November 01, 2004

• "Rockism means idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the music video; extolling the growling performer while hating the lip-syncher." hm. oddly, i learned about rockism as a pejorative from punk rock, and I associate it with a critique of cock-wankery as a signifier of authenticity in rock. Ergo, in my (superannuated, apparently) understanding, Bikini Kill is anti-rockist, where in the Times writer's understanding, Bikini Kill is rockist.
• "... to find a way to think about a fluid musical world where it's impossible to separate classics from guilty pleasures." I've totally given up on classifying one band as better than another, in my mind at least. I used to be able to convince myself I liked some mediocre classic better than some really catchy / stupid song, but I just can't anymore. Of course I still keep my real tastes in music hidden from most, for fear of the rockists which exist all around me, but I've learned not to pounce on people who "like that new Britney Spears song" as if they'd just told me the world was flat. I think if a lot of the musicians abandoned all pretensions and just went after whatever sound really appealed to them, regardless of genre/coolness there'd probably be a lot more interesting musioc being created today. A lot of musicians tend to isolate themselves within their particular genres, or do 'safe' cross overs that still look 'cool'. (IE: punk / metal, rock / rap, etc.) Great article, HW (and I didn't need registration either!)
• Rockism isn't unrelated to older, more familiar prejudices - that's part of why it's so powerful, and so worth arguing about. The pop star, the disco diva, the lip-syncher, the "awesomely bad" hit maker: could it really be a coincidence that rockist complaints often pit straight white men against the rest of the world? Like the anti-disco backlash of 25 years ago, the current rockist consensus seems to reflect not just an idea of how music should be made but also an idea about who should be making it. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. The proof of this little theory would have been critical success and popularity in the rock world for The Monkees.
• Sad, really, how seriously people take all this ephemera, their passionate sociologising, their rules (or anti-rules! hey!) cast in stone, their quasi-papal dispensation of coolness, their dead and dull embrace of fashion. Generally it's a front that covers their incapacity to create.
• I may not be a rockist, exactly, but I try to pretend to be anyway. (SA links)
• I'd never heard the term, tho I used to hang out on musicians' boards. Kelefah Sanneh can *have* Mariah Carey (tho I don't think she wants her), and since I don't have tv, she can tell me how radical Cristina Aguilera is. But she has a point about the rockist regime being inclusive of only white male singer-songwriters-with-guitars. Shouldn't Bjork be up there with Joni Mitchell and Stockhausen? Shouldn't Tori Amos get up there with Leonard Cohen (who gave the worst live performance I ever saw, aside from tons of punk rock bands in LA ca. 1980). The Slits, and Run DMC, and Sleater-Kinney, gave a better live shows than Greenday, not to mention Frightwig and a whole bunch of other entities that didn't get signed. I saw women in San Francisco use music to do something other than 'rock.' That was radical. And disco was way more radical than anything Yes came up with.
• This link shouldn't require registration. (Via the New York Times Link Generator.) The "rock" vs "pop" argument goes back decades and is thoroughly pointless. You like what you like. Who cares?
• You like what you like. Yes, but am I allowed to like it? No fun without herd-mind!
• What languagehat said. I think everything Mozart wrote is Rock.
• William Shatner is a rockist, man. Oh wait, that's rocketman.
• Yes. Yes I am.
• I dunno. Seems to me there's two conflated points of view here: rebelliousness and marginalization as the rock-n-roll aesthetic, and, um, aesthetics. The former doesn't approve of Simpson and others because they're not rebels, they're part of the corporate power structure. The latter doesn't approve of Simpson because she sucks. The writer is implicitly denying both claims. He/she is ridiculing rebellion as rock-n-roll authenticity, and he/she is either asserting Simpson and others are genuinely "good" or that all such designations are relative and therefore, in this context, meaningless. Both of which are bullshit. There's reams of sociology to back up the claim that rebellion is an essential portion of the rock-n-roll ethos and, as such, its aesthetic. It's also patently absurd
• >> Rock 'n' roll doesn't rule the world anymore, but lots of writers still act as if it does. That about sums it up. What an enjoyable read. I rarely prefer rock classics to current pop hits. Tried to brainwash myself into loving what the cool kids approved of years ago, but it was useless. The only Nirvana song I've ever liked is SLTS, and only because it's awesome teen pop.
• By the article's definition, yes I am. But it seems that every example held up as artists not taken seriously by so-called rockists, were ones pushed hardest by the record companies regardless of any native talent. I'm sorry, but corporate rock/pop (which is what I took the article to be addressing), stands out to me as astoundingly bad. There's got to be a reason that I can hear one song from a b(l)and, and identify them as XYZ Record Inc.'s next big thing, pushed by millions of dollars of ad money. And while I am by no stretch of imagination an expert on music, I strongly suspect the reason they stand out so starkly for me is that they ARE just bad. Maybe I'm just suspicious, but when a company spends obscene sums of money pushing on to me what they want to sell, I'm immediately turned off. If you love music, I strongly recommends Frontline's "The Way the Music Died." Seeing the cynical way music buyers are manipulated, I'm not surprised at the rockist label. It sounds to me like so much boo-hooing by record companies. Having whined about all that, if a song has a good hook, I couldn't care less if it's from a talentless hack or not.
