DeLaWho? DeLaWhat? DeLaWhere?

I suppose I might be a little late to the scene in reference to this debate about rockism...however, I find this issue to be a very intriging one. Many definitions have been used for the term rockism:
1) Robert Christgau wrote in 1990 about "the 'rockism' debate that raged through the U.K. music press in the early '80s": Rockism in the early 80's, meant putting stock in rock's "capacity to change lives or express truth"—as opposed to the kinds of pop that (a rockist would say) have more of a capacity to express pretty lies.

OR

2) For Kelefa Sanneh, rockism is the aesthetic that defines itself by building barriers against what rock isn't. It means, he says, "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."

OR

3) Rockism, let's say, is treating rock as normative. In the rockist view, rock is the standard state of popular music: the kind to which everything else is compared, explicitly or implicitly.

A rockist would find pre-stereo blues or country interesting only as it pertains to the growth the the rock genre.

I find that when defending rap or hip-hop, most recently against some of my geology profs, that I am dealing with the notion that because rap and hip-hop samples previous recordings that it is a lesser artform and is vastly inferior to their jam bands and rock n' roll. I am not a rockist, however, I may be a bluesist or jazzist. I find rock interesting in two different contexts: as it related to pre-stereo blues (opposite of a rockist view), and in the context of itself. This idea that rock is the pinnacle of music is a curious one. Check out these articles and leave a comment. (These articles discuss pop artists like Ashlee Simpson, Ciara, Justin Timberlake...and it just so happens that my roommate enjoys much of their work as they are easily accessible on his favorite top fourty station. There are many times that I am disgusted by his tastes in music (by the way, he is elated about the Backstreet Boys comeback). But, not because he listens to top fourty, but because all he listens to is top fourty and if he has never heard a song before he shuts it off and doesnt listen to it. I despise his close minded approach to music, but not necessarily some of his tastes in music...i enjoyed JT's album which was produced by the Neptunes and Timberland as well as many of Ciara's singles...i can't say the same for A. Simp. though)

from Seattle Weekly

Smallmouth: Thinking About Rockism


by Douglas Wolk

The topic that's lingered most from last month's Pop Music Studies Conference at Experience Music Project is one that's been going around for a while: the idea of " rockism." It's a loaded word, partly because it means a bunch of different things in practice—it's yay close to "racism" the way it's sometimes used. For various people, it's a term of praise for avoiding artifice or a description of unadventurous musical tastes or a word for just liking rock a whole lot. But it's also a potentially useful concept for thinking about the way people write about popular music, and the way people experience it. The trick is to figure out exactly what it means.

Robert Christgau wrote in 1990 about "the 'rockism' debate that raged through the U.K. music press in the early '80s": Rockism, at that point, meant putting stock in rock's "capacity to change lives or express truth"—as opposed to the kinds of pop that (a rockist would say) have more of a capacity to express pretty lies. To be a rockist, then and there, was to demand a perception of honesty in pop music, no matter how much artifice that honesty involved (and when you're standing on a stage, playing an instrument and singing words you've memorized, there's no getting around artifice, but that's a whole other discussion).

This past October, Kelefa Sanneh threw "rockism" back onto the coals in a widely discussed New York Times article. For him, rockism is the aesthetic that defines itself by building barriers against what rock isn't. It means, he says, "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." And Daphne Brooks gave a fascinating talk at the EMP conference, "Guided by Voices: Some Thoughts About Raging Against Rockism," wondering what "a black feminist rock criticism" would be.

Still, there hasn't beena clear definition of rockism, and I'd like to propose one—a very narrow one, to keep its meaning from bleeding too far out. Rockism, let's say, is treating rock as normative. In the rockist view, rock is the standard state of popular music: the kind to which everything else is compared, explicitly or implicitly. So, for instance, it's a rockist opinion that pre-stereo-era blues and country are interesting less in their own right than because they anticipated rock, or that Run-D.M.C. and Alison Krauss are notable because their virtues are also the virtues of rock, or that Ciara's Goodies isn't interesting because it fails to act like rock.

Now, the interesting thing about that formulation of "rockism" is that it's not intrinsically rockist to love rock, or to write about it; you can also mostly care about R&B or norteño or bubblegum pop but discuss them in a rockist way. It's hard to get around rockism, though, because it's built into the way people talk informally about whatever kinds of popular music interest them. (If Usher or Eliza Carthy or Autechre do something amazing, it rocks.)

