Does this help?

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Paul Morley throwdown on the rockism "debate". Only useful point as far as I can see = anti-rockism as laughing at the squares, or rather trying to make the kids who think they're cool feel like squares. But as always with Morley it all falls down when his emphasis on humour and polemic as a motor to saying something passionate about anything (Nick Drake AND Christina Aguilera are his examples) gets bogged down in X vs Y judgements. e.g. Springsteen vs. Beefheart has now flip-flopped surely -- Beefheart love is solid gold rockism and Springsteen is the chirpy pop act. But actually that doesn't get us very far with thinking about EITHER! My conclusion = anti-rockism is good as a levelling principle when used in support of something you are loving; but rubbish when used as an attack on something. Anti-rockism seems to work for Morley as an attack on a perceived consensus (and maybe works best when there is something to that perception), but when some form of broadly anti-rock (not the same as anti-rockism) has become the consensus (in realm of people who care about these things) surely it is time to USE OTHER WORDS PLEASE! Perhaps the mistake is about that perceived consensus: Morley sees himself as the loner going against conformism, but conformism is always in the eye of the beholder, and perhaps PM is really missing out on the fun out here in land of the (non)-conformists!

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Beefheart = godfather of RAVE

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

This is a statement deserving of some expansion.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

1) Extreme mentalism of lyrical, musical content
2) Occurrence of completely unrelated sections mid-song (as discussed in the kitchen the other day) which are never repeated
3) Written with intent of entertainment of ppl who have taken too many druqks. See also Zappa, except Beefheart is *good*.

(awaits deluge of scorn from sbp viz point 3.)

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

1) Musical content, yes. Not sure abt lyrical content because average rave lyrics actually not that mental, or at least their mentalism had a different driving factor. With Beefheart, there was definitely a degree of 'about' going on - even at his most off the wall, there was still a sense that the meanings of the words, and the meaning of the combinations of the words mattered; it was still poetry in the loosest sense of the word. OTOH choice of rave vocals in general much more concerned with a) sonic properties of sample and/or b) vague setting of atmosphere. There is very rarely any coherence, or sum of sung/spoken lyrical fragments being greater than parts.

2) Agree entirely.

3) Maybe, but he didn't want to make them dance.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

The main reason for liking Beefheart is that happy feeling of "this album makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER" when listening to it. Trout Mask Replica has those layers upon layers of instrumentation like you get in eg disco, all doing mental different things to spark up different bits of yr brain. You are right that dancing isn't rly the prime objective tho.

I want to listen to TMR now! It is at home!

p.s. The video to Ebeneezer Goode was playing on the big screen in reception at work yesterday. Mwah-hah-ha-ha-haaaaar!

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

Is the musical content really similar? Haven't heard Beefheart* in a long-time now (and erm, not sure I've ever heard much rave ever) but even when a new part isn't introduced you've got the elements seemingly sounding against each other whereas that might not be the case in rave.

*= I'm thinking more of TMR and 'Lick my Decals off, baby'

but hey I'm all for this fusion of sukrat and morehardcrew!

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

haha that is an 'x-post' w/kat.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think we reached the use other words stage some time ago!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't think I even understand Morley articles any more. I don't know who or what he's talking about!

I don't like reading articles in actual publications (as opposed to blogs) which are little more than responses to other critics (especially those in another country) - you can always feel the clumsiness as the writer tries to fit the other critics' arguments in and then dissect them within the word limit. Also I don't know why I should care about the American critics in question.

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

If you're not a rockist, does that mean you have to be something else? I'm pretty sure I'm not a rockist, and I certainly don't want to listen to Nick Drake.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

The big problem with that piece is that he sinks to the Petridis-level sniping at those pretentious bloggers with their internet and their fancy ways!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I think this is a fair enough entry-level stab at bringing the debate to wider Graun audience tho. I agree with him on practically everything here tho it's basic barebones stuff.

I'll always see Morley as a popist I suppose. The acid test is whether his continued support of U2 can really construe popism or anti-rockism. I'm sure he would argue that it does and this is an example of where the real confusion starts.

