Fun Stuff > BAND

Pop Music & Music Criticism

(1/5) > >>

Johnny C:
I had a thread about rockism a while back; now it's late and I have school in the morning so the logical thing to do is start a discussion on the reactionary critical concept, i.e. popism.

Popism (and I don't mean to misrepresent it here; if anyone else knows what the hell I'm talking about please correct me) is a school of music criticism which seeks to embrace most music and reject certain standards of musical criticism. These standards include the idea that songs written by the artists themselves are better, bands and artists heavily pushed by major labels are crap, and (most notably) that rock is the best genre. Or something of that nature.

Anyways, popism is right in some of its rejections; carrying biases against music because of who it was written by, how it was written, or what label it was on is terrible journalism and poor critical thinking. Unfortunately, as you can see from Stylus' slow descent into self-parody, the current champions of popism seem to carry with them an unhealthy urge to embrace even the most banal pop (see: reviews of Ashlee Simpson's new album and Destiny's Child's hit-and-miss greatest hits comp, as well as every UK Singles Jukebox for the last couple of months). It embraces pop because it's pop, not because it's good; it gives culture-permeating crassness the benefit of the doubt.

And that seems to miss the point of music criticism. At its heart, music journalism is an attempt to establish a canon of artists, bands, songs and albums which will be looked back upon as classic by future generations. It's an attempt to filter out the flash-in-the-pan pieces, today's troubador songs, in order to discover modern classics, today's "Odes to Joy."* It is, in essence, a method by which enduring music is filtered out from, for the most part, what is popular at the time.

As such, I think popism is a viable idea and something to strive for; however, we're currently missing the boat. Analytical thinking needs to enter popism in order for it to reach its true potential.

That's what I think, anyways.


*Figuring out the plural for that was HARD.

EDIT: I changed the name in the hope that somebody would not only read but maybe respond; I need enlightened dialogue if I'm going to debate with the popists themselves.

Gryff:
I think that everyone would agree that judging music on its own merits is the best way to go. "rockist" and "popist" are stupid words - reviewers that could be described as rockist or popist could just as accurately be described as "crap at their job-ist".

Dara:
Some of Destiny's Child's older stuff is anything but banal, if you're in the right place. A club comes to mind.

Just some things I reacted to.


--- Quote ---carrying biases against music because of who it was written by, how it was written, or what label it was on is terrible journalism and poor critical thinking
--- End quote ---


First off, personally I think it's just the nature of the word 'bias' that everyone is biased in everything. You can be as fair as possible given your bias though, I think.

My favorite music criticism, personally, just provides context. Some contemporary context, a bit of history, some background on the artist - these things are all important to the story of how a piece of music came to be. I don't really like the idea of just looking at something as it is without knowing anything about the author or anything, whatever deconstructionist business that is.

And I mean, does it say somewhere that they embrace it because it's pop? Is there a popist credo written down somewhere? I mean I'm asking this literally, my familiarity with the idea is non-existent. From what you've described it almost sounds like a reaction to 'elitist' styles of criticism.

Lastly, for me, the purpose of musical criticism isn't necessarily to establish canon. It does do that, but also, music magazines create a culture that people can access. Because if it's just you and the music, that's pretty lonely, but if suddenly somebody's pumping out magazines about the music you love, then it's pretty cool. The labels, the mags and the fans are a kind of trinity. That's just how I see it.

sjbrot:

--- Quote from: Dara ---Lastly, for me, the purpose of musical criticism isn't necessarily to establish canon. It does do that, but also, music magazines create a culture that people can access.
--- End quote ---


That really hits the issue right on. All the music-related media outlets out there are geared towards a certain segment of the listening public. Of course they are; If they weren't, they wouldn't have a readership.

But then, were does the line between pandering and solidifying your niche come in?

And shouldn't reviewers be aware that they are at the very least inadvertently creating a musical canon? All the names from years ago that are still out there today are those that were passed down.

Johnny C:
Two pieces to provide context, a Stylus essay on rockism and a Seattle Weekly article, similarly about rockism.

Nowhere is it written that rockism implies an embrace of pop; however, as noted, visibly popist critics and journalists praise a lot of what reasonable folk would determine to be "anonymous, soul-ravaging pap" as a gift from music gods.

And Destiny's Child-related stuff ("Bootylicious," "Survivor," and because it's related to DC "Crazy In Love") can sometimes be AWESOME, flat-out; it's the fact that the reviews gave #1's, a middling comp at its best, decent-to-above-average ratings which points to giving pop too much benefit of the doubt.

EDIT: Disagree on the non-creation of canon; if it was just creating accessible culture, then we'd have country music journalism applied to everything. Seriously. Pick up a country music magazine sometime. Damned if you can find anything resembling a review.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page