What Is Rockism ?

Auto-Tune and other vocal treatments serve for Thug a role similar to the wah-wah effects that Miles Davis applied to his trumpet during his wild ’70s phase of fevered fusion.

I find these comparisons hilarious and unnecessary

Can’t believe those old Melody Maker rockism articles from the 80s haven’t been posted or scanned or transcribed online. It’s only a matter of time before all that old paper deteriorates and then all that great influential writing will be gone forever.

Reynolds is far from the first person I’ve seen describe Future as a “blues singer”

“‘The Percocet and Stripper Joint’ is just a 21st century update of ‘Rollin’ Stone.’ My column...”

And this is not the first time I've seen vocal production compared to Miles Davis, and it's pretty apt. Why on earth would comparisons need to be 'necessary'?

To be clear, I’m not mocking the notion—he’s got a natural growl in his timbre that isn’t unlike a less theatrical version of Howlin Wolf, or something.

xp if you think it's a good comparison fine, I thought it was an attempt at legitimizing Thugger/AutoTune which is unnecessary

Both those quoted passages are interesting to me, FWIW

(Also it’s not as if Miles’ wah-wah trumpet is some universally beloved sound... he could have compared it to a gtr pedal if he were trying to rockist-ly “legitimize” it?)

Both passages otm

pleasantly surprised to see this piece acknowledge autotune used in African/Middle Eastern music

I think turrican has done a good job keeping rockism alive new

Scratch new

I read /r/guitarpedals pretty frequently and there's somewhat of a meme around there (and its sister /r/guitarpedalsjerk) of just how belittled women still are in the guitar / gear community. This video was posted recently and it's currently making the rounds. Not sure how this mentality factors into the rockism debate, but I think it's a pretty gross display.

"rock fundamentally has something to do with abrasion, attitude, and rebellion: It is the categorical opposite of doing your homework"

https://www.theringer.com/music/2018/10/19/17999516/greta-van-fleet-anthem-peaceful-army-band-review-rock-n-roll

maybe critics should talk to people outside their circles more

Not a bad article, tho. Funny bit:

Why does a band like Greta Van Fleet exist in 2018? (A friend recently joked, “Because it’s too expensive to clear the rights to Led Zeppelin songs.”)

From another article about these guys (in Kerrang!):

“Well, rock’n’roll post-1975 was pretty horrible a lot of the time,” says Sam. “I think people had stopped perceiving what rock’n’roll is.”[...]

“There’s a genuine element, there’s a truth to what we’re doing,” says Josh. “We’re not manufacturing this, because you can’t manufacture this. I think people appreciate that because now there’s so much manufactured music. You can’t manufacture emotion.”

maybe critics should talk to people outside their circles more

What, and run the risk that all the year-end critics' polls might not be the same 20 albums in slightly varied order?

It’s also interesting to me that The Ringer writer turns things on their head and criticizes these guys by claiming they’re not “rock” enough — because it’s not rock ‘n roll to slavishly play your daddy’s music, etc. I guess this shows some “flexibility” in the rock-centric attitude; or at least that it can be wielded in different ways.

(Or maybe just that she’s using a rhetorical technique of “hitting these guys where it hurts”... like they’ll take it as even more of a sick burn to be told they don’t truly have a “real” R&R attitude.)

Xxp

In the last few years ilx’s has also been a slight variation of that, though last year was slightly more varied

Maybe this is the year we finally break ilx in true rock n roll style

It’s also interesting to me that The Ringer writer turns things on their head and criticizes these guys by claiming they’re not “rock” enough — because it’s not rock ‘n roll to slavishly play your daddy’s music, etc. I guess this shows some “flexibility” in the rock-centric attitude; or at least that it can be wielded in different ways.

It makes me want to know what bands she does consider convincingly "rock," especially since the only new band she speaks of favorably in the piece is fucking Haim. It's a pretty ballsy move to accuse a band of being a bad example of a genre you yourself don't even actually like, but she's far from the only one to try it.

Yeah, and her critique falters when you think for even a bit about how many respected rock bands over the decade were all about “doing their homework.”

*decades

She doesn't necessarily respect any of those bands tbf but yeah, even Zep were p studious about blues and folk history.

She liked Perfect Pussy and St Vincent in 2014, at the least, apparently: https://pitchfork.com/staff/lindsay-zoladz/

What, and run the risk that all the year-end critics' polls might not be the same 20 albums in slightly varied order?

If there were still critics' polls...

are there people itt who think greta van fleet are something other than a fucking monstrosity or are y'all just being contrarian for the sake of it?

I just happened to hear about them for the first time earlier this week, on a podcast. The dis article makes me curious to check ‘em out and see if I agree that I’d rather hum Led Zep to myself.

i'd rather hum kingdom come to myself

the whole piece is predicated on “why would people like them” and a good way to find out is to ask

I hear them on the radio all the time. I think all three of our rock stations agree on them. They're OK; I wouldn't buy an album but I don't turn them off. I feel like Plant had more body to his voice than GvF dude does. I do find them interesting as a phenomenon. They weirdly remind me more of early 90s AOR radio more than they remind me of Zep themselves. xp

My mother-in-law says they've been her new favourite band since she saw them this summer btw. Maura OTM that she could probably answer Zolandz's question better than she does.

are there people itt who think greta van fleet are something other than a fucking monstrosity or are y'all just being contrarian for the sake of it?