• My avant garde guitarist friend admits to liking Alex Lifeson from Rush. I haven't sold him out to his hipster friends (yet). I'm just waiting for an opportune moment.
• What languagehat said. I think everything Mozart wrote is Rock. Er hatte Schulden denn er trank. Rock me, Amadeus.
• ashlee simpson is so punk
• As someone who dislikes almost all music, I can't claim to have any insightful comment on this issue. I'll simply note that the blue person in the article seems to be making love to his or her guitar. (Yes, the electric-guitar as masturbation-symbol observation isn't particularly original. Neither is your mom.)
• Incidentally, this Simpson story reminded me of the movie Riri shushu no subete, which is a sometimes fascinating look at pop-idolism among Japanese teens.
• I dunno. The article seems to completely undermine itself (then admit to undermining itself, then deny that it did) - is rockism an entirely proscriptive concept? Or is it used in the same way as "punk" - that almost anything can be described as punk, so long as you think it's got the right sort of (vague) spirit? It seems to criticise rockism for denying quality in anything that doesn't conform to certain criteria, only to then get annoyed that rockists use the terminology of rockism to approve of non-rockist artists. The bit about rockist approval for Outkast, the Roots and the Beastie Boys because they mimic rock band behaviour was particularly disingenous, I thought. What about the Neptunes? Missy Elliott & Timbaland? They get just as much rockish love, not because they eschew hip hop styling, but because they're inventive. Which is why Outkast and Mos Def get the love too. I think there is something there - the demand for authenticity, the desire that the performer and the creator be the same people (all the Beatles fault, that). I know a few people, for example, who will happily admit to liking the Neptunes production work, but scorn Justin Timberlake. But so many of the examples given here of stuff disliked by rockists can be easily disliked for so many other reasons than some vague sense of non-rockingness. In any case, it seems a decidedly non-timely article. A few years back, in the late nineties, rockism may have held sway, but right now it's all about the eclecticism. It's not that everything good is considered 'rock', it's that everything's pop. The cool new underground bands are all about the killer singles (barely a classic album amongst them), influences have to come from all over the place (and if you sound just like Joy Division, or Echo and the Bunnymen, or Gang Of Four, you absolutely must claim never to have heard them before someone pointed out you sound like them), and artifice and wilful fakery are everywhere. It was a combination of bootleg culture, and the coming together of the new rock'n'roll scene, electroclashthingywhateverthatwas, and certain elements of hip-hoppery - rockists have been in hiding ever since 2 many djs came out, clutching their Pink Floyd albums and muttering angrily to themsleves.
• clutching their Pink Floyd albums and muttering angrily to themsleves oh, that's been going on since Syd went away.
• WHY DID SYD GO AWAY? WHY? WHY? WHY? OH, SYD, SYD, WHY? AAAARRGGGHHH.
• Syd thought he was a goat.
• A few years back, in the late nineties, rockism may have held sway, but right now it's all about the eclecticism. flashboy: Might be a bit different on this side of the pond, especially in Brooklyn (the new Hoboken, unless that phase has already passed unbeknownst to me). I think there is something there - the demand for authenticity, the desire that the performer and the creator be the same people Agreed on the authenticity point. But I think that the idea that an interpreter of others' music can't rock hasn't held water for a long time now. It's all about making it your own.
• What I love are the islands of music where people have to-the-figurative-death arguments about this kind of thing, but where the music scene is so much more about the music than the scene that the authenticity issue is moot. E.g. Austin, Texas. btw I saw Andrew Bird last week. He plays a violin, and sings like Jeff Buckley. He rocked/was punk/whatever.
• The soldiers, they stared at syd
• But I think that the idea that an interpreter of others' music can't rock hasn't held water for a long time now. It's all about making it your own. I do completely agree, if you're going to ask for things like consistency from people... but I think a lot of people do still use the "but they didn't even write it themselves!" argument to have a go at all manner of artists, from pop divas and boybands to DJs, remixers and bootleggers. The same people, of course, would never dream of saying the same thing about Ella Fitzgerald or Arethra Franklin, or Elvis, or Hendrix's 'All Along The Watchtower', or... Maybe I'm a bit off-base on how things look over in America - although I'd got the impression that the up-and-coming scenes over here and over there are a lot more convergent right now than they have been for some time.
