I initially had a lengthy section about Sanneh's watershed article, "The Rap Against Rockism," the moment most point to as representative of the decisive turn against rockism, which I critiqued in-depth and then compared to his frankly almost wistful recent piece "How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge," but I really don't think I could afford to go on any more tangents.
Attentive readers will notice a confusing pattern emerge in the work where it seems as though the definitions of terms, or the contexts they are in, springboard around a lot. For instance, I rail against championing easily-digestible pop as being as valuable as something more difficult or complex, and then I later argue that cultural items are not necessarily so difficult as the way they are presented, which would imply that so-called "difficult" work is, in fact, as "easily-digestible" as anything else (the Molchat Doma example exemllifying this in the inverse, where a pop context turns something "difficult" into pop). I noticed this impression on my last read through last night but didn't want to awkwardly shoe-horn anything more into what was already more than a bit messy, so I am going to attempt to clarify some of that here instead.
First: I think it is NOT AS difficult to begin the contemplation of a work as the discourse surrounding it often makes it seem. The challenges of reading something like Ulysses for instance are not insurmountable. Second: I think that something like TikTok takes something like Molchat Doma and places it in a pop context, a meme context, whatever, and it IS through this process nevertheless degraded (like various motifs from works of classical music taken out of context in pop culture, or images of the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel or whatever), but it does at least expose (as those other examples do) the base ability of most people to appreciate the beauty of these cultural items, even in their degraded context.
It is absoluuuutely happening with fiction, which I briefly allude to in a line taking aim at "upmarket fiction" swamping out the literary landscape, but we also see it with growing acceptance of the "romantasy" genre and such. There's a bookstore down the street from me, beautiful spot really that even has a gorgeous front patio, but they only sell that sort of schlock. It's not a good sign.
First, love the emphasis on redistribution of cultural capital in socialist states. Dead on.
Second, the Food Network did poptimism for food via Guy Fieri, and now I can see the results: Gordon Ramsey giving tasting notes in a triscuit commercial (real). It’s hard to capture why and how it made me as mad as it did.
Christ, not a bad point, I think I've underestimated how badly this has already impacted food culture. And who can forget that there are now "world class chefs" who contribute limited-time specials to some fast food joints, etc. The whole of our culture is taking a hit from poptimist runoff.
I have kind is a Frankenstein relationship with the whole vibe, really celebrated it while it was happening but now have a “what hath g-d wrought” feeling
This is a brilliantly well-articulated piece. I appreciate your engagements with Bourdieu and Adorno to challenge this distillation of the capitalist culture industry as though it were a countercultural force of some kind.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts on “art pop,” as a genre and descriptor. Of course, this is a broad and even nebulous concept, representing quite a wide range of relationships to mass consumption, record labels, and art movements. Perhaps this is why I’m so interested in it. I recently saw an online debate about whether Björk’s Vespertine should be considered “art pop,” as there is a sort of engagement with (or transformation of) the structures of pop music in a way that is far more creatively significant and challenging than the work of a classic pop artist like Carpenter or Swift. Still, compared to even Björk’s own more experimental work, there is more of an acknowledgment of popular music as a form.
Furthermore, I may just be less “tapped in” with poptimism as a discourse but I rarely see poptimists heralding more experimental or less commercially appealing works, even if they structurally or narratively are more recognizable to pop listeners than more “out there” works of experimentation.
This is very long but I would be curious to hear your thoughts if you have any!
I think it's probably the case that a lot of poptimists—not all, but I imagine a not insignificant amount—don't really engage with much experimental/less commercially-appealing work. It ties I think into what Austerlitz was saying about the influence of click culture. This month you could write that piece about the new Sunburned Hand of the Man, or you could write about the new Cardi B. One of those pieces is going to drive more engagement, and engagement is now ranked on a piece-by-piece basis rather than a collected print issue, and so you're going to do more stuff on Cardi B, and eventually you get to a point where you don't really have the time to promote something like Sunburned, you won't dedicate as many resources to writing about it, and you certainly won't be promoting it as heavily. As a result of this process I imagine a lot of music journalists just... aren't really listening to stuff outside of mainstream pop stuff anymore, outside of maybe commercially-viable indie stuff like boygenius or something, because there's just no incentive.
