Just as the liberatine underestimates how repression creates desire, the critics of rock snobbery unfairly discount how much genuine pleasure and heartfelt fandom goes into the rock snob’s obsessions and discriminations. Then again, Slate diagnoses me as a faux rock snob:
A faux Rock Snob—someone ready in the instant to introduce you to what you don’t know—would reflexively prefer the Minutemen; but a true representative of the type Rock Snob would throw both versions on a mixed tape, along with Grenadine’s "Steely Daniel" and a boot of the Mountain Goats performing "Doctor Wu" live. Now, that, my friends, is a Rock Snob.
Actually, that to me sounds like the musical allodoxia that the iPodization of musical taste represents. Rather than taking the rockist mentality of applying a consistent aesthetic to popular music, the new cache seems to involve collecting the most aesthetics in addition to collecting the most music.
Still, it’s not that I have no critical distance to rock snobbery. Part of the pleasure of music, in fact, is weighing in on what the rock snobs get right, what they don’t and what they overlook.
What they get right. Velvet Underground, Go Betweens, the Soft Boys and Big Star were all unfairly overlooked in their time and worth every bit of hype.
What they don’t. The following have always struck me as supremely overrated: Exile on Main Street, Frank Zappa, Oingo Boingo, Fiery Furnaces.
What they overlook. Beyond pop music in general, I mean. I swear that early Simple Minds (albums 2-5) are brilliant. After initial acclaim, House of Love fell through the cracks of British and American indie coolness, as I guess in another way Wedding Present did. A few rockists praise Pink Floyd’s first album, but most these days get turned off by the band name.
Overrated but still good. Felt had a cool label (Creation), great LP covers, and a brilliant album (Forever Breathes the Lonely Word), but perhaps could never live up to the cache. Galaxie 500 was the American Felt. Radiohead are good, particularly when they don’t disdain traditional pop-rock song structure, but they are not saviors of modern music. Mission of Burma. Love.
More to add, I’m sure…
No comments have been added to this post yet.