OK, let’s go.
The following deals with this article, which I just can’t link to enough. Here, I’ll do it again, and then one more time.
Ross sez:
“the theory as hyperbolated [by Saunders] in that article is more appealing than the practice as apparently actually executed, but that's to be expected.”
I’ll start with a minor quibble here: Saunders’s article is from 2000, not 2005, and aside from the fact that Radio Disney itself has probably changed a lot naturally, the times they are a-changin’, pop-wise. If anything, the teen-pop boom Saunders suggests was even bigger (more hyperbolic?) than expected, to the point that no one over the age of 12 seems to understand the irony in praising “Toxic” but holding on to an ingrained loathing of the preceding stuff that reigned in 2000 (what’s wrong with “Drive Me Crazy,” and why is it not as good of a pop song as “Toxic”? I stretched a thin misogyny/ preaching-virginity-but-not-really! argument to its breaking point during the domination of “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” and only now realize that 1) it’s a pretty good song after all and 2) “Toxic” was a diversionary tactic to help downplay the doozy of The Virgin Britney in her latest single, which frankly doesn’t bother me at this point. So she believes in Jesus a bunch, power to her).
Kelly Clarkson and recent Britney Spears (OK, maybe just "Toxic") have crossed over to the crabbiest of rock-y music crit personalities AND still have the 12-year-olds (and the teens who were 12-ish in 2000), who are snickering at everyone. Yes, the practice could seem “badly executed” (read: repetitive and boring) but only because all of the “good” stuff (anything not c. 2001 and beyond) was thrown out to pave the way for more Jesse McCartney and Jump 5 and…Bowling for Soup? Akon? What the fuck is going on here? There’s so much of this stuff, so much teen-pop, and pop-pop (not Pop Pop), and every other kind of pop…seriously, it’s more twisted than Metal Mike could have imagined, and I think I love it. Or maybe I’ve just crossed the line into blatant misanthropy because too many people have talked shit about me on their blogs.
Next:
“think how exciting and fresh pretty much any poppy/garage/whatever rock song from the sixties still sounds these days”
I’m ignoring the next un-copied part about comparing these bands to ___-revivalists (I totally agree, but Ross already hand-wrung appropriately with a subjectivity statement...when will everyone realize that music isn’t about aesthetic evaluation anymore, it’s about THEORETICAL AUDIENCES and CA$H MONEY!). I just want to say that the Zombies sound really good right now for some reason. Right now being right now in my life, not right this second because SOME people are trying to sleep around here.
“doesn't mean the beatles et. al. heralded a substantive change in the nature of that progression - they were a part of the continuum like anything else, not a monolithic, static, platonic thing inherently opposed to progress and change (that would be the rockist angle).”
I don’t know if a proper definition of rockism would actually allow for any genre or band or whatever to be “inherently opposed to progress,” it’s more a reflection of how one-time dominant types of music move from individual aesthetic preference (not necessarily rockism) to ingrained prejudice exemplified by institutions rather than individuals. I won’t try to make a Bon Jovi fan dig M.I.A. (maybe Bon Jovi fans do dig M.I.A.), but rock is still at the center of the discourse on popular music, which seems unfair in light of other types of music that, when you think about it (hip-hop) are more popular anyway. This is changing, but that’s because it’s easier (or maybe “faster” is more appropriate) to uproot genre-ism (hey, remember jazz?) than, oh I dunno, racism. Not that I would ever dream of comparing the two.
“and since we [critical authorities] don't count”
Dude, a million people read this blog now. I could MAKE or BREAK Jesse McCartney if I wanted to, but I don’t. I do wish the A*Teens were back on the charts, though. Let’s lobby for that.
“if you read one review you read them all, and you become a consumer of music criticism, a second-level organism. we think we're just talking to ourselves, and the theoretical other people aren't paying attention, but actually we're the silent majocracy, and there are no other people, we're all "we," and therefore we each have to decide on our own what we want to listen to. there is no such thing as genre.”
Oh. What? I agree with these things: 1) There is no theoretical “other people.” 2) We are all “we,” which is why it’s always OK to use inclusive pronouns in critical writing, and actually preferred (i.e. “We like the new Jamie Lidell album a lot but we’re not sure how we feel about Wolf Parade yet”).
But I think ultimately the breakdown of genre into nothingness is oversimplifying, if not exactly false…there are also extra-musical concerns not related to matters of aesthetic choice, calling into question a “we like what we like ‘cause we like it” argument and adding more importance or relevance to genre distinction as a cultural, not strictly aesthetic, separation. One contentious example is the inherent racism in supposed aesthetic preference informing rock-oriented tastes, which is why when hip-hop specifically (as opposed to Beatle-rock vs. Not Beatle-rock) enters this debate things get more complicated.
Radio Disney does exhibit, if not a progressive, at least a seemingly color-blind approach to artist selection, as opposed to [insert local classic rock station] or [insert last remaining alternative rock station on the planet]. There are prejudices and institutional influences that run deeper than aesthetic preference, I think, though this opens up issues a bit too intense for this blogspat. I also disagree that consumers of music criticism are “second-level organisms.” The proper phrase is “second-rate.”
“so i walked into murderball instead. man, i don't know. i gotta say. certainly it's a cool subject... and zuppan's a character. but... well, it turned out to be a pretty mundane and at times embarrassingly simplistic movie.”
With the passage of s’more time (I wrote my first blurb when I got home from the movie) we’re kind of agreed on this. One reason I didn’t write more about Murderball is not because it’s been written before, but because there isn’t so much to write. I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted it to be longer and more difficult; I’m getting really sick of these “entry level” documentaries (Super Size Me, F-9/11) that seek to open up a broad, vaguely controversial subject without really confronting anyone to think and act significantly differently, which would probably affect ticket sales, so I sort of see the point. Still, Control Room seems to have done fairly well. Can we have more documentaries like that, please?
