The New York Times just published an interview with Jann Wenner, the founder and longtime editor of Rolling Stone magazine. (Gift link.)
The subject is Wenner’s new book where he interviews seven “masters” of popular music. It’s created a bit of a furor because all seven are white men. Not only that, but in the NYT interview, he says that Black and women artists aren’t as “articulate on an intellectual level” as white male rockers. Wow.
It seems to me that this attitude is at the very core of concept in popular music criticism called “rockism”. Briefly, rockism is the idea that rock is the highest form of popular music; that every kind of popular music is really trying to be rock; that to the extent that popular music is not rock, it is lesser.
The opposite of rockism has come to be known as poptimism, the idea that all forms of popular music have their value.
Popular music critics over the decades have tended to lean strongly to the rockism side. Wenner is a perfect example. Even on this message board discussions of popular music often have that general bias. Whereas I personally am a very strong poptimist.
Isn’t “rockism” just someone with influence trying to impose what he likes on the discussion? It happens in just about every art field, as far as I can tell.
On the other hand, giving exposure to their opinions about rock to only white male rockers is just a deeper personal prejudice, which he found a bit of tissue paper to attempt to cover up.
Wenner reprints - yet again - interviews he did as a fanboy with seven personal friends/heroes. He never was a fanboy of black or women artists. He’s admitted that consistently over the years. You expect him to change at age 77? (The same age as Donald Trump, BTW.) Just be glad he doesn’t want to run for president.
The idea that rock critics and the music critics who came later and hated early rock critics have anything to say about anything is anathema to me. The rock critics so deified in the 60s were totally full of themselves and stuck their heads so far up their asses you could hear the sounds coming from their mouths. Even worse were the ones who followed the punks into hating everything that was early rock.
From a rational view of history, popular music of all kinds was generally denigrated by critics until the overwhelming brilliance and popularity of rock music was forced down their mouths. That caused a chain of rethinking that led to popular culture of all kinds being taken seriously for the first time. Part of that was relistening to a century’s worth of popular music and admitting its value. A few pioneers led the way with positive appraisals of jazz music and Americana, but they were mostly specialists with little national attention or clout. The 60s and the rock legends of the era truly changed how “serious” people looked at pop music. Today I would hope that all serious critics look equally at all forms and times of popular music, but - given what I have read over 50+ years - I have faint hopes that is actually true.
Interesting. I had not been aware of these terms and the concepts behind them. Why ‘poptimisim’ instead of just ‘popism’? I guess it’s more of a portmanteau of ‘pop’ and ‘optimism’, rather than just being an ‘ism’.
I think Wenner’s attitude is more accurately described as ‘dickism’.
This is a little (OK, a lot) more than that. If someone wants to proclaim that all music after 1970 sucks, or anything with synthesizer sucks, or anything with AutoTune sucks, I’ll think they’re a bit narrowminded and kind of a douche.
But Black people and women aren’t as “articulated” as white men? That’s beyond “you don’t really know music and I won’t pay attention to your opinion,” and into “you’re a racist, misogynistic asshole who deserves to be shunned.”
Wenner also doesn’t seem to think the opinions of people born before 1940 and after 1960 are worthwhile so you may want to add “ageist” to your list of adjectives.
Wenner’s own-goal here makes me wonder how his glaring blind spots concerning black people and women shaped Rolling Stone’s coverage over the years. As someone who read the magazine religiously as a teenager and revered the counterculture it emerged from, I now wonder how it influenced (that is, distorted) my own view of the popular-music world.
Until this controversy, I knew Jann Wenner was the founder and editor of Rolling Stone but nothing else. And while I suspect I’ve read the odd RS article on line here and there, I can honestly say I’ve never held a copy in my hand.
So from this thread it sounds like he was a known asshole long before his egregious comments in the NYT interview. Anyone care to describe a few of his past antics? A little recreational outrage would brighten my day a bit.
What really shows that he doesn’t care is that when given a chance to clear the air he admitted that he was aware of the issue but he didn’t care. He’s a misogynist and a racist. Only white men, like himself, are worthy of his attention.
NPR’s TV critic Eric Deggans, who’s always worth listening to, mentioned a few magazines specifically founded to cover black and brown musicians that Rolling Stone ignored, on All Things Considered yesterday.