Most of all, rockism is programmed into the way people write about music. The basic DNA of popular-music criticism came from the people who wrote for Rolling Stone and Creem in the '60s and '70s. They were the first to write about pop interestingly and at length; they loved rock of that pop-historical moment's Beatles/Stones/Dylan school more than anything else; and their language and perspective and taste have been internalized by pretty much everybody who's followed them, even people who've never actually read their stuff. That's the foundation for our house. Note, for instance, that anybody who writes about popular music is a "rock critic."....(cont.)

From New York Times

October 31, 2004

The Rap Against Rockism
By KELEFA SANNEH

Correction Appended

BAD news travels fast, and an embarrassing video travels even faster. By last Sunday morning, one of the Internet's most popular downloads was the hours-old 60-second .wmv file of Ashlee Simpson on "Saturday Night Live." As she and her band stood onstage, her own prerecorded vocals - from the wrong song - came blaring through the speakers, and it was too late to start mouthing the words. So she performed a now-infamous little jig, then skulked offstage, while the band (were a few members smirking?) played on. One of 2004's most popular new stars had been exposed as. ...

As what, exactly? The online verdict came fast and harsh, the way online verdicts usually do. A typical post on her Web site bore the headline, "Ashlee you are a no talent fraud!" After that night, everyone knew that Jessica Simpson's telegenic sister was no rock 'n' roll hero - she wasn't even a rock 'n' roll also-ran. She was merely a lip-synching pop star.

Music critics have a word for this kind of verdict, this knee-jerk backlash against producer-powered idols who didn't spend years touring dive bars. Not a very elegant word, but a useful one. The word is rockism, and among the small but extraordinarily pesky group of people who obsess over this stuff, rockism is a word meant to start fights. The rockism debate began in earnest in the early 1980's, but over the past few years it has heated up, and today, in certain impassioned circles, there is simply nothing worse than a rockist.

A rockist isn't just someone who loves rock 'n' roll, who goes on and on about Bruce Springsteen, who champions ragged-voiced singer-songwriters no one has ever heard of. A rockist is someone who reduces rock 'n' roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon. 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....cont.

From Okayplayer.com Lesson Board

To quote The Damaja

the rock reviewer can't actually say anything useful, other than add or detract from collective praise
- they can't compare to other interpretations of the work, like in classical. they can't provide interesting historical context. they can't discuss music theory. they don't even have the comfort that the composition is already an accepted masterpiece
- they can't name the samples, scratches and quotations like in hiphop, and discuss "the beat" in a technical sense that's still acessable to the audience. the extent to which anyone gives a fuck about the lyrics is also quite limited
- they can't really talk about the instrumental skills of the band, because they know that even in "classic rock" this is a very mixed bag
- they don't really know more than their audience. and their qualifications don't matter much
so basically, they take their very personal likings and dislikings, broadcast them so that they are perceived as impersonal, and pad the article out with musings about trends and influences and other stuff that they're basically making up as they go along (such as the cannon of classic rock albums). then other reviewers disagree and this meta-debate about "rockism" and similar things arises. man on the street just doesn't care
this is inevitable. it would happen if hiphop reviews were as widely read (hiphopism).
some of the things he attributed to rockism, there's nothing wrong with. Singing IS better than lip-synching, live performances ARE better than videos. Touring experience IS healthy. It is true that they view rock as the norm, as the 1st article said, but I repeat that's just an inevitable consequence of their views being broadcast.
edit: oh and what this boils down to is that "rockists" never really agree with eachother anyway. Some will call Oasis a "guilty pleasure" others hail them as the saviours of British music; some will praise Coldplay, others can't see them as anything other than a shadow of great bands of the past; some love Radiohead, other ridicule them; some like obscure, some like more obscure, some like more more more obscure....
----
Anyway, rock fans always look for apologetic hiphop albums like 3 Feet High, Nation of Millions. I always get the impression that they don't really like RAPPING, if you know what I mean. One of the refreshing things about rap is that its sufficiently different not to be appropriately judged by the same standards. Ditto with folk music. With pop and rnb and rock they're always going to be talking about the melody, the performance.
----
ANYway... for criticism unaffected by other music, i find the reviews at epinions.com quite good. there's no tiresome references to punk rock or whatever, the reviewers are just hiphop heads who're addicted to writing reviews.
For "general criticism"... I don't know. I quite like those little books like A-Z of Hiphop, they provide an overall, yet inside, view of hiphop. For specific articles? hmmmm, can't think of any. But then i've been avoiding journalism since the 90s

ADDITIONAL LINKS
When Critics Meet Pop
Douglas Wolk, clearheaded, on rockism
Robert Johnson, Rockism, and Hip-Hop Crate-Diggers
Search for yourself on Google Search