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

[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.