• Yeah, people are into lots of different sounds. But that's not really new, I don't think.... I'm talking more about my experiences interacting with my city and my friends and what's going on musically in their lives than I am about the music press, which I really haven't paid much attention to in a long time except to get leads for my neverending hunt for the perfect record.
• Plus, I'm over 40, so what the fuck do I know. (Seriously. There's too much to keep track of in the music world for me to be at all "up" on things outside of the few genres that get my focus these days. Though I'm always looking outside my comfort zone, unlike most folks my age.)
• I'm with Anonymous Outsider, who says, "Music criticism never made me want to scream before." (Although I suppose Pitchfork has brought me close a few times.) Is rockism real? Sure. But this article is a grotesque oversimplification. It trots out nothing but stale cliches. Most offensive is Sanneh's limp-wristed conception of punk. There was a thread on MoFi a few weeks ago talking about punk- if this article isn't definitive proof that punk's dead, I don't know what is.
• Man, what the fuck? Why does that article exist? What's the point? It reads like the LiveJournal post of someone that's been laughed at once too often for liking Mariah Carey.
• *looks at stack of CDs she bought yesterday* I am not the target of this article, I think. I love music, but I like what I like. Mostly what I like is good music and, in live music, good performance/stagecraft, whether it's rock, pop, or something altogether different like early music. The urge to glorify production methods and genres without reference to the performers and the performances raises my inner curmudgeon's hackles. Ashlee Simpson, whom I couldn't say I'd never heard of before this kerfluffle but who had never significantly impinged on my consciousness before, doesn't deserve to be looked down on because she's a pop tart. She deserves to be looked down on because she's a *bad* pop tart who screwed up her performance. There's a big difference. (and, what Blaise Bailey Finnegan said)
• From the article: You can argue that the shape-shifting feminist hip-pop of Ms. Aguilera is every bit as radical as the punk rock of the 1970's (and it is) Spoken like someone who wasn't there in the 70's...or wasn't paying attention. But then, I'm a rockist
• Which is an offshoot of blues, which is fundamentally rebellious. Nope. Blues is a form (AAB, subdominant-dominant-tonic); it's no more "fundamentally rebellious" than sonatas or sonnets. Traditional subjects are sex and dissipation, which you may consider fundamentally rebellious -- I just consider them human nature.
• Nope. True, blues is expressed in a particular musical form; but the term is quite a bit more meaningful in the sociological/historical context than in a music theory context. Its constrained form is an attribute of the thing, not the thing itself. In this way it's quite wrong to compare it to sonatas or sonnets or the like. And in the sociological context, blues is rebellious.
• This entire article was a high dudgeon of bullshit, a straw-man attack to compensate for mediocrity and a piss-poor example of anything resembling music criticism. Note lines like "You can argue that the shape-shifting feminist hip-pop of Ms. Aguilera is every bit as radical as the punk rock of the 1970's (and it is)." Really? "I am the antichrist!" in Thatcherite England is equivalent to "Everyone is beautiful"? Bullshit. The notion of a "guilty pleasure" shows the inherent elitism of "rockism"? Bullshit. The reason why pleasures can be "guilty" is that they don't have staying time. Quick, without Google, name me some of Tweet's other songs. Right. The underlying thesis that the values of rock are somehow corrossive to music? More bullshit. The values that led to rock's ascendency are the same that led to the popularity of the blues, of jazz, of country and of every other form of pop music ever. Novelty, the sense of something different and something new, excitement, subversion, transcendence, bawdiness, defiance, empowerment... These are the same drives that led modal choruses to turn into letcherous chansons and carols. Don't tell me that rebellion is emptily rockist when jazz came from whorehouses. Sure, there are plenty of lazy shorthands that go on in rock crit, the great Eagles reverence being not the least of the sins. And I can understand that after so long living under rock's critical language primacy that people like Kelefah want new, pretty frameworks. But instead of dismissing Mos Def because Rolling Stone likes him (and most of the "rockist" straw men seem pulled directly from that rheumatic tome), realize that what made Chuck Berry great also makes MF Doom great. This article, what with its championing of Alan Jackson and Ashley Simpson, asks us to not seek out the different, but the familiar. It asks us to accept the mainstream view of musical culture, instead of working to find perspectives from outside. Authenticity is a shallow dodge, of course (listen to the White Stripes), but what's the alternative? Manufactured blandness? It can't be that the objection is based on writing your own songs, as Johnny Cash was one authentic motherfucker even when covering Tom Petty or Ray Stevens. And Ashley Simpson is inauthentic not because she's a cover artist, but because she's one that adds nothing of herself (or she has nothing to add) to the songs she covers. The Neptunes are plenty authentic, as are Madlib and Jay D. This pretend antipathy between rap and rock never existed in the past, and is now only the creation of people like the author, looking to shore up weak arguments. And Languagehat- The blues is based on slave songs, songs that could earn a whipping or death to sing. Nothing more rebellious than singing them then. The structure is not the sine qua non of the blues, and saying it is leads to Johnny Lang, not to Olu Dara.