I think that "art pop" does engage more, and I think its deconstructive properties provide some nourishment because it often invites us to question our preconceptions and the role of pop music and pop culture, and the music itself is generally more challenging and thoughtful and incorporates some dissonant qualities that provoke a different kind of engagement. Some hyperpop too; 100 gecs legitimately blew my mind when I first heard it, although much of its own aesthetics are now being subsumed into pop music more broadly I think and being stripped of their radical potential, like what happened with pop art as I described above. Once it gets hollowed out and becomes just more consumer banality through the process of cultural production it does lose something, again this returns us to Adorno and how art gets crushed into pulp to feed out as commodities for consumption. Some stuff just gets branded with the "art pop" label as a branding exercise—Lana Del Rey gets the label sometimes and I really don't see the "art" in much of it, but maybe that's just me.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply! I agree that click culture plays a significant role in this sort of engagement. You see this, I think, when mainstream pop and “alt” groups rub up against more challenging experimental works, even when they are broadly aesthetically recognizable. There’s this element of shock when a music critic like Fantano or any number of Pitchfork writers overlook aesthetically profound and challenging works of musical art but rave about “controversial” pop artists like Cardi B or Sexy Red being unrecognized geniuses.
You bring up a good point about “art pop” being a branding tactic as well — I find it interesting how similar Taylor Swift and LDR’s music is but how different they — and their audiences — tend to be perceived in music discourse.
This was an incredible read, and I have so many thoughts swimming that I won’t even bother to try to capture all of them.
I hate to be a "we’re in a sea of anti-intellectualism" guy, but I certainly think that a number of factors (toxic stan culture, a recognition of the inherent racism and sexism in “rockism") have lead to a generation of critics that are forced to find something a "there” in pop music when there isn’t actually anything there.
This is music that is made to be disposable, and while some have taken the form and made a real art from it — Robyn (and to an extent Beyoncé) as a musician and Madonna and Gaga (especially Gaga) as performance artists — the idea that we have to take the likes of Tate McRae and Sabrina Carpenter, etc seriously as artists is insane.
I think what we’ve experienced is an over correction but as such, the state of criticism has painted itself into such a corner (and the aforementioned stans are so terrifying) that we’ve been stuck having to take objectively useless art as subjectively worth analysis.
(Also, I love me some Celine, but because she is such a talented vocalist that she is able to make her corny ass music truly emotionally cathartic! And that’s fine, but let’s just say that)
Absolutely agree. And I think there definitely IS a strong strain of anti-intellectualism, often ironically posed under the suggestion than "women" in particular won't get it (people complaining about, say, "men" liking something like Ulysses, a book plenty of women I know love, but the resultant effect on culture is that books like that wind up shelved in favour of some sort of YA shit).
And a a Quebecker rag we could never knock Céline, but I would definitely look askew at someone trying to take her work too seriously.
However long ago, NPR posted their list for best albums of that year, almost none of which were mainstream pop releases, and the response on social media was disappointing, to the say at the least, as most commenters were clearly anticipated a battle of their ‘faves’ and not "random stuff no one has ever heard of.” But I like to believe that at least a few readers took note and listened to music they never would have discovered on the Billboard Top 100.
