The rockism debate (with bonus essay!)

Excuse me for necroing this thread. I need to let my opinion off my chest.

Michael Jackson's album "Thriller" and Madonna's album "Like A Prayer" turned me on to pop music (let's not discuss about how broad the genre is for the time being). Radiohead's album "Kid A" made me adore electronic music. Hoagy Carmichael's most well-known hits ignited my fascination towards whatever music genres they belong or sadly confined in. Wu-Tang Clan's "C.R.E.A.M." blew my mind by proving me how much rap music can achieve in expressing basically anything.

Really, I stopped being a so-called rockist by simply expanding my knowledge of music. Starting to look for the right places certainly helps. Ironically, lists by Rolling Stone magazines were the right places for me. However for rockists, what I simply have done is somehow more difficult to do than defending their precious bands. Is it that embarassing to like a few famous pop stars while loving "emotionally deeper" and "far more talented" classic rock bands at the same time?

I honestly had no idea that anyone really gave a damn about this kind of thing.

Especially this "authenticity" crap. Back when rock started out, nobody gave a damn about authenticity. It was pop music, plain and simple. It had a good beat and you could dance to it. (And it was better than it had ever been since, but there you go.)

You had no idea that people obsess over the classification of music?

You lucky soul.

The fact is, most rock is really no deeper than most pop.

In fact, most music is pretty superficial when you get down to it.

Mainstream rock? Agreed.

Alternative Rock? You'll find a good chunk that can manage to get quite deep.

I'm including alternative rock as well.

Then I'll suggest you try to listen to, say, Cocteau Twins, the early REM stuff, Pulp or PJ Harvey.

edited 3rd Mar '15 4:59:55 PM by Quag15

It still doesn't really disprove my point. Some of it is genuinely deep; most of it isn't.

I could bring more examples, but I guess we'll agree to disagree.

If you think there isn't that much rock music with depth out there, you haven't truly explored rock music, or your view of rock music has a very limited range.

There's music that isn't trying to be deep, there's music that's trying to be deep but fails, and there's music that is genuinely deep.

If that is granted all else follows.

I think the thing is that you're looking at a genre too specifically through the eyes of Sturgeon's Law. Which applies to all art, not just music or even specific genres on music.

Since we're now on the topic of "depth" in music, is there some sort of objective standard for what constitutes "deep" music?

Generally, music that's "deep" has something to say that is in some way important.

Not like most music that is "deep" does have anything important to say.

I have two lines of what constitutes when it comes to music being deep:

• Lyrical (with conceptual as a sub-topic)
• Instrumental (with sound as a sub-topic)

While there's no need to explain the lyrical part, I can explain the instrumental part: there are mostly two elements, timbre and texture, which are important in this matter. There are great songs which have deep timbre, and there are great songs which have deep texture. On a genre level, this means that some music can have a deep level by virtue of emphasis on certain things (e.g. feedback and other effects commonly used in Rock music, as well as the use of the various types of bass, which can be found more commonly in realms such as that of Post-Punk or Jazz), and some other music having emphasis on some other things (e.g. the beats, bass, and other elements important to Electronic Music and modern dance music in general).

I can't explain this as well as I have it in my mind, but, through this criteria, I can say that, say, Joy Division and Daft Punk are both deep, just through different lines. Or, in different cases, through the mixture of both (e.g. Björk).

Does this makes sense?

edited 3rd Mar '15 7:34:15 PM by Quag15

In my humble opinion, music has depth if it explores the path less travelled by most of other musicians of their times. The techniques they opt for to achieve their music goals are yet to be applied by a notable sum of people and, thus, far more risky. Despite the risk, these musicians go for the route to inspire listeners, by acknowledging them of how much music can achieve as an art form.

That being said, music doesn't necessarily become more enjoyable for being deep. Most music fans can agree that Abba's music isn't as deep as Pink Floyd's and Kraftwerk's. Nevertheless to my ears, Abba is as interesting as the latter two groups.

True. I find all of them three interesting for different reasons. I can find deep stuff within Abba in stuff like "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (lyrically deep) or The Visitors album (which managed to be both lyrically deep as well as instrumentally deep).

edited 3rd Mar '15 9:09:16 PM by Quag15

And then there's the skill factor: genres like Progressive Rock, which uses a lot of technical instrumentation that is challenging to perform, are often considered deeper than ones that aren't.

But at least to me, the assumption 'Difficult = Better' is a bit too simple mindset.

edited 4th Mar '15 1:38:26 AM by Xeroop

What I'm getting at is, is there such a thing as objectively deep music? Because so far I'm just seeing a lot of subjective opinions on what constitutes depth.

Does Deep Purple count?

edited 4th Mar '15 9:58:36 AM by Xeroop

Depth is definitely a subjective thing, no question. To be honest, anyone can glean a great amount of depth from anything. You can get just as much depth out of, say, My Immortal as you can out of, say, Requiem for a Dream if you try hard enough.

Depth in music is subjective. It's really depends on you to judge whether a piece of music is deep.

That's how I feel as well, I was just interested in other folks' thoughts on the matter.

I thought everyone knew tool is objectively the most deep band of all time.