[cis.livejournal.com]

The Springsteen vs Beefheart thing is really glaring, isn't it! It reveals more about where Paul Morley is w/r/t the current anti-rockism - ten years behind? The full twenty-five? Are our ideas as old as the first time we used the word 'rockism'? Springsteen isn't the canonised rock establishment anymore, which means that treating Springsteen as establishment to be gone against just reads funny, which kind of shows how pointless 'liking x because it's not the consensus' is (as if we didn't know that already but). We'll always be falling behind, there's always the risk of anachronism, if we subscribe to an anti-rockism that's so... reactive. I think mostly this tells us that defining yourself against something, in binary oppositions that way, is a stupid idea and will 50% of the time just show you up - that so long as anti-rockism is in the rockist binary it's not much use except as a way of approaching rockism. Which I think people mostly already knew?

A lot of the time I probably do use anti-rockism as a way of trying to make the kids who think they're cool feel like squares, but the problem is there'll always be someone further ahead than you who makes you feel like a square.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think I consider the ultimate goal of popism to have no one further along than you!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

That's a horrifying goal!

My ultimate goal is to like as much as possible. I don't know if this requires an ism.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

My actual goal though is to hear and like all good music as soon as possible - this leads by default to having no one further along than you (and is also unattainable).

I'm quite happy to hate vast swathes of music.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

I think I consider the ultimate goal of popism to have no one further along than you!

that's the indie trainspotter's goal dude!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

tho i probably fall into this myself as i do seem keen on elitism and digging for the gold nuggets in most genres out there but some more than others. just so i can feel more confident that i have heard the best tracks respective genres have to offer.

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

But I think that's known as "cosmopolitanism," rite?

[cis.livejournal.com]

to be the cutting edge and remain so! criticism as competitive sport though, it's a bit...

Basically it ends up pointless because in a conversation with someone two or three steps 'behind' you, you are indistinguishable from someone a few steps behind them.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think even in a vacuum I would want to hear good stuff as soon as possible though, so it's not so much competitiveness as, er, impatience.

tbh I hardly ever use the "I have heard of this SIX MONTHS before you!" thing, it is a little cuntish (also I am aware that I am perpetually straggling after the bobbins threads and so on); I do however use "you like Dylan? ew how LAME you should like CIARA" every day quite a lot AND HAVE NO SHAME

[cis.livejournal.com]

oh no nothing about in terms of time, but on a scale of critical uh evolution, if it's like

pop fan ==> emo kid ==> rockism ==> popism ==> anti-rockism ==> post-popism

etc (the exact order does not matter!) and we're all at incremental points along it, the 'popist' appears to the 'rockist' to be no different from the uncultured pop fan who the rockist is defining themself as superior to. So you can have a sense of satisfaction for being ahead of the pack all you like, but if you're vain&insecure like me you then feel the need to justify yourself, give credentials, say 'i have been and done rockism and it is not worth it' and that not only makes you come off like a tw4t but is essentially pointless.

[cis.livejournal.com]

I mean: I have to admit, when I read Morley defining anti-rockism as 'beefheart yay, springsteen nay' I thought 'Morley is so behind the tiiiimes, get with it, old man.' That's not where the cool poptimist kids are at, I thought, we've moved on from that, you're chatting the party line and thinking it's radical: baby baby baby you're out of time.

I understand this makes me a bad person, a hipster sh1tting on sh1bboleths if you will, but I'm afraid that was my reaction.

[cis.livejournal.com]

the difference between the popist/rockist debate and other debates which increasingly radicalise themselves over time (okay the only example coming to mind here is the french revolution but you know what I mean) is that popism/rockism starts eating its own tail all the quicker.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

This seems quite foreign, if not antithetical, to my own definition of popism, for reasons others have said. Neophilia can often be associated with being very into pop - and certainly is more pop than nostalgia - but if surely also very pop is being happy to be into the same songs 'the mainstream' is into at the same time 'the mainstream' is into them - i.e., happy to dance to well-worn crowd-pleasers...