Excellent article. I think the status aspect of it is the tricky part. Because no matter how much you say “it doesn’t matter if you have good taste in music,” there is status associated with having good taste. And people really hate the idea of status hierarchies where they aren’t on top. Okay, that seems like human nature. But I think there’s something particularly American about the next step, which is actively tearing down (or attempting to tear down) “unnecessary” hierarchies. Fairness and equality are essential principles but there are some ugly sides to them, too. Second, and I don’t know why this is true, but at some point people lost the ability to say “okay, some people get status from this thing, but I don’t really and that’s fine.” Almost nobody is comfortable saying: “You know what, music isn’t really my thing and I haven’t developed my musical taste, I pretty much just like pop.” (I am actually comfortable saying this which is why I know it’s weird, because people always react like it’s weird). But really, part of being an adult is recognizing there are some games you aren’t going to win (and for a lot of people, these are games they aren’t even playing!) and that’s okay. I don’t know why this is so hard for people. But a lot of poptimism comes from “how dare you have higher status at this thing than I even though I haven’t put the effort in.” It’s okay to like pop music, have a personal relationship to and find meaning in it! That doesn’t mean you have a greater understanding of music or good taste, though.
My favorite remark about criticism remains: “Sir, I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.”
The devolution that you eloquently describe is largely the result of the cultural move from literary to oral. A population that does not read is ill-equipped to handle anything with nuance, subtlety, and complexity of thought. Another element to consider is the total triumph of the corporate culture. More than ever, major corporations dictate people's tastes, when one would think, given the abundance of options on the internet, it would be the opposite.
It's the same when people say that trashing bookslop like romantasy is sexist. It just shows how a lot of people associate women with bad taste, whether they realize it or not.
gave this a reluctant like as someone who likes pop (and other music! obligatory I'm-still-smart disclaimer)-- I'm very eager to read let's talk about love now. reading this piece felt like going back in time, I feel like it's so rare to see people calling schlock what it is nowadays that it's both shocking and a bit refreshing. I think I have the same relationship with this essay as you have with todd in the shadows' videos (which I also watch), I don't agree with everything but it made me think. love love loved the bit about the medieval cathedrals and the need for more accessibility and education instead of settling for slop
Very thorough and well-written piece. I've also felt in the past that poptimism often reinforces elitism rather than opposing it as many of its proponents claim, but I arrived at this observation from a rather different (and probably more superficial) angle than yours. Namely, that now, since poptimism is clearly the status quo for the elite, taste-making social stratum, liking a certain array of trendy pop music is just as much of a status signifier as liking indie rock and IDM was 20 years ago, and if you deviate too far from this taste profile (in any direction), you will be an outsider and outcast.
Moreover, it's usually only a certain type of pop music that "poptimist" critics and tastemakers champion, as many of the same people will often denigrate other types of widely popular music that is marketed to a less "cool" cultural stratum, such as corporate indie rock or country-rap. Just think of how many self-styled "poptimists" will also sneer at "stomp and holler" music, or use "coworker music" as a pejorative. Granted, those styles typically do suck, but still.
On another note, being a music nerd, I can't help but get pedantic and contend that there's plenty of stuff out there within the broader "pop" umbrella that really is more challenging. Another commenter mentioned "art pop," but even within the mainstream, there are varying degrees of artistic ambition. And even within the stuff that's just intended to be disposable, vapid fun, there are some songs/artists that succeed at that aim way more than others.
And as far as vapid rock music that gives the genre a bad name, you can do a whole lot worse than Bad Company, as trudging through the archives of rock radio over the last 25 or so years will make clear...
Great piece. I didn't understand the long quote about the ferment of music, maybe because I listen to too much Rihanna and my critical processes are dulled. Better get back to CF Bach.
I have a large collection of old classical records and it is remarkable how these analyses of "erudite" music, written by credentialed academics, are so much clearer than the DJ Khaled review, because their authors were serious about sharing classical music with the public. Meanwhile the DJ Khaled review quote could have a few words changed and pass for an ANUS review of a French Nazi black metal album that was pressed in a single run of 1488 copies in 1997 and never reissued.
No doubt others have made this analogy before, but I’ve always thought of pop music as akin to fast food. It’s quick and tasty and kind of universally pleasing but it doesn’t hold the same nourishment or complexity as other forms of sustenance.
I initially had a lengthy section about Sanneh's watershed article, "The Rap Against Rockism," the moment most point to as representative of the decisive turn against rockism, which I critiqued in-depth and then compared to his frankly almost wistful recent piece "How Music Criticism Lost Its Edge," but I really don't think I could afford to go on any more tangents.