• I'm a 15%er. Meaning I like the 15% in any genre who are inventive/having fun/feeling what they're doing. Which is why I dig Johhny Cash covering "The Mercy Seat", Missy Elliot doing most anything, Frankie Knuckles "Perculator", Queers "Ursula Finally Has Tits", Andre 3000, Dayglos, Death Sentence, Wagner, Big Black, Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan, and Eminem, to name a few. In other words, if they aren't excited about what they're doing, why the hell should I be? Personal pet peeve? Old punkers who hate any kind of hip hop or rap. Sorry man, but I'll go with the innovators rather than Team Receding Mohawk's tired old comfort zone any day.
• Well, yeah, those people are tools. Fuck 'em. Or rather, "don't push me, 'cuz I'm close to the edge." Goes great with "They say they've got control of you, but that's a lie y'know?" It's like a jungle sometimes, this alternative Ulster.
• kmellis, js: I hear what you're saying, but any attempt to make "blues" into some ineffable manifestation of Blackness and rebellion and whathaveyou just drains it of any definable referent and turns it into yet another basically meaningless term to be slung ad libitum. Rap = blues, prison chants = blues, West African music = blues... Sorry, I like words to have meanings, and if "blues" has a meaning, it has to be formal. But you go ahead and use it however you like. To each his own.
• This article, what with its championing of Alan Jackson and Ashley Simpson, asks us to not seek out the different, but the familiar. No it doesn't. Quote me one line that advises against seeking out "different" music. It asks us to accept the mainstream view of musical culture, instead of working to find perspectives from outside. First, the article asks you to not scorn the mainstream musical culture. That's asking for tolerance, not acceptance. Second, one can embrace both the mainstream views and outside perspectives. The "instead" isn't necessary. From Anonymous Outsider's rebuttal: "...When did we all agree that Nirvana's neo-punk was more respectable than Ms. Carey's neo-disco?" We didn't have to agree, it was just a given. Self-centered arrogance of the purest form, and I call bullshit. Even in America, plenty would say they respect Mariah Carey more than Nirvana. If you get a randomly selected group of world citizens (over a third would be Chinese or Indian) to listen to Mariah's neo-disco versus Nirvana's neo-punk and ask them to pick one, I guarantee Mariah would hold her own just fine. For the record: I don't like Mariah or Nirvana. I prefer disco to punk any day of the year.
• blues = punk
• Mention Olu Dara, get a free pass. I love those two blues-type records he did. So good.
• i really wanted to love mars volta had to wait a long time to get the album, 'loaded a few cuts then i got it and it's so fucking [hate to say it] rush still eh [as unrelated as you want it to be]
• Languagehat: No, you don't get it. I can dig up hundreds of songs by blues artists that, despite the rest of their body of work, don't follow the AAB form. And I can dig up hundreds of songs by non-blues artists that do. So, once again, formal aspects are not the sine qua non of most popular musical genres (otherwise, you'll have some difficulty defining jazz for me). Musical genres are delineated by a mixture of form and aesthetics, and you should remember that they are fluid definitions, with most genres serving as both a noun and an adjective. Hence, you can have overlap between rap and blues (like the aforementioned Olu Dara). But by rigidly compartmentalizing and denying aesthetic characterizations, you eliminate the usefulness of genres as descriptors. You may think that AAB is all it takes to know blues, but I can tell blues from boogie-woogie without ever referencing the subtonic.
• js: Don't tell me I don't "get it." I understand exactly what you're talking about; I happen to think it's more useful to use formal definitions that actually mean something two people can agree on than to use vague feelings. Do you honestly think anyone else would agree with your decisions on what is or isn't "blues"? Do you agree with Mr. Knickerbocker that "blues = punk"? If not, do you have any principled way of arguing the point? Or is it just that "it's all good, man"? Look, I'm perfectly capable of using the term in an extended sense -- I've often used "Greek blues" as a rough-and-ready way to tell people what rembetika is like. Context is all. But I happen to think the "blues is Black suffering" line is 1) a useless cliche, and 2) conducive to all manner of racist thinking ("white people can't play/feel/understand the blues"). Try not to assume that everyone who disagrees with you is a moron, OK?
• Rap is folk music, you morons.
• Because of the changing meaning of "folk music", people give the term widely varying definitions. Gene Shay, co-founder and host of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, defined folk music in an April 2003 interview by saying: "In the strictest sense, it's music that is rarely written for profit. Hm.
