I don't follow the music blogs, so it wasn't until I grasped in my physical hands that dated, dead-trees bellwether of American culture, the Sunday Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times, that I learned I am a rockist.
Others who know this largely pejorative term will not be surprised to learn I am on the far side of 40 (quite far, actually) and that I was catechized on the unholy trinity of Beatles, Stones and Clapton. (Who performed the greatest pop music ever? The Beatles performed ... and so on.) The Times' non-rockist pop-music scribe, Kalefeh Sanneh, assumed the paper-of-record pulpit a few Sundays back to inveigh against my sort.
Or at least, I should clarify, those of Sanneh's profession who continue to venerate guitar bands above all other spirits, including hip-hop, dance music and market-pandering pop. "A rockist is someone who reduces rock 'n' roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon," Sanneh fairly sneered. "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."
Oddly, Sanneh seized upon that last archetype of rockist angst to launch a bitter sermon about musical taste. This was a week or so after Ashlee Simpson, Jessica's little sister and likely successor to her omnimediance, had botched a lip-synch on Saturday Night Live. (Perhaps, as a citizen on the planet, you've heard about this?)
Rockists among longtime SNL viewers can not help recalling another hitch that hijacked a heartbeat from Lorne Michaels. In 1977, Elvis Costello halted his band after a couple of chords of "Less Than Zero" to launch instead the scathing "Radio Radio." The latter song, of course, lambasts pop radio for pumping pap into American ears, something it still does pretty effectively.
Which brings us back to the Simpson sisters, or at least to the younger of the two, who did not stop her band—what was to stop?—but later blamed them for the miscue. It has been argued that we should no longer fault the lip-synch, for it is widely practiced, and the intended audience knows as much and does not care. But that begs a couple of questions. First, why lie about it, as almost all practitioners do? (It later developed that Simpson was not feeling well, and was concerned about her voice, but it was singularly graceless to lie about a lie, and at the hapless musicians' expense.)
And second, exactly what is the thrill of watching someone pretend to sing a song? I suppose it is the spectacle of it—the costumes, the lighting, the dancing and the star. Broadway performers used to be able to dance and belt a tune to the rafters without a microphone, but that's another issue. The argument here is actually one dear to aesthetes in other fields—that the final product is all that matters, not how it was produced. Hey, the kids like it, and, as an old rockist combo once affirmed, the kids are all right.
This is partly Sanneh's point, as I read it, and there's some value to it. Even The Beatles started as a shrewdly marketed quartet that played hooky pop songs about teen love. Every modern age has had its reliable hit-makers, raking in cash for producers and record companies while inducing mindless foot-stomping and head-bobbing. Even a confirmed rockist like me has to admit that the best pop music is "only rock 'n' roll," as another aging ensemble once put it.
I have to laugh when other rockists suggest that the lyrics of Bob Dylan or Van Morrison are "poetry." (I gladly offer this, hoping others will allow the same about Eminem.) Some rich phrases can be found, to be sure, but the best rock lyrics pale beside poetry. In the Namesake Slam, Thomas trumps Dylan all along, or up and down, the watchtower. And even the most inventive rhythms and melodies of pop music rarely approach the lofty outposts of Bach and Brahms, or Gershwin and Ellington.
But Sanneh founders in implying that the rockists' creed is essentially racist and sexist. Some, I'm sure, worship at the Shrine of the Sacred Fretboard for those reasons, but on the whole what we appreciate, in varying measures, is inventiveness and authenticity. And we've forever been fighting a rear guard action against deftly packaged pabulum, whether it was The Archies or 'N Sync. If some rock critics pound this point too much, it might be because there's not much to write about a Britney Spears concert, except that it was, like, totally awesome.
Some of us are catholic enough in our tastes to sense the genuine innovation of more contemporary pop music, from hip-hop to electronica. Maybe we're mired, as most people are, in the affinities we developed in our youth, but if we keep our ears tuned, we find that a lot of contemporary music shares in the abiding ethic of creativity and originality—even if it happens to sample our saints in the process. To the extent that Sanneh asks us to do that, the point is well-taken. But it's a mistake to hang that argument on an instance of synthetic mediocrity run awry.
Contemporary culture is laden with the shabbily formulaic. If a critic has any value, it is to discern the strains of originality in the cacophony of crap.
Chuck Twardy is a really smart guy who has written for several daily newspapers and for magazines such as Metropolis.