Attentive readers will notice a confusing pattern emerge in the work where it seems as though the definitions of terms, or the contexts they are in, springboard around a lot. For instance, I rail against championing easily-digestible pop as being as valuable as something more difficult or complex, and then I later argue that cultural items are not necessarily so difficult as the way they are presented, which would imply that so-called "difficult" work is, in fact, as "easily-digestible" as anything else (the Molchat Doma example exemllifying this in the inverse, where a pop context turns something "difficult" into pop). I noticed this impression on my last read through last night but didn't want to awkwardly shoe-horn anything more into what was already more than a bit messy, so I am going to attempt to clarify some of that here instead.
First: I think it is NOT AS difficult to begin the contemplation of a work as the discourse surrounding it often makes it seem. The challenges of reading something like Ulysses for instance are not insurmountable. Second: I think that something like TikTok takes something like Molchat Doma and places it in a pop context, a meme context, whatever, and it IS through this process nevertheless degraded (like various motifs from works of classical music taken out of context in pop culture, or images of the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel or whatever), but it does at least expose (as those other examples do) the base ability of most people to appreciate the beauty of these cultural items, even in their degraded context.
Excellent article. I see a similar situation with fiction, although I couldn’t speak to it as fluently as you have with the state of commercial music.
It is absoluuuutely happening with fiction, which I briefly allude to in a line taking aim at "upmarket fiction" swamping out the literary landscape, but we also see it with growing acceptance of the "romantasy" genre and such. There's a bookstore down the street from me, beautiful spot really that even has a gorgeous front patio, but they only sell that sort of schlock. It's not a good sign.
Two things:
First, love the emphasis on redistribution of cultural capital in socialist states. Dead on.
Second, the Food Network did poptimism for food via Guy Fieri, and now I can see the results: Gordon Ramsey giving tasting notes in a triscuit commercial (real). It’s hard to capture why and how it made me as mad as it did.
Christ, not a bad point, I think I've underestimated how badly this has already impacted food culture. And who can forget that there are now "world class chefs" who contribute limited-time specials to some fast food joints, etc. The whole of our culture is taking a hit from poptimist runoff.
I have kind is a Frankenstein relationship with the whole vibe, really celebrated it while it was happening but now have a “what hath g-d wrought” feeling
This is a brilliantly well-articulated piece. I appreciate your engagements with Bourdieu and Adorno to challenge this distillation of the capitalist culture industry as though it were a countercultural force of some kind.
I would be curious to hear your thoughts on “art pop,” as a genre and descriptor. Of course, this is a broad and even nebulous concept, representing quite a wide range of relationships to mass consumption, record labels, and art movements. Perhaps this is why I’m so interested in it. I recently saw an online debate about whether Björk’s Vespertine should be considered “art pop,” as there is a sort of engagement with (or transformation of) the structures of pop music in a way that is far more creatively significant and challenging than the work of a classic pop artist like Carpenter or Swift. Still, compared to even Björk’s own more experimental work, there is more of an acknowledgment of popular music as a form.
Furthermore, I may just be less “tapped in” with poptimism as a discourse but I rarely see poptimists heralding more experimental or less commercially appealing works, even if they structurally or narratively are more recognizable to pop listeners than more “out there” works of experimentation.
This is very long but I would be curious to hear your thoughts if you have any!
I think it's probably the case that a lot of poptimists—not all, but I imagine a not insignificant amount—don't really engage with much experimental/less commercially-appealing work. It ties I think into what Austerlitz was saying about the influence of click culture. This month you could write that piece about the new Sunburned Hand of the Man, or you could write about the new Cardi B. One of those pieces is going to drive more engagement, and engagement is now ranked on a piece-by-piece basis rather than a collected print issue, and so you're going to do more stuff on Cardi B, and eventually you get to a point where you don't really have the time to promote something like Sunburned, you won't dedicate as many resources to writing about it, and you certainly won't be promoting it as heavily. As a result of this process I imagine a lot of music journalists just... aren't really listening to stuff outside of mainstream pop stuff anymore, outside of maybe commercially-viable indie stuff like boygenius or something, because there's just no incentive.
