Rockism is an ideology of popular music criticism, originating in the British music press in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and mostly distributed commercially. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... The 1980s decade refers to the years from 1980 to 1989, inclusive. ...

Description

Rockism is currently seeing a resurgance of interest due to an American man (PEW) writing a rather dull book about it. A concept that should be put to bed along with 80's cock rock like Bon Jovi and the simply awful Guns 'n' Roses (sic).

The fundamental tenet of rockism is that some forms of popular music, and some musical artists, are more authentic than others. More specifically, authentic popular music fits the rock and roll paradigm; it is made using the basic rock instrumentation of guitars, bass guitars and drums, and fits the structures of a rock and roll song. Rockism is suspicious of the use of technology, from synthesizers to Pro Tools-style computer-based production systems. Rockism places value on the idea of the composer and performer as auteur; authentic music is composed as a sincere form of self-expression, and usually performed by those who composed it. This is as opposed to the notion of manufactured "pop" music, created in assembly line fashion by teams of hired producers and technicians and performed by pop stars who have little input into the creative process, designed to appeal to a mass market and make profits rather than express authentic sentiments. Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ... A synthesizer (spelling var. ... Pro Tools 6. ... The term auteur (French for author) is used to describe film directors (or, more rarely, producers) who are considered to be artists with their own unique vision. ... 1913 Ford Model T assembly line. ...

Rockism is a primitivist ideology; a subtext of rockism is that, at one time in history, they "got music right", and that all subsequent innovations have compromised this purity. (This golden age is often placed sometime during the 1960s or 1970s.) Critics of rockism assert that this vaunted "golden age" of pure, authentic music is a myth, and that popular music never was entirely free of the interference of commercialism, marketing and commodification. This article is about primitivism. ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ...

Design critic and indie pop musician Nick Currie compared Rockism to the art movement of Stuckism,^[1] which held (among other things) that artists who do not paint are not artists. Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music often used to refer to bands that are on small independent record labels or that arent on labels at all. ... Ultraconformist, voyager, timelord, tennis and ping pong champion, tender pervert, poison boyfriend, hippopotamus, philosopher, folk singer, star forever Nick Currie (born February 11, 1960), more popularly known by the pseudonym Momus, is a Scottish-born songwriter. ... Stuckism is a British art Movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art. ...

Criticisms of rockism

Contemporary writers use rockism as a polemical label to identify and critique a cluster of beliefs and assumptions in music criticism. Rockism is therefore not a connotatively neutral term; as Ned Raggett writes, "You’re not going to find anyone arguing FOR [rockism] any time soon, or at least coming out and saying so—but that’s precisely because of the terms of the discourse."^[2] For example, some critics of rockism have alleged that it is a racist, sexist and/or homophobic ideology, in that the artists it privileges with the label of authenticity are predominantly heterosexual white males; the genres of music attacked by rockist criticism as less authentic than rock have included many black musical genres (hip-hop, R&B), genres associated with the gay community (disco, house) and pop music, where female performers such as Madonna (often charged by rockist critics with inauthenticity and trading on image over substance) have often found success. Look up Polemic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Polemic is the art or practice of inciting disputation or causing controversy, for example in religious, philosophical, or political matters. ... Ned Raggett is a music critic whose work has appeared prominently in All Music Guide. ... It has been suggested that Racism in Mass Media be merged into this article or section. ... The sign of the headquarters of the National Association Opposed To Woman Suffrage Sexism is commonly considered to be discrimination against people based on their sex rather than their individual merits, but can also refer to any and all differentiations based on sex. ... The term homophobia means a fear of or contempt for homosexuality or homosexuals or the fear of becoming homosexual. ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began among urban African Americans and Latinos in New York City in the early 1970s, and has since spread around the world. ... Rhythm and blues (or R & B) is a musical marketing term introduced in the United States in the late 1940s by Billboard magazine. ... milton sibanda is the best example of this word. ... Disco is a genre of music that originated in discothèques. ... House music is a collection of styles of electronic dance music, the earliest forms of which originated in the United States in the early- to mid-1980s. ... For the 1979 song by M, see Pop Muzik. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Responses to the anti-rockist critique claim that these allegations are based on false assumptions and differing expectations. The rockist defense proposes a dichotomy between art and commerce in popular music, adopting the view that certain genres of music sacrifice artistic depth for mass appeal, self-expression for manufactured process. Some critics of the anti-rockist debate dismiss rockism outright as a straw man argument, claiming that a negative aesthetic judgment about an artist or genre of music does not imply a negative judgment about the genre's roots and cultural associations: in blogger bmarkey's words, "If I find music dull and repetitive, as I do for virtually all the disco and a great deal of the hip-hop I’ve heard to date, it’s because I find the music dull and repetitive. Period. It’s got absolutely fuck-all to do with who made it."^[3] The straw man fallacy is a rhetorical technique (also classified as a logical fallacy) based on misrepresentation of an opponents position; deriving from the use of straw men in combat training. ... A blog (or weblog) is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed with the newest at the top. ...

References

1. ↑ Nick Currie on "Design Rockism"
2. ↑ Music journalist Ned Raggett on Rockism
3. ↑ Blogger bmarkey on Rockism

External links

• "The Rap Against Rockism", New York Times, 31 October 2004
• Thinking About Rockism, by Douglas Wolk