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Rules Of The Game #31: Rockism And Antirockism Rise From The Dead
Here's my latest, in which I reveal myself to be a rockist, unless that's not what I'm revealing. I also don't come to a conclusion about what rockism is. Stay tuned for the exciting sequel.
The Rules Of The Game #31: Rockism And Antirockism Rise From The Dead
EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.
UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:
http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html
The Rules Of The Game #31: Rockism And Antirockism Rise From The Dead
EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.
UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:
http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html
But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
(I'm not being sarcastic.)
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
So, yes!
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
(Note below that I just said to Mordy: "And then the next point would be, can't someone present such an argument not because he's a rockist but because the argument is right in that particular circumstance?" That is, I wouldn't be committed to the idea that X necessarily declines into non-X, but I think (or thought) in this particular instance that punk had declined into fake punk.)
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
1. We have started a music board in which we are talking seriously and hopefully intelligently about music which a lot of people dismiss, putting it on equal or better footing with what they don't dismiss.
2. If a lot of the dismissers joined the board it would most likely lose the character it was developing, because it's quite small and there's a lot of them out there.
3. If we have a word that dismisses the dismissers then it will work as a filter on the numbers of them coming in. The fact we can't agree on EXACTLY what it means is, AT THIS STAGE IN THE COMMUNITY, less important than its existence and the fact that we generally agree on the badness of the arguments it dismisses.
4. Oh bollocks the word has taken on a massive life of its own and has become a total rod for our own backs.
This is all huge post facto rationalisation in that nobody thought through "rockism" working like this, but I think it's how it *did* work.
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Trade "authentic" for "well-written" or "aggressive" or "fvcking mental" and it's just another day at poptimists.
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
So in the Sanneh sense, I don't see why'd you be a Rockist. But you're trying to ask, when you deride new punk as fashion and not music (compared to class punk) whether you're being Rockist. But obviously, Rockism is supposedly blind prejudice. So if I like new punk music, I'm going to say you're a Rockist. And if I agree with you that new punk lacks the same value, I'm going to say you're not a Rockist. (For the record, I think the new punk = fashion statement *is* a Rockist assumption. Since, wtf? Plenty of Hot Topic bands are GREAT. And some of them are even dangerous and punk and very much *something*.)
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Also, your mention of mascara and emo and hot topic is irrelevant here, since I wasn't associating the idea of cliché with any of those: you associated what I was saying with "fashion": there's nothing I wrote that says that real punk, whatever that is, can't also be a fashion; what I'm saying is that current punk (c. 1985) substituted the symbols for the real thing. But I'm saying nothing about whether the real thing in its time had been more or less fashionable than hardcore was now (and in fact, given that I was basically counting Stones and Dylan as ur-punk, one could say that hardcore was less fashionable than punk once had been). Anyway, you projected "fashion" onto the idea of "musical/clothing signs" - an understandable projection, but certainly older punk had also used musical/clothing signs, and anyway it had been a musical fashion - and then you projected mascara etc. onto the idea of fashion (did mascara symbolize punk in 1985? maybe to Motley Crue and Hanoi Rocks, but not to the hardcore punks I was taking aim at, and I don't think I'd even heard Crue or Hanoi Rocks). But anyway, to repeat what I wrote, which I haven't repudiated:
So now [1985] so many musicians conform to the idea of truth that says that truth is raw, ugly, and primitive that this primitiveness is a cliché, it's a new brand of deodorant, punk-hardcore deodorant; ultimately, it's nothing. Punk isn't punk anymore, it's a bunch of musical/clothing signs that symbolize punk. It's closer to literature or advertising than to music.
And the nub of the issue is: you're saying that I'm rockist if I'm wrong but that I'm not rockist if I'm right. Whereas I think I'm coming pretty close to rockism either way. So I'm challenging the idea that this particular form of the "rockist" argument - something was vital but got reduced to a cliché, and the symbol now stands in for the event - is necessarily wrong.
And then the next point would be, can't someone present such an argument not because he's a rockist but because the argument is right in that particular circumstance?
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
I think good rock criticism can do the latter -- I understand my contempt better, but hell if I'm going to STOP feeling contemptuous (see: mumblecore!!!).
So maybe one question here is: is there any way to use rock 'n' roll as a weapon in which contempt ISN'T at issue? How can I use rock 'n' roll as a weapon that doesn't hurt someone, or why would I even want to?
Re: But what about what *I* wrote
In the former category, dismantling "but they don't write their own songs!" usually just makes the argument fall apart. But let's say this IS a valid criticism that reflects your values: does it apply when you start talking about a different kind of music, a different production method, or a different sensibility? Does my dad, who only listens to classical guitar music and for whom skill and excellence in performance are key, really get to level his skill-and-excellence gun at Ashlee?