1975 sought to capture the pure essence of their band – to simply “play it and record it,” as Healy told the New York Times last year. “Any kid can make a bedroom thing that sounds crazy,” he said. “What you can’t do is have been in a band for 20 years and be great players and go into a room and have that freedom.” The resulting album makes you feel as if you were in the room with the band as they recorded it.

Wow irl Aging rock act on new album: This time we wanted to go back to the basics guys in a room

If you're not listening to the 1975, you're probably at the gym

Have they really been together for 20 years?

Sounds like rockism is her weapon of choice for generation warfare. At the same time wishing for music that unites everyone by soundtracking our lives like Elton John.

Sounds like rockism is her weapon of choice for generation warfare. At the same time wishing for music that unites everyone by soundtracking our lives like Elton John.

I'm a rockist man

Burning out his fuse up here alone

I'm a rockist man

the opossite of thinking pop music with dubious quality (taylor swift, beyonce, the weekend, drake...) is relevant: the opposite of rockism... and both wrong

i miss the days when all new posters like this were considered to be a sock

sockism

lol

it's more fun if you call them shit instead of not relevant - you'd be half wrong but have some courage in your own subjectivity

what's the rockism of appeals-to-relevance? it's a real thing and you can do it for or against rock or pop or whatever

It’s a far cry from previous decades, when artists like Elton John, Kate Bush and Phil Collins – who made music about grown-up concerns, which could be enjoyed by teens alike – soundtracked our lives. (It’s no surprise that this is the current state of pop in a country whose music industry is, according to the charts, propped up by a holy trinity of po-faced men: Ed Sheeran, George Ezra and Lewis Capaldi.)

I like Phil Collins but also it's very funny to use Phil Collins as an example here (and surely Phil is at least as po-faced as Sheeran, Ezra and Capaldi?)

I want someone to write a take on rockism that explains how Phil Collins and Steely Dan were the two uncoolest things imaginable to rockist gen x-ers but are both loved by rockist millenials. I have no idea what zoomers think of them, if anything

the early definitions on this thread are interesting in how diverse they are. what I'm getting is that rockism is a lot like fascism in how syncretic and incoherent it is and how many different guises can wear. someone could write a thing on ur-rockism like umberto eco did for fascism

"We wanted go back to the sound of just four guys in a gym."

i prefer 'whinerism'

Why don't we ask Freddie deBoer

runner up: crypto-poptimists & crypto-rockists