What Is Rockism ?

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(?)

so what's the unfair bit? that anybody ever listened to tapes 'n tapes in the first place?

How it should work ideally: that writers are more measured in their praise and constructive in their criticism of up-and-coming bands than transparently coming across as being so gushing that they're clearly just trying to be The One Who First Wrote Lovingly About That Band Everyone Now Loves.

The unfair bit is that there's now almost an expectation (subconscious or concscious) for both the artists themselves and fans that these groups are going to create noteworthy music over a career, whereas there's a high likelihood of that not actually happening. I think it's more unfair to the artists than anything, whose livelihood and mental health is at stake. Essentially my argument is that music press 'Next Big Thing' hype cycles aren't ultimately a good thing for artists in building a lasting career, and I don't think that's particularly controversial or outlandish. I just find it interesting that there's a new type of artist who is being subjected to these cycles.

I get what you are saying but I really think "hype cycles" have a lot less to do with why bands disappear to early than just the impossible economics of being a band in 2018.

And in the broader sense of why isn't rock music bigger in 2018, I think at some point it's just that styles change. Rock music had a pretty good run, much longer than swing music.

More GVF: These vox & lyrics are trash!! OMG

triggercut otm. don’t forget how online content’s dissemination methods result in hype being crucial to how profiles are pitched on twitter / in headlines etc

you’ll probably be more able to chart this trend when all these acts’ next albums come out... if they do

also did anyone head scratch this way about wolfmother or was their marketing better pitched

It’s pretty clear GVFs PR people decided to just lean all the way into the zeppelin soundalike thing and it sort of annoys me that it worked and we’re talking about them as a result because I have listened to them five or six times and nothing about any of their songs or how they sound has stuck with me yet.

also did anyone head scratch this way about wolfmother or was their marketing better pitched

Their marketing was a little better. Different environment 10 years ago, too - they had a lot of licensing and placements (video game soundtracks, etc.), and the album wasn't released internationally until it had already been big in Australia for a year. Their music was also (slightly) better - they didn't sound like just one classic rock band; they sounded like early '70s proto-metal (Dust, Mountain, etc.) but you could also draw a line from them back to Kyuss, Brant Bjork et al. Their second album sucked, though.

GVF also uses the Stranger Things font for their logo, which is another annoying "look, we're pushing your nostalgia button" thing about them.

How it should work ideally: that writers are more measured in their praise and constructive in their criticism of up-and-coming bands than transparently coming across as being so gushing that they're clearly just trying to be The One Who First Wrote Lovingly About That Band Everyone Now Loves.

― triggercut

sure, ideally, but we're so far from that right now that criticizing critics for not being nuanced in a world where people neither want nor have any use for nuance leaves me scratching my head. i don't think public criticism can serve to make a band artistically better. best case scenario is getting more people to listen to bands the critic sees the appeal in, so that they can continue to develop, and the best way of doing that is, unfortunately, hyperbolic praise.

Exactly. In te era of no record label advances, hype is the only way you get money to keep going. A single artist can maybe toil in obscurity and poverty for a while to “develop” but forget about keeping a group together that way.

How long is the breaking period for a band considered to be these days. Seemed to used to be a couple of years, & from what I'm gathering seems to want to be overnight these days. Which presumably means bands not having time to develop in the old way.

& I guess the whole idea fo paying your dues is part of the rockist cliche or certainly as it would have been presented years back.
BUt it would have been a part of the set up that a band forms, gets to know each others playing styles, plays around with parameters, finds out incompatibilities, changes line up and so on and so on.

During which money is coming in from somewhere and after which if they get successful they can expect some recompense from the music.

Ahh, so this is what the writer who described the first Lana Del Rey album as being "like faking an orgasm" is up to now.

jesus this fucking scenester backbiting, y'all are depressing as hell

Ahh, so this is what the writer who described the first Lana Del Rey album as being "like faking an orgasm" is up to now.

― MarkoP

good review!

sure, ideally, but we're so far from that right now that criticizing critics for not being nuanced in a world where people neither want nor have any use for nuance leaves me scratching my head. i don't think public criticism can serve to make a band artistically better. best case scenario is getting more people to listen to bands the critic sees the appeal in, so that they can continue to develop, and the best way of doing that is, unfortunately, hyperbolic praise.