• You know, I was just going to leave off with that lame attempt at an inside joke, but I'm not. I'm coming down with js on the "what is blues?" debate, and btw languagehat I think js was not at all calling you a moron, but was rather arguing ideas, and intelligently at that. If your song is in the standard blues form, you're playing a blues, but not necessarily the blues. And languagehat, you can yell and scream about it as much as you like, but if the bulk of the users of the language believe that's the word's meaning, then that's the word's meaning. Though you're welcome to your definition; to each his own. But try not to assume that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong, OK?
• and petebest, I was thinking about the roots of rap, the Bronx parties and whatnot, before there national hip-hop record labels and Cribs and all that.
• Um, "before there were national hip-hop record labels, etc." Sorry.
• Xena is the blues. Buffy had the blues thrust upon her. Buddha is the blues. Ashlee Simpson is the blues. SpongeBob is the blues.
• languagehat's original argument is valid - that you can't make a blanket statement like "blues is fundamentally rebellious". Blues is a form of music, and so is "the blues" (if you define it differently). There are many styles of blues, and many sources and ifluences from which it evolved. Just because it mainly sprang from an oppressed people doesn't make it rebellious. Where I think lh went wrong was in defining the musical form too strictly.
• Ooh ooh can we do the whole "a word is defined by what it means, not what the dictionary says it means"? I love that one.
• HawthorneWingo: Of course js was arguing ideas, and I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is his opening shot: "No, you don't get it." That's an insulting and counterproductive way to begin if you want to carry on an argument of ideas. And sure, I was deliberately overdefining; in another context I would have been telling someone else "blues is more than just AAB form." I was reacting to the "fundamentally rebellious" line, which set off my bullshit alarm. But I have respect for all points of view here, and am capable of taking most of them in the right circumstances, so I hope no one thinks I'm crouched in my bunker firing across the barbed wire. I just like arguing, and this seems to be going reasonably productively.
• "I was reacting to the 'fundamentally rebellious' line, which set off my bullshit alarm." You might look at getting that recalibrated.
• You're an upstanding individual, languagehat. Thanks for the response.
• Language Hat- I didn't assume that you were a moron. You can swallow your huffery for a moment. What I do assume, and still do, is that you don't get it. You're trying to make an argument that separates medium from message, that separates form from function which is, especially with regard to the arts, fundementally flawed. It's like arguing that because water is two hydrogen and one oxygen, that being wet has nothing to do with water. "Sure, many of the traditional uses for water involve its wetness, but I consider that to be part of human perception." You're arguing from a fundementally outside position with regard to the music, and while that may be helpful in things like charting the evolution of phonemes, it's a poor way to discuss art. I realize that ultimately these things come with a value judgement, and that I should be saying "good blues has within it the context of rebellion," but that context is forever tied to the definition of the term, perhaps more deeply than any other musical genre (though one could make a good argument that the context of sex is as important in rock and roll).
• Now onto Kenshin- "No it doesn't. Quote me one line that advises against seeking out "different" music." It champions the familiar, like Ashlee Simpson and Alan Jackson. We have limited time and money. If we have to choose between the mainstream (which is easy to find) and spending time and money on music outside the mainstream, and it champions the mainstream, it is asking us to spend less time and money on things outside the mainstream. It is asking us to feel satisified with the mainstream. "First, the article asks you to not scorn the mainstream musical culture. That's asking for tolerance, not acceptance. Second, one can embrace both the mainstream views and outside perspectives. The "instead" isn't necessary." Really? See, there are over 30,000 albums released every year on major labels alone. I'd love to own 'em all, but I doubt that I have enough time to give them all a listen, and certainly not enough money. An "instead" is necessary if I even want to start on the albums released by independent artists. And pretending that Ashley Simpson isn't derivative crap doesn't help anyone find music they will value for a long time.
• "Self-centered arrogance of the purest form, and I call bullshit. Even in America, plenty would say they respect Mariah Carey more than Nirvana. If you get a randomly selected group of world citizens (over a third would be Chinese or Indian) to listen to Mariah's neo-disco versus Nirvana's neo-punk and ask them to pick one, I guarantee Mariah would hold her own just fine." I'm sorry that the cool kids make fun of your record collection, Ok? Is that what you wanted to hear, or should I look forward to more whining? Mariah Carey is like, say, a tasty sweet. Something light and pink. Maybe "bubblegum" would be a good analogy. I like bubblegum, sometimes I chew a couple pieces a day. But when I sit down after work, I like a meal. Something with substance. Something that I can eat again as leftovers, and enjoy it over and over. See where I'm going with this? Arguing that you like disco is just fine. That's your taste, and if you want to listen to Kool and the Gang every night, fine. But spare me the sanctimony. You know it's ephemeral sugar, meant to rev up a dance floor, not be listened to at home on a stereo. If you don't, well, either you're new to this whole "pop music" thing, or you're developmentally stunted, and there's not a lot I can do for you. As for Nirvana, yeah, I liked Nevermind a lot when it came out. Now I realize that it's a pretty dated album (Butch Vig was great for Siamese Dream, shitty for Nevermind). But it represented real emotion and sincere feeling, while still rocking hard enough to drive both the Carey crap and the Poison dregs out of the pop music system for a while (until it spawned grunge and post-grunge). And the rest of the world? Well, you've got a point there. The rest of the world prefers The Titanic, another bloated piece of maudlin crap, so I guess it would follow that they prefer Carey as well. But that's an appeal to the masses and not a strong argument. The more music anyone listens to, the more their tastes evolve. Certain albums will always stay with them either for sentimental reasons or true merit. And I'll break here from the universal
• I hear molten lead is pretty wet.
