k-punk said:
That isn't the argument; the argument is that, according to rockism, rock is the best type of music, and that one of the reasons for its superiority is its authenticity.
Ok, it usually seems to be put more broadly and insidiously, ie that "rockism" is an attitude that need not be espoused by a fan of "rock" alone. I always feel like it's code for a combined hipster/angry white man/critic/false-consciousness/hippie/naive/idealist/cynic/anti-commercialist bogeyman.
i.e. the singer-songwriter model, which privileges what straight white males have typically done. Those outside that group have tended to make contributions to pop in other ways.
Again, I guess my definitions are out of whack. I know you're speaking of the term "singer-songwriter" in a broader sense (as contrasted with, say, "performer" or "session man" or whatever); but nevertheless, it's most significant meaning for me brings to mind Joni Mitchell, Roberta Flack, Joan Baez and other female artists on which I was raised. A minor point.
Yes, precisely in the propagation of that false opposition, i.e. the claim that something is either local = good or mass marketed = bad.
There are gradations of "mass marketed," and to somehow link opposition to the Wal-Martification of pop music to racism/rockism seems exageratedly divisive and spurious. I think there are valid reasons to mistrust the effect of a top-down approach to music in the style of Wal-Mart; without denying the possible brilliance of a situation like, say, Motown. Certainly it's a losing game to overly romanticise the "grassroots," the "community," the "independent" musician (especially in an age when "indie" refers more to a fashion sense than any ethical stance). Nevertheless, it's at least equally dangerous (in a sense that goes beyond music into real life-and-death issues) to so stringently deny the possibility that bad things can happen when Big Box-style commerce meets music. To do so in the name of anti-racism (or some other enlightened ethical position) seems disengenuous.
Whereas I would say that what is bad about rockism is not just the testosterone and the axes (though they hardly recommend it) but its cult of the authentic.
Again, what is the alternative to "authentic" that is to be prized instead? Is anti-rockism purporting to be a disavowal of *any* concept of broad, diffuse criteria? What are its proactive values, beyond its response to the percieved threat of rockism?
I hardly mean to defend "authenticity" as the definitive criterion in evaluating music. It is indeed a loaded and diffuse term; but one not without meaning. Is the total rejection of "authenticity" driven by a fear of Paul Simon-style liberal yuppie "world music fan" exoticism/cultural imperialism/"reverse" racism and the ways that sphere misused and abused the term? Strangely, I feel I've more often heard "authentic" weilded in the complimentary sense by self-conscious anti-racists than by boys with their guitar toys.
Hardly. That would be the case if the only alternative to rockism was popism; but one of the problems with both rockism and popism is that they are anti-intellectual.
What is the third way (besides generally staying away from these kinds of discussions, and letting ones brains and ones feet both play a role in determining what music one likes, often simultaneously)?
That's because there is no 'normal', and it is only people who try and resist identification of their position as a theoretical commitment who require such a notion. I'm happy to be a geek.
We agree there. I'm not concerned with a concept of "normal," either in order to distinguish myself from it or desperately seek to prove intellectually that I'm of it. I introduced it to the discussion only in the half-joking sense that as people who would say "I'm happy to be a geek" (a sentiment I deeply share,) we probably devote a little more time and energy to "appreciating" music than most people we know.
Why would an anti-rockist be attacking such a person for being inauthentic? Authenticity is a rockist criterion, as established above. The correct response to people raised on singer-songwriter music is pity. Look at everything they have missed out on. But even though many are indeed born into such terrible conditions, there are those who manage to escape.
Like I said, it's my probably my false consciousness acting up, but it seems to me that through the clear superiority of the anti-rockist ("pity," etc.) toward the accused rockist---connoting a sense that there is a "better" way to listen to music and the anti-rockist posesses it exclusively---a qualitative hierarchy is suggested that is awfully similar in its stringency and absolutism to the "authenticity fetish".
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All culture comes from restrictions; anti-rockism has produced more or less the whole history of pop (INCLUDING rock, which as I said above, is itself NOT ROCKIST). Rockist restrictions lead to Coldplay, Elbow and Razorlight. I rest my case m'lud.[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure I follow this restrictions-->culture thesis. By restrictions do you mean traditions? As a preservation architect, I might agree with you there. But music seems different, at least "pop/folk" musics. My gut says it's the cracks in restrictions, the new integrations (voluntary or forced) which have produced most pop culture (maybe that's what you mean by anti-rockism in this context?). Not having heard any of the bands you mention, I don't really follow the second part. It seems a little early to announce an ipso facto conclusion to the questions ; )
huffafc said:
The debate about rockism opened up many of these questions but has since closed many of them down.
Very well put.
I feel like I've heard plenty about what these mysterious rockists value and propagate. What do the anti-rockists espouse, other than anti-rockism? What are the values of anti/non-rockists, as contrasted with "authenticity" etc. etc.? Could it be that these factions and these ways of listening, the good way and the bad way, only exist in the minds of self-proclaimed geeks like us who in some (silly) ways definitely take music too seriously?