They're bad, but they're not The Worst Band In The History Of Music. I would rather listen to them than, say, Young Jesus, a band whose new album is favorably reviewed on Pitchfork today and whose vocalist makes me want to tear my ears off.

Maura OTM that she could probably answer Zolandz's question better than she does.

I mean, that's assuming that the writer was actually looking for an answer when the premise was probably just a hook for writing a critical piece about the band.

I sometimes think that once poptimism essentially won, it swallowed rock as a category and reconstituted it as a small sub-niche of pop, so that for example on American Idol and similar shows you’d start to see these polished “rocker” singers that felt sort of like leads in a broadway rock musical. Even though Greta Van Fleet sounds like early 70s riff rock, there’s something about them that *feels* more like a pop group or boy band putting on a musical costume.

without listening to it i guarantee the recording/mastering is identical to the white stripes or the black keys which means i have no interest in hearing it.

p.s. i've heard more dope rock albums this year than any of the last 5 or 6.

There was plenty of that in the 70s too tbf. Even before reading the Zolandz piece, though, I did sort of think of GvF as something closer to a new version of the studious guys in the school jazz band. 2xp

(which tbh makes me want to like them more than I actually do)

new Uncle Acid is probably a lot better.

It's sounding pretty good. Did you hear this year's Yamantaka/Sonic Titan?

Very wary of this sounding like an MRA post, so please be assured that it certainly isn't.

That GVF article brings to mind another reaction-against-rockism trend that I've noticed lately. Young male rock bands are now automatically treated as trying to re-entrench some long-dead system of male rock dominance, and are looked at with immediate skepticism, e.g. GVF. Meanwhile, female-fronted indie rock bands have their work treated with an automatic level of respect, attention and seriousness, often to the point where bands with minimal material but some potential are hoisted on a pedestal far beyond where their quality of their released music deserves, e.g. Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy, Lucy Dacus, Julien Baker, boygenius, Hatchie et al. This is an important correction to a trend in which the opposite has happened since the birth of rock music, but I think is ultimately unfair to most of these bands as the expectations for their careers are set astronomically high early on. I don't feel like it's going to work well in the long run for most of these acts.

They're bad, but they're not The Worst Band In The History Of Music. I would rather listen to them than, say, Young Jesus, a band whose new album is favorably reviewed on Pitchfork today and whose vocalist makes me want to tear my ears off.

― grawlix (unperson)

never heard of young jesus, listening now. not really my thing, but they don't evoke visceral disgust in me the way greta van fleet does - a vague dislike, a certain tedium. i'd rather listen to "driving spain up a wall". their band photo rubs me the wrong way more than anything else. i'm glad somebody likes them i guess?

i wouldn't say greta van fleet are the Worst Band in the History of Music (am not really interested in finding out what that is), but they strike me as yet another new low for "classic rock".

Tbf, GVF also get a lot more commercial radio airplay than any of those bands (although they apparently didn't release a full-length album until yesterday!). xp

i don't think it's unfair to praise a band for showing potential. i agree that the bar is higher for young white men in rock, but only because we've heard so fucking many of them already. a lot of these female-fronted indie rock bands aren't quite setting the world on fire as of yet but at least i can listen to them without feeling like i've already heard three dozen identical albums.

Checking out GVF now... The lead guitarist seems skilled, with some good riffs, but I can’t take the vocals at all, not even for a single verse.

Yeah, no doubt GVF get a ton more airplay than any of those groups, but I'm more interested in how music journalism reacts to these bands.

i don't think it's unfair to praise a band for showing potential.

To a point, sure. But there's a fawning, uncritical adoration of a lot of these groups that comes across in a lot of the profiles I've read that almost seems to crown them as Inspirational Musical Geniuses immediately (the NY Times Snail Mail profile is probably the most egregious example). I think it sets unreasonable expectations for them to try to deliver on - there's only so far that that music press hype can carry you, but ultimately it will be the material they release and whether people genuinely love it and want to listen to it that decides whether they have a successful career or not. See: literally almost every single indie rock band that was buzzed about by the music press in the 00s and have now been forgotten about except as a punchline to a joke (shout out Tapes N Tapes).

Imagine feeling like you've got the world at your feet and an amazing future ahead of you for like 12 months because all you read or hear about is how incredible you are, and then your second or third album comes out, and everyone's expecting a masterpiece because of how built up you've been, but then it's actually just OK, so people completely stop caring (shout out Tapes N Tapes).

I don’t remember how Tapes were written about at first — but their EP and 1st album were both really good (and, yes, seemed indicate a potential for even greater things to come); their live show was striking; and they deserved buzz. Then they went downhill fast, so that’s why ppl stopped caring. How else would it work(?)