I agree w/this so wholeheartedly that I’m quote-pasting the whole dang thing.

Agree with Alfred, that sums it up quite well. The listener's feelings regarding said simulation are something else entirely.

Ha, I was just listening to a new-release playlist unseen, and a song came on and I thought "Wow, this is really well done, but are they deliberately trying to sound like Led Zeppelin?" And sure enough, it was Greta Van Fleet.

Fuck it anyway, I'm almost 40 years old. If some subset of the Bonnaroo crowd enjoys watching a mickey mouse club reject front a zep cover band that doesn't play covers, how can I begrudge them for that. They're neither rock's salvation nor its death knell, just another entertainment option in our age of precision niche targeting.

https://www.aznewage.info/cargo%20cult%20logo.jpg

Every few years there's some band like this, like Wolfmother or whatever.

but they keep getting worse

Ok I just went on YouTube and randomly listened to a GVF performance and they have a song that’s basically a rearranged version of Your Time Is Gonna Come. It’s one think to copy communication breakdown or something, but doing that is almost trolling level imitation.

did any of you ever listen to the john bonham band

or whitesnake

Coverdale/Page

listening to this band now and it's fine i guess. ugh the vocals tho.

Coverband/Plage

Maura, you mean Jason Bonham's Bonham, surely? That fits in with the sort of thing I was thinking of when I said GvF remind me most of early 90s AOR (album oriented rock, not whatever British people understand these letters to mean) radio.

i would be more impressed if some 21 year olds did a roth-era van halen fake covers band.

It just occurred to me that, in a strange twist, you could make a case that GVF hate is more rockist than GVF love

BTW yes of course I listened to Whitesnake, Coverdale/Page, etc., spent a lot of time trying to find another Zeppelin-esque high. The meaning of GvF is slightly different culturally, bands who grew up on Zeppelin vs bands whose parents are too young to have grown up on Zeppelin. I mean Coverdale was born in 1951, only 7 years after Page. Josh Kiszka was born in 1996. He was 10 when Wolfmother's biggest record came out, so he's at least 4th wave.

I'm p sure you could make a case that any pov you dislike is rockist and someone probably has. xp

yeah i meant jason.

i don’t think that this brand of revivalism is all that surprising given the way classic rock radio has managed to remain on the fm dial even as music formats have been eaten away there. and modern rock radio is a hookless shambles (or worse, it’s elevating crap like portugal. the bland). as a result getting the led out has become an inter generational tradition. (and a lot of my students, age <22, were raised on classic rock still.)

also how has nobody compared this revivalism-drenched family band to kings of leon yet

good call on Kings Of Leon, also thanks for the dn

feel like i should also point out that three weeks ago at a SUPERNATURAL event jensen ackles specifically shouted out gvf as a band the brothers would probably crank.

xp

a lot of my students, age <22, were raised on classic rock still

Middle school aged kids still want to learn these songs on guitar.

The chorus of "Wait for You" still gets in my head sometimes btw.

I just don't think the big show business dollar even tries to get into the rock band business, too much overhead and not enough profit. It can take years and years for a live act to even build up to playing decent sized rooms even in the age of shared media. Shared media is great to get started, but it seems to have a bit of a ceiling.

Alot of the old heartland/southern rock has pretty much gotten absorbed into country music. Still many of those groups are bands that live by playing live, they are not big radio/TV bands for the most part.

lindsay zoladz is a good writer and that was a fun piece on an embarrasing band

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?

― dub pilates (rushomancy), Saturday, October 20, 2018 2:56 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i honestly thought Greta Van Fleet was some Sharon Van Etten type solo artist just from seeing the name at random around the 'net, shades of teenage me picking up a Catherine Wheel record because i thought the Liz Phair album was cool and wanted more lady music in the collection.

I'd never heard of Greta Van Fleet before this thread. Don't know what to make of omar little's 'well I thought the band was like Sharon van Etten y bcz they both have 'van' in their name'... Ok buddy...

haha omar that is awesome

xp no he's saying he thought it was a person, not a band

It's Fred Van Vleet's sister, iirc

Don't know what to make of omar little's 'well I thought the band was like Sharon van Etten y bcz they both have 'van' in their name'... Ok buddy...

LMAO

Greta Van Fleet will never create anything as great as "Here I Go Again"