Rules Of The Game #32: Where The Real Wild Things Are

[koganbot]

Here's the latest column, once again about antirockism.

The Rules Of The Game #32: Where The Real Wild Things Are

I agonized for about ten seconds as to whether I was being fair in the sentence "the antirockists put defeating an enemy ahead of trying to understand him, so in effect were seeking stupidity in others rather than trying to strengthen their own comprehension." Then I figured if I was being unfair, you'd tell me. It doesn't seem to me that those of you who used the word on ilX weren't trying to understand Patrick Hould or Dave Q or Sundar Subramanian or Glenn McDonald or Alex In NYC, but then I don't think the first three had anything to do with "rockism" as you guys seemed to be using it (though I think that Patrick was confused enough by your usage to think he might be a "rockist") or that your use of the term had anything to do with your actual attempts to interact with and understand these guys.

Also, dickmalone made an interesting point at the end of last column's thread where he said "applying 'rockist' principles to acts from the rockist era (60s/70s) is totally fair, and that's why those terms of discourse came to be so prominent." I didn't have the time to respond that day, but one of the problems I'd have had in responding is that I really really really did not know what he meant by "rockist"; if he meant what most of you seemed to be meaning, he's wrong, in that it was just as stupid in 1966 as it is now to say an act is no good if it doesn't write its own songs, and conversely if it was valid in 1968 to praise a performer for trying to oppose or stand outside an injust socioeconomic system, and to criticize performers that seemed to reinforce the injust system, it's just as valid now. Or if "rockism" means assuming that electric guitars mean electric excitement and that other instrumentation doesn't, yes that was more true in 1967 than it is now, but it was still dumb as a principle, and anyway that isn't what most antirockists mean by "rockist," I don't think. And also, I'd say the average rock critic in the '60s was probably more antirockist then than the average rock critic is now, if "antirockism" means something (obv they didn't use the word "rockism" then), though that's just because there are way more rock critics now and the average is someone who's a lot stupider.

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

Comments

[koganbot]

I didn't include 'authenticity' in my definition as I'm not sure what *I* mean by the word in this context, let alone what rockists make of it!

Well, "authenticity" is a buzz word, so you don't have to have a definition yourself, and the "rockist" doesn't know what he means by it (when he's using the word itself) or what is stirring him up and bugging him when he makes an authenticity-type argument (which he can do whether he's using the words "authentic" and "real" or not). But the point is, you can recognize when someone is making an authenticity argument even if you yourself don't know what you would mean by the word in this context. And this (from my Busted fan) is a classic authenticity argument, even though it doesn't use the word "authenticity": "they don't give a shit about what people think." In fact, I'd say that this is the authenticity argument, and all the other reasons he gives (which were all over the place as to whether they're about the creative process, the music itself - its having and "edge" - or the audience (older than Jonas Brothers' and not exclusively female)) are subsidiary to this one. Except maybe for "originality," he wouldn't care about the other reasons if "giving a shit about what people think" weren't the big issue for him. And again, how am I different from him, other than being more self-aware and sociologically probing? I'm the one who wrote, "Now that Paris has been beaten down, Britney seems like the last remaining public figure who's not trying to say the right thing." How is this statement of mine not an authenticity argument, and how is it not "rockist"?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Your statement may well be rockist, but that in itself is not necessarily a bad thing - you have greater respect for Britney as an artist because she is doing whatever she's doing for herself rather than her audience. Others may have less respect ('anti-rockist', I guess) or be entirely unbothered (neither rockist nor anti-rockist).

I still think this example of authenticity can be included under the creative process umbrella. A lot of artists are criticised for 'pandering to the fans' or 'shifting units' rather than following their Muse, but the decision whether to do this or not surely occurs during the creative process? (OK, sometimes it can be the record label releasing *that* single instead of *this* single, but the artist had to have produced both songs in the first place.)

I agree that most Rockists, like Mr Busted Fan, haven't really thought about any of this in depth. This is why it's easy for Anti-rockists (who probably *have* given the matter some thought and *can* recognise Mr Busted as using authenticity arguments) to tear them apart in this sort of debate.