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]

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.