Murderball actually takes a turn toward less hey-let’s-follow-these-guys-around style filmmaking at the end with (very) young quadriplegic veterans of the war in Iraq, but too briefly to be anything more than mildly pertinent. A further post about my cautious stance on the “documentary boom” from a doc theory viewpoint will probably come out sometime after I explain why Gus Van Sant is such a Vansanthole. I still like Gerry, though.
Wow, that was long and difficult...it would have made an excellent documentary! I don’t have any penguin pix, but I’ll have some ABBA news (and an Agnetha Faltskog track) to help retroactively lighten up the room a little later this weekend.
hi. okay, that was silly. you realize that my post was not, like, an essay or something, right, it was me working out some ideas in realtime as i wrote, and eventually devolving into goofiness. well, i was definitely being intentionally ridiculous when i said genre doesn't exist.
ReplyDeletethat paragraph was a lazy struggle with the preposterousness of the world-dividing categories, implied by the discourse, "music critics" "music listeners" "non-music listeners," people who listen to music for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, whatever.
are you being serious in 2) that we=we and it's okay to say "we like jamie lidell" and mean everybody in the world/critical community or something?
here's something i think we're actually getting at
if we're actually [interested in] talking in terms of "the dominant popular musical style(s)," we should realize that rock-is-king has been dead for well over 20 years. remember 5 years ago when "rock was back" (except it really wasn't?) and 10 years before that, when grunge (which, i'm pretty sure, was the last time rock was actually a dominant popular form) was itself a revival of rock being popular?
here are some broad strokes. in the sixties there was already not just rock, but also pop and soul. in the seventies soul gives way to funk and disco, popular rock drifts towards arty/prog/metal on one side, soft rock on the other. [and then punk happens, but noway is that mainstream in the least.] in the eighties music is dominated by dance-oriented pop which may have had some rockist elements, but eschews plenty of others (synths rather than guitars, much more black- and female-friendly). rock in the 80s consists of 1) heavy metal, which was admittedly very popular (among whites) but not taken all that seriously by critics 2) new wave, which was the punk revolution dressed up as dance-pop, and in some ways functioned culturally more like pop than rock, 3) rockers like springsteen and petty (and u2 i guess) who were continuing in the 70s vein, and successful but not really part of a major movement, 4) underground rock (pixies, etc. the continuation of punk) which nobody knew about at the time. the nineties, of course, were dominated by hip-hop way more than they were by rock, with the possible exception of like 91-94. since nirvana and pearl jam, who has there been? hootie, r.e.m., korn, the strokes, whatever - none of them were anything near as mainstream-popular as hip-hop and dance music.
so. rockism, if it's a problem, which i'm not sure it is, is a problem with the discourse not facing up to the reality of popular music, and not a problem with music itself. maybe we knew that already.
and what the hell is "the discourse" and why do we care? "we" (the critical world) seem to be on board with the pop-is-good thing, so that's not a problem. so who we're really complaining about is the theoretical [white]-man-on-the-street who what, just listens to classic rock radio and complains about britney? who cares about that guy? man, if he doesn't want to like pop, that's his loss. the rockist rant angle lets us feel superior and self-congratulatory but to what end?
the end.
Hm, getting interesting. Of course, I didn't presume your post was an essay, just as mine was (also) a late night rant. Which means that (specifically) we=we was not serious (actually a jab at my own tendency to overuse "we") and (generally) none of my comments were meant to be too too serious.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up good points about the "death" or "rebirth" etc of rock, and its general history, which is kind of depressing condensed to two paragraphs. It's important to remember in all of this that I'm coming from a perspective of growing up with rock music as the absolute music standard (a lot of white male suburbanites have...and were purist toward rock through disco, electropop, etc etc), and maybe the real problem here, or part of it, is that I just don't really get as much out of my old favorites these days. I'd rather listen to Cassius...thanks for the tip.
I don't really like most of the internet discussions about rockism, in that way that so much message board-y talk has to be "past" whatever's being discussed, as though saying *yawn* or acting all snarky about a critical idea, however flimsy it may be, is ever valid.
Rockism does interest me as a theoretical tool to de-legitimate other (African-American based? should we not go there again?) genres (genrecalia represent), particularly hip-hop and to a lesser extent disco/electro/teen-derived pop. But even that hasn't really been true since, like, grunge, which according to people older than me didn't really happen like that anyway.
I mentioned individual preference vs. institutional prejudices, so I don't think we (you and I) can actually fault someone for not liking Britney and loving some rock. But we (you and me [read: I] and everyone we know) can rightfully take some offense at casual dismissal of any type of music at the idea level, which is not quite the same thing as disliking on aesthetic grounds. A mutual friend's dad listened to Annie for about twenty seconds before declaring, "this is not music!" This is not so much a matter of listening preferences, though the age gap explains the reaction more than some conspiracy to destroy Annie. We (everyone at Alissa's graduation party) all agreed on Harry Nilsson.
The rockist rant usually doesn't make me feel "superior," in fact most of the time it feels...misplaced. Or misguided maybe. It does link us to "the discourse," which is a word, I think, for a group of people who want to talk about music in ways that can seem kind of silly sometimes, but are usually quite fun and good for a laugh.
Yea, a late night rant with to much coffee "maybe", way to muck im thinking, but a few good points were made, only a few, like musicians are a dime a dozen anymore and have been for quite some time...
ReplyDeletesuggestion, hang on to your favorite albums, and compact disc, and the world is a better place for you when there is nothing left of rock and roll dude...