• You're arguing from a fundementally outside position with regard to the music See, now you're being insulting again. You just can't help yourself, can you? Because I say things you don't agree with, I must be a complete outsider -- hell, I've probably never even heard the blues, just read about it in books, right? I'm tempted to just give up and say "bite me," but I'll point out that I've hung with blues musicians (one of whom used to play with Sonny Boy Williamson, the second one if you know the difference), I know lots about the context of the music (historical and current), and I still don't agree with you. Deal with it. I could spend all evening playing you blues that show no evident signs of rebellion; you could either be honest and say "I guess I was being a little reductive," or you could insist that they were rebellious because they were blues. In which case there's no talking with you, because you rely on circular arguments. HawthorneWingo: Thanks.
• LH- See, this I don't get. My definition of blues includes both the form and context (think of it as a Venn diagram if it helps), and includes rebellion as part of that context. Yours refers only to form. I'm being reductive? I do not think that word means what you think it means. And again, I have not put forth that because it is blues then it is rebellious, but rather that rebellion is a huge part of the history of the blues and that rebellion cannot be separated from the blues. Maybe you misunderstood what arguing from the outside meant. I know, I know, you're going to complain that I'm insulting you again, and then you're going to try to establish your blues cred, but listen for a moment beforehand: When I say that you're arguing from outside, what I mean is that you're arguing from a perspective of objectivity, empirical criteria and delineating definitions. Which gives you part of the picture, but not all of it. Then you continue to say that you get it but disagree, without varying your approach (well, except where you admit that you were over-defining the term to be intentionally contentious). So, while you may have felt insulted personally, what I'm saying is that the methods you are using are not sufficient to encompass the subject that you are trying to deal with, which I believe that you admitted when you noted the flaws of a strict AAB definition. And if you still feel insulted, well, fuck you then. At least that's an insult. (As for a different argument on blues and rebellion, I'd say that a lot of why blues has drifted into irrelevency has been artists playing the form without the rebellion. Sorrow and rebellion go hand and hand, and a lot of modern blues lacks both, leaving it with plenty of form but none of the soul of the blues. But then again, you don't seem to believe in much of a soul of blues anyway...)
• BWOOP BWOOP BWOOP
• *points js at shinything's link for good measure*
• We have limited time and money [...] "instead" is necessary if I even want to start on the albums released by independent artists. Yes, and even if I didn't spend time and money on the mainstream products, I wouldn't be spending the resources "saved" on indie finds. We have other entertainment options: books, TV, movies/DVDs, Internet, friends and parties. I buy music, mainstream and indie, because I like it. I'm sorry that the cool kids make fun of your record collection, Ok? Is that what you wanted to hear, or should I look forward to more whining? [...] If you don't, well, either you're new to this whole "pop music" thing, or you're developmentally stunted, and there's not a lot I can do for you. Oh, personal attacks. How I miss them. First, I haven't cared about the cool kids for a long time. Second, you've whined far more than I on this thread. Developmentally stunted? Way to go. At least you can sugarcoat your insult in polite language. But that's an appeal to the masses and not a strong argument. But appeal to your personal taste is? most people don't have the opportunity to listen to enough music, and music isn't important enough in their lives, to move away from things that are momentarily amusing and into music they're going to enjoy for a long time. Define "enough" for most people. Also, please don't tell me you know what I'll enjoy for a long time better than I. It's not arrogance to say that listening to more music outside the mainstream gives you more diverse tastes and a better range of comparison True. Neither the article nor I said anything against listening to indie music. But if you want to put that forward as evidence of some sort of persecution, get over it. I've not hinted at anything close to "persecution." Get over it.
• js: Your vague definition of the word makes it so all emcompassing that it becomes meaningless. Your doing to the term "the blues" the same thing that some other monkeys did to the word "punk". Using your definition, Ashlee Simpson is the blues. She broke conventional wisdom and lipsynced, that makes her a rebel musician and therefore she's the blues. Your definition is worthless. Your method of "explaining" yourself has been to say that if someone doesn't agree with you, then they must be dense. You use a weak argument to present a weak viewpoint. Instead of looking at your own words to see what it is you've actually said, you'd rather tell people to fuck off. Now you can tell me to fuck off, too, since I've failed to be convinced by your weak argument, because it's obviously our fault for the shit that comes from your mouth.
