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]

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!