Another Way To Breathe

eruditorumpress:

Two schools of thought in music criticism. Rockists are those who privilege and valorize the tradition of, well, rock music - generally a view in which the Beatles are the high point of popular music and the 1970s to mark the end of real music history. (Although there are certainly rockist tendencies within much later music criticism; the AV club just did a hella-rockist thing on the decline of 90s alternative.)

Popism, or, often, poptimism, tends to think that’s pompous twaddle rooted in nothing more than the nostalgia of middle class middle aged white men, and that popular music always belongs to the young, always refreshes itself, and is generally shiny and interesting and creative as opposed to a settled issue.Tom Ewing is a decent example; clue’s in the name really. Kieron Gillen is ideologically poptimist; Phonogram is an extended joke about his rockist heart.

My position is that rockists should literally be put to death. You can look at the music paragraphs in TARDIS Eruditorum and tell how serious I am about that.

Cut to the core, and perhaps being more fair to the Rockists than I would normally be, is that Rockism is the belief that some forms of music are more authentic and real than other forms of music and authenticity and realness are virtues in and of themselves. A poptimistic position would say fuck that noise to all of that.

For example, “They don’t even write their own songs” would be a classical rockist argument. A Poptimistic argument would go “Who cares? Only the power of the music matters.”

 Phonorelevantly…

…is Seth getting his attack against people making a Rockist argument before they make it. His point is not whether or not that Girls Aloud are a real band - it’s that if you make an argument that the concept of a “real” band is in any way meaningful, you are scum who deserve to be mindwiped. Bless Seth.

Re: Phil’s observation re: idealogy vs Heart. Rumbled.