• js: Now that you've explained yourself further, I do not feel insulted, but I feel you haven't read my comments very carefully. If you had, you'd realize that I basically agree with you, except that I thought you were dismissing the formal aspects. If you're just talking about a blend, I'm fine with that; as I said, I'm capable of arguing your way when confronted by what I consider excessive formalism. To be absolutely clear, I do believe in "a soul of blues" -- I just don't feel it's very useful as a source of definition. I hope you're OK with that.
• As for Nirvana, yeah, I liked Nevermind a lot when it came out. Now I realize that it's a pretty dated album (Butch Vig was great for Siamese Dream, shitty for Nevermind). But it represented real emotion and sincere feeling, while still rocking hard enough to drive both the Carey crap and the Poison dregs out of the pop music system for a while (until it spawned grunge and post-grunge). I'm not trying to pile on, but I just want to say that grunge predated Nevermind as I remember it.
• Maybe Vig was great on Siamese Dreams, but the Pumpkins were a pretty lame band. I was a huge fan back in the day, but listening to their songs now is cringe-inducing.
• I think Mellon Collie still has plenty of merit. But yes, definitely dated ten years down the road.
• LH- Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I guess the biggest problem with something like the blues (which is only slightly less than the problem with defining jazz) is that "the blues" is closer in usefullness to the word "game." There are a bunch of attributes that I feel like most blues songs have, but then a bunch of blues songs (or songs that get called blues) that have only a few of the attributes. And I'd say that calling the line exactly is always going to be pretty subjective. I do think that blues has a fundementally rebellious history, and I believe that tradition to be important to the blues, so that's always going to be part of the definition for me.
• Kenshin- Did you mean to put some sort of argument into your reply? Because if so, I missed it. I'l restate mine: Critical criteria based on what is new, exciting, fresh, rebellious, subversive and transcendent is a better way to listen to music than to trust the taste of the mainstream. Nearly all of the artists held up in defense of the mainstream are at best mediocre. The musical mainstream is the equivalent of fast food
• Knickerbocker- Wrong. But thanks for playing. First off, Ashlee Simpson wouldn't fall under my definition of rebellious (since that implies intent, not accidental fuck up). Second off, it's not coming from the context of the blues. And third off, it's got none of the structures of the blues. Maybe you're still sore from the punk thread, but punk and blues are different animals in terms of where the boundaries are drawn. Blues is old enough now that its spin-offs and mutations have become genres in themselves, and so it's much more diffuse than punk is. Plus, since the single thread running through all of punk was a nihilist rejection, it has more of a delineated identity. Further, since much of western pop music (and certainly most rock and roll) uses blues scales, that makes it much more diffuse and hard to pin down. I mean, hell, look at R.L. Burnside and Jon Spencer. Blues or punk? What about when they play together? The older a genre gets, the looser it gets (with a few exceptions, like "techno" and "electronica" which refer more to processes than sounds). I mean, hell, baroque and 12 tone get stocked next to each other in "classical" in most record stores.
• I have a feeling I'm doing too much arguing in this thread, but I'm putting off doing real work (that people pay me for!). Hawthorne- Nevermind is generally used as the moment that grunge broke into the mainstream. The U-Men, Melvins, Skinyard, Soundgarden, Sonic Youth (even though I don't really like tossing them in there, they were part of a lot of the tours) and Mother Love Bone were all around before Nevermind, but few people would have known about them if not for Nevermind. Richer, Tracicle- Siamese Dream is pretty much the only one I can listen to anymore. Mellon Collie had some good songs, but fell prey to that ol' shoulda-been-a-single-LP trap. (Nearly 90% of all double albums should have been trimmed down to a single disc, especially with CDs). And to toss out another reference point, Ten has aged horribly. It's weird to think of Pearl Jam's best albums coming later, but Ten is pretty rancid now while Versus holds up OK.
• Did you mean to put some sort of argument into your reply? Because if so, I missed it. Huh? You're the one who keeps throwing personal insults around instead of arguing in a calm, rational manner. You deliberately ingore and misinterpret my points. Again, what do you mean by "enough" music? And how do you know what people will enjoy for a long time better than they do? And where did the "instead" come from when mainstream and indie music are but two of a vast array of entertainment options? I'l restate mine: Critical criteria based on what is new, exciting, fresh, rebellious, subversive and transcendent is a better way to listen to music than to trust the taste of the mainstream. You're free to think that's the better way for you, and you're free to judge what's exciting and fresh for yourself. So is everybody else. Plenty of mainstream music excites me and plenty doesn't. Rebellion and subversion have never influenced my musical tastes, or those of billions around the world. No one, least of all me, said anything about "trusting" the mainstream taste. People can listen to the music and judge for ourselves. That a significant number like the music makes it mainstream in the first place. Nearly all of the artists held up in defense of the mainstream are at best mediocre. Yet more denigrating without reason. Fine argument, that. The musical mainstream is the equivalent of fast food, something that's a treat every now and then, but nothing to make a diet of. Music is nothing to make a diet of; it's entertainment. Or art, if you insist. Now, you can come back and tell me that I have no right to tell you not to eat Big Macs every day of your life, and that's true. But it does mean that you've got shitty taste. Ludicrous metaphor. Food is necessary to survival, and most who eat fast food every day do so for the price and convenience, not for the taste. I assume you're not saying the poor, who consume more fast food than average, have shitty taste.