I think that "art pop" does engage more, and I think its deconstructive properties provide some nourishment because it often invites us to question our preconceptions and the role of pop music and pop culture, and the music itself is generally more challenging and thoughtful and incorporates some dissonant qualities that provoke a different kind of engagement. Some hyperpop too; 100 gecs legitimately blew my mind when I first heard it, although much of its own aesthetics are now being subsumed into pop music more broadly I think and being stripped of their radical potential, like what happened with pop art as I described above. Once it gets hollowed out and becomes just more consumer banality through the process of cultural production it does lose something, again this returns us to Adorno and how art gets crushed into pulp to feed out as commodities for consumption. Some stuff just gets branded with the "art pop" label as a branding exercise—Lana Del Rey gets the label sometimes and I really don't see the "art" in much of it, but maybe that's just me.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply! I agree that click culture plays a significant role in this sort of engagement. You see this, I think, when mainstream pop and “alt” groups rub up against more challenging experimental works, even when they are broadly aesthetically recognizable. There’s this element of shock when a music critic like Fantano or any number of Pitchfork writers overlook aesthetically profound and challenging works of musical art but rave about “controversial” pop artists like Cardi B or Sexy Red being unrecognized geniuses.
You bring up a good point about “art pop” being a branding tactic as well — I find it interesting how similar Taylor Swift and LDR’s music is but how different they — and their audiences — tend to be perceived in music discourse.
Thanks again!
This was an incredible read, and I have so many thoughts swimming that I won’t even bother to try to capture all of them.
I hate to be a "we’re in a sea of anti-intellectualism" guy, but I certainly think that a number of factors (toxic stan culture, a recognition of the inherent racism and sexism in “rockism") have lead to a generation of critics that are forced to find something a "there” in pop music when there isn’t actually anything there.
This is music that is made to be disposable, and while some have taken the form and made a real art from it — Robyn (and to an extent Beyoncé) as a musician and Madonna and Gaga (especially Gaga) as performance artists — the idea that we have to take the likes of Tate McRae and Sabrina Carpenter, etc seriously as artists is insane.
I think what we’ve experienced is an over correction but as such, the state of criticism has painted itself into such a corner (and the aforementioned stans are so terrifying) that we’ve been stuck having to take objectively useless art as subjectively worth analysis.
(Also, I love me some Celine, but because she is such a talented vocalist that she is able to make her corny ass music truly emotionally cathartic! And that’s fine, but let’s just say that)
Absolutely agree. And I think there definitely IS a strong strain of anti-intellectualism, often ironically posed under the suggestion than "women" in particular won't get it (people complaining about, say, "men" liking something like Ulysses, a book plenty of women I know love, but the resultant effect on culture is that books like that wind up shelved in favour of some sort of YA shit).
And a a Quebecker rag we could never knock Céline, but I would definitely look askew at someone trying to take her work too seriously.
Well hey, no one's knocking Queb-era Celine around here.
However long ago, NPR posted their list for best albums of that year, almost none of which were mainstream pop releases, and the response on social media was disappointing, to the say at the least, as most commenters were clearly anticipated a battle of their ‘faves’ and not "random stuff no one has ever heard of.” But I like to believe that at least a few readers took note and listened to music they never would have discovered on the Billboard Top 100.
