Rockism and poptimism

Rock musician Pete Wylie is credited with coining "rockism" in 1981.[1]
Look up rockism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Rockism and poptimism are ideological arguments about popular music prevalent in mainstream music journalism. Rockism is the belief that rock music depends on values such as authenticity and artfulness, which elevate it over other forms of popular music.[2] So-called "rockists" may promote the artifices stereotyped in rock music[3][2] or may regard the genre as the normative state of popular music.[4] Poptimism (or popism)[1] is the belief that pop music is as worthy of professional critique and interest as rock music.[5] Detractors of poptimism describe it as a counterpart of rockism that unfairly privileges the most famous or best-selling pop, hip hop and R&B acts.[6][7]

The term "rockism" was coined in 1981 by English rock musician Pete Wylie.[8] It soon became a pejorative used humorously by self-described "anti-rockist" music journalists.[2] The term was not generally used beyond the music press until the mid-2000s, and its emergence then was partly attributable to bloggers using it more seriously in analytical debate.[2] In the 2000s, a critical reassessment of pop music was underway, and by the next decade, poptimism supplanted rockism as the prevailing ideology in popular music criticism.[5]

While poptimism was envisioned and encouraged[9] as a corrective to rockist attitudes,[6] opponents of its discourse argue that it has resulted in certain pop stars being shielded from negative reviews as part of an effort to maintain a consensus of uncritical excitement.[10] Others argue that the two ideologies have similar flaws.[7]

  1. ^ a b Gormely, Ian (December 3, 2014). "Taylor Swift leads poptimism's rebirth". The Guardian.
  2. ^ a b c d Morley, Paul (May 25, 2006). "Rockism - it's the new rockism". The Guardian.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference sanneh was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Rosen2006 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference washingtonpost1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference PMLoss2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference mann2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Stanley, Bob (2014). Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé. W. W. Norton. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-393-24270-6.
  9. ^ Harvilla, Rob (November 16, 2017). "Have We Reached the End of Poptimism?". The Ringer.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lob2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).