• First off, Ashlee Simpson wouldn't fall under my definition of rebellious (since that implies intent, not accidental fuck up). She intentionally lipsynced. That makes her rebellious, therefore blues. Second off, it's not coming from the context of the blues. She's not blues because she's not blues? That's pretty damn circular. And third off, it's got none of the structures of the blues. According to you, this is irrelevent. This is why your definition of blues is shitty. You got all pissy when languagehat said that blues has a structure. Your definition is not about the musical structure. Make up your mind.
• >>Music is nothing to make a diet of; it's entertainment. Or art, if you insist. << Thus the disagreement. That's why you can enjoy all the crappy Mariah Carey you want
• Knickerbocker- No, the structure is not irrelevent. It's OK for you to actually read the comments before you reply, you know that, don't you? She did not intentionally reveal her lipsyncing. Ergo, not rebellious. Working from within the blues is not the same as being blues, but it is a guidepost to be used when determining if something meets basic criteria. Again, it's OK for you to actually read what I'm writing instead of just replying. I won't hold it against you. I got pissy when I felt LH was trying to define blues solely by structure. Learn to read.
• js, can you please tone it down a bit? Telling people to shut the f**k up is a) pointless and b) rude and inconsiderate. It's entirely possible to argue your points without resorting to that.
• js, I was there. Those bands existed, and it was called grunge. (Though Sonic Youth was most definitely not a grunge band, but was rather rooted in an East Village music scene that grew up simultaneously to grunge.) People joked about bands in flannel shirts and ripped jeans playing in rainy cities, even before Nevermind. Part of the problem people are having with you here, I think, is that you refuse to concede that you might be wrong about almost everything, and you insist on proving what you think is superior knowledge on your part. We're smart, too. It's not a contest. There are myriad ways of describing the world.
• Oh, and you forgot Mudhoney.
• (Um, "...you might be wrong about almost anything...)
• js: I understand where you're coming from now, but it took me several exchanges, and I'm a patient guy. In case it'll help for me to restate it: you do come off sounding awfully harsh and superior. If that's what you're aiming for, fine, but if not, you might want to retool your rhetoric a bit -- it makes it hard for others to listen, let alone agree. Personally, though, I've gotten a lot from this discussion, so thanks!
• Hey, you guys are right, I apologize. I do feel like this medium makes me tend toward the flippant, and because of that I can't really get as upset as I have been over not being understood. And yes, I forgot Mudhoney. (Do you want some wood?)
• Thanks for the reply, js.
• Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. The poor have shitty taste and deserve to die. Wait, wait, I can set up a few more straw men for you to beat! Let me quote myself: "I assume you're not saying the poor, who consume more fast food than average, have shitty taste." I assume you're not. Would you like to back up your contention that people don't eat fast food for the taste? Or should I just let that bullshit slide? I said "most who eat fast food every day", not "people" in general. We can debate the roles of convenience, price, taste and marketing in fast food consumption on another thread. Calmly. you don't seem to feel the need to put forth a real argument I've made my points more than once; you refuse to address them without attacking me. I keep arguing and you keep saying I have no "real" argument. What am I supposed to do here? Concede? Consider it done, then.
• The Smashing Pumpkins were a pretty good cover band.
• I like food.
• If that's a reference to the Descendents' "Fat" EP, I'm deeply impressed. ("i like food, food tastes good! i like food, food tastes good! juicy burgers, greasy fries turkey legs and raw fish eyes teenage girls, with ketchup too! get out of my way, or i'll eat you i like food, food tastes good! i like food, food tastes good! i'm going to turn dining back into eating.")
• Stockhausen to play in London In case you were wondering, this seems to be the only thread containing the word "Stockhausen".
• Oh, to live in London right now! I just wrote a rant about how I thought it was a little presumptous of the article's author to call Stockhausen "the" pioneer of electronic music (I would have said Varese was more deserving of that title), and then it occured to me that I was parsing that sentence incorrectly. Duh. At any rate, this should be a spectacular concert. And on an unrelated note: how did I miss this thread??? Oh, the wankery!