Excellent article. I think the status aspect of it is the tricky part. Because no matter how much you say “it doesn’t matter if you have good taste in music,” there is status associated with having good taste. And people really hate the idea of status hierarchies where they aren’t on top. Okay, that seems like human nature. But I think there’s something particularly American about the next step, which is actively tearing down (or attempting to tear down) “unnecessary” hierarchies. Fairness and equality are essential principles but there are some ugly sides to them, too. Second, and I don’t know why this is true, but at some point people lost the ability to say “okay, some people get status from this thing, but I don’t really and that’s fine.” Almost nobody is comfortable saying: “You know what, music isn’t really my thing and I haven’t developed my musical taste, I pretty much just like pop.” (I am actually comfortable saying this which is why I know it’s weird, because people always react like it’s weird). But really, part of being an adult is recognizing there are some games you aren’t going to win (and for a lot of people, these are games they aren’t even playing!) and that’s okay. I don’t know why this is so hard for people. But a lot of poptimism comes from “how dare you have higher status at this thing than I even though I haven’t put the effort in.” It’s okay to like pop music, have a personal relationship to and find meaning in it! That doesn’t mean you have a greater understanding of music or good taste, though.
Bad Company slander noted…Great piece.
My favorite remark about criticism remains: “Sir, I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me.”
The devolution that you eloquently describe is largely the result of the cultural move from literary to oral. A population that does not read is ill-equipped to handle anything with nuance, subtlety, and complexity of thought. Another element to consider is the total triumph of the corporate culture. More than ever, major corporations dictate people's tastes, when one would think, given the abundance of options on the internet, it would be the opposite.
The idea that poptimism is anti-sexist is sexist af
It's the same when people say that trashing bookslop like romantasy is sexist. It just shows how a lot of people associate women with bad taste, whether they realize it or not.
gave this a reluctant like as someone who likes pop (and other music! obligatory I'm-still-smart disclaimer)-- I'm very eager to read let's talk about love now. reading this piece felt like going back in time, I feel like it's so rare to see people calling schlock what it is nowadays that it's both shocking and a bit refreshing. I think I have the same relationship with this essay as you have with todd in the shadows' videos (which I also watch), I don't agree with everything but it made me think. love love loved the bit about the medieval cathedrals and the need for more accessibility and education instead of settling for slop
Very thorough and well-written piece. I've also felt in the past that poptimism often reinforces elitism rather than opposing it as many of its proponents claim, but I arrived at this observation from a rather different (and probably more superficial) angle than yours. Namely, that now, since poptimism is clearly the status quo for the elite, taste-making social stratum, liking a certain array of trendy pop music is just as much of a status signifier as liking indie rock and IDM was 20 years ago, and if you deviate too far from this taste profile (in any direction), you will be an outsider and outcast.
Moreover, it's usually only a certain type of pop music that "poptimist" critics and tastemakers champion, as many of the same people will often denigrate other types of widely popular music that is marketed to a less "cool" cultural stratum, such as corporate indie rock or country-rap. Just think of how many self-styled "poptimists" will also sneer at "stomp and holler" music, or use "coworker music" as a pejorative. Granted, those styles typically do suck, but still.
On another note, being a music nerd, I can't help but get pedantic and contend that there's plenty of stuff out there within the broader "pop" umbrella that really is more challenging. Another commenter mentioned "art pop," but even within the mainstream, there are varying degrees of artistic ambition. And even within the stuff that's just intended to be disposable, vapid fun, there are some songs/artists that succeed at that aim way more than others.
And as far as vapid rock music that gives the genre a bad name, you can do a whole lot worse than Bad Company, as trudging through the archives of rock radio over the last 25 or so years will make clear...
Great piece. I didn't understand the long quote about the ferment of music, maybe because I listen to too much Rihanna and my critical processes are dulled. Better get back to CF Bach.
I have a large collection of old classical records and it is remarkable how these analyses of "erudite" music, written by credentialed academics, are so much clearer than the DJ Khaled review, because their authors were serious about sharing classical music with the public. Meanwhile the DJ Khaled review quote could have a few words changed and pass for an ANUS review of a French Nazi black metal album that was pressed in a single run of 1488 copies in 1997 and never reissued.
No doubt others have made this analogy before, but I’ve always thought of pop music as akin to fast food. It’s quick and tasty and kind of universally pleasing but it doesn’t hold the same nourishment or complexity as other forms of sustenance.