I'm not certain I was arguing anything too different from what you've said, but thanks for "fleshing it out" a bit. Except, perhaps, with this bit:
- one counter-argument to this is that to collapse discussions of rockism into discussions of authenticity necessarily erases the specificity of much rockist discourse, which does not merely import wholesale the concept of authenticity but also shapes and moulds this concept for its own purposes. It ignores the fact that when we speak of authenticity in music, we tend to do so in a way that privileges the expression of authenticity in rock.
I find it hard to imagine that more direct discussion of the root "evils" of "rockism"--with terms which cut more directly to the chase--could lead to any less specificity, or more ambiguity, than the current debate. The above smacks slightly of a rationalisation of the continued burning of the strawman (boys'n'guitars, or whatever), with an implied counter-privileging of another genre/mode. To say that a discussion of authenticity in music tends to privilege the expression of authentic qualities, whatever those may be within a given frame (whether defined by the critic or implied in the music itself), seems accurate. The "specific" tethering to "rock" seems a step back from creating a more precisely and flexibly applicable tool for diffusing the "evils" at hand; or from moving on to advocacy
of, rather than against, something.
Your next point, in fact, seems to illustrate the oversimplified and clunky semantic utility of "rockism" as the term of choice for getting at the debate.
* * *
Not directed to your points alone, but I remain confused about the basis for the apparent assumption that "authenticity" is an inherently false or mythic term, inevitably producing a false consciousness or a dogma. What is the evidence for the charge that it should be thrown out all together? Its potential for mystification, it's "trump card," dead-end potential in musical criticism, seem like valid reasons for problematisation (something that would probably be fostered by the use of a term like "authenticism"). But for abandonment? Is this already a forgone conclusion in the anti-rockist argument?
its understanding of what authenticity is comes straight from rock music and is asserted over and against the concept of authenticity expressed in the majority of hip hop. In truth, both concepts of authenticity arise not from some actual authentic existence, but rather from contrasting articulations of existence
Again I get the sense I've payed attention to the wrong things in "rock," or valued what of it I enjoy for the "wrong" reasons. Authenticity has never been a concern re: that particular genre--I assumed it was understood as implicitly "pretentious," even in its most strident (hardcore, metal, etc.) forms. The romantic or intentionally aloof nature of rock lyrics has always seemed like a tacit admission of the fact that rock was not usually explicitly "saying something" beyond the music, beyond its position as an artefact of some ill-defined marriage of individual artistic ego and a broader musical community. The overt profession of "authenticity" does in fact seem more frequent in just about every other American musical form. As you point out in your discussion of hip-hop, proclamations of "keeping it real" and what that implies are always problematic and dependent on the perspective of the proclaimer. That seems obvious enough. But if this thread is a discussion of the "Definition of Rockism," I think the complexity to which you alude furthers the argument that the very term itself is too loaded and simplistic.
Your last point is one of the best yet in this thread. If "rockism" exists and is cricitally or popularly hegemonic; and it is a musical Objectivism, in which it is a given that a particular genre/place/time/aesthetic ("rock") is inherently better equipped to
reflect truth and reality than others, then I see the threat. Perhaps I've been naive in assuming that most claims to "authenticity in music" related more to musical components and derivation within a genre, and not inherent comparisons beyond the confines of genre. I've known very few "purists" who advocate the absolute superiority of "their" kind of music above all others; even people who have preferences usually seem to acknowledge the subjective nature of same. So the idea that meaning is created by music rather than channeled by it; and that the meaning is therefore subjective and local (rather than objective and absolute); seems embedded in the mutability of popular appreciation of music. Popular music is known for its fadishness and turnover more than anything else, dinosaurs like the Rolling Stones not withstanding, no? I mean, when a term like "history" is being applied to something as compressed as roughly 100 years of "popular music," surely we're dealing with something given to change rather than dogmatic rigidity?