[cis.livejournal.com]

also I find the slightly anti-American tone - or, rather, these Americans are po-faced pontificators (a prabble of bloggers), not like us wry and witty British (an elite of journalists) - rather unpleasant.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

yeh the anti-American tone is the only thing that might bug me about this.

[cis.livejournal.com]

prabble! rabble, I meant. is a prabble a prattling rabble I wonder?

I rather feel that Rush are less rockist than Richard Hell, as well -- In fact Morley is using the terms to exactly the opposite meaning I'd give them! "if you don't instantly get it you never will" is all very well and good but if Morley and I both believe we get it, and we're coming to such contradictory conclusions, then it's not much use at all, is it?

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

The anti-Americanism is utterly justified by that horrible pompous rock-prof piece in the NYT! (re Rock-profs, I keep meaning to scan in PM's intro to ASK.

)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Which was that one?

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

The Kelefa Sanneh piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/arts/music/31sann.html?ei=5090&en=5d74c31cbf3d2d34&ex=1256965200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all&position=)

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

I think (fear) he may be referring to just about *any* American who's entered the back and forth about the concept: Frere-Jones, Rosen, Wolk, Matos, DeRogatis, Wilder (shudder), and even Kogan (TARRED by ASSOCIATION)...and since he's only thinking about the last eighteen months, he's not counting ILx, or at least that sliver of ILx's life dating before everyone claimed to be bored by the concept.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

The piece seems to end very abruptly. I was expecting at least some sort of conclusion.

I assume the title of the piece was not Morley's idea but some sub-editor's.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

yeh it was actually written exactly like a 'bored at work, kept awake by this nagging issue last night' late-morning blog post.

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

still, that's the word "poptimism" in a national paper - now to put it in front of the dictionary ppl at work...

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

lor, i just had to try to explain rockism to my mum (which reading out that article didn't help with). at first she couldn't "see what was worth discussing - everyone likes there own music" (which is as much as i get to TBH) but then i said that a rockist (if such a thing popped into existence) WOULD object to someone saying "you like X, and I like Y, so what" with "BUT YOU CAN'T like X". amirite? (srsly)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

No Mums need to understand it ever!

You should only ever use the word to your sworn enemies, I think.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

Oops, posted this up then went off to the library. Thought I might get flamed for even bringing up the 'r' word.

I think the trouble with Morley is that he plays 'having a laugh' as a get-out-of-jail free card AND is totally guilty of making arbitrary value-laden assumptions about what 'WE' (i.e. you who must agree with me, because if you don't you are a fun-hating rockist) think is good. ergo he is a cock.

I was amazed at how much Rip It Up and Start Again turns into an anti-Morley rant (where it all went wrong!): in my mind Simon Reynolds and Paul Morley are two sides of the same increasingly worthless coin.

[thenipper.livejournal.com]

How much Morley have you read, Alex? I don't he is really the Pope of Popism you imagine him to be...

I also think to say that RIU&SA is an anti-Morley rant is a gross simplification! Though I think Reynolds gets Morley wrong, too.

[byebyepride.livejournal.com]

I've read Ask, and Words and Music. Not much else, TBH, apart from those columns in the OMM. I think Morley thinks he is the Pope of Popism! What else should I read. I have a copy of Nothing, but it looks a bit gloomy.

I am probably too hard on RIU&SA, but it just felt like a collection of Mojo features to me, slung around a threadbare 'what have we lost?'-type thesis.

[zenith.livejournal.com]

Morley sometimes says funny things on those 'I Love...' programmes, though, and you can't say that about Reynolds.

[juror8.livejournal.com]

Reynolds's head isn't as doughy as Morley's, though.

[thomppw.livejournal.com]

it seems edited down, somehow

the springsteen thing - not all of those have the 'rockist' values on the left hand side! not all of those pairs split equally!

"how rock groups hold their guitars and what they do with their legs as they hold their guitars" is a fascinating subject in need of further investigation