Aug 9, 2023
Is it just me or is it really weird that Middle Aged Music & Entertainment writers are using Poptimism to try to get hip & cool with the Young People?
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Is it just me or is it really weird that Middle Aged Music & Entertainment writers are using Poptimism to try to get hip & cool with the Young People?
The passing of the Purple One has occasioned a busy day for music journalists. But what are they up to when our heroes aren’t dying? In an excellent Los Angeles Review of Books essay on, among other things, the state…
Are the warring factions of music criticism, with their perennial spats, really looking for a solution? Is a solution what they need?
Digging Is Dying: Why I Am Not A Poptimist
It took me awhile to accept that I am not a poptimist. I like the concept of poptimism on its face. It is a way of giving music back to the average person by acknowledging that there is art in something that they like and have access to. Poptimism gives credit to pop songwriters for writing hooks and places importance on the visceral nature of popular music as something that is well crafted. It calls pop music what it is, culture, which is something that America is sometimes falsely accused of not having much of. It is a breath of fresh air compared to the old guard of elitist rockists. Still, I am not a poptimist.
The problem is that I like almost no pop music. I didn’t like the new Carly Rae Jepsen album that got so much acclaim. I don’t like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Sia, Nicki Minaj, Fetty Wap, Adele, Drake, Katy Perry, Rihanna, or Justin Bieber. I like To Pimp A Butterfly, but not because of any lingering trace of pop music that it might contain. I don’t take issue with anybody who likes these artists, but I have tried and failed to enjoy them. Poptimism has failed me, personally. The Billboard Top 40 landscape that is celebrated by self-identified poptimists doesn’t appeal to me. Despite the ideological draw, I cannot call myself a poptimist. Alas!
I had already written a draft of this essay when the difference between self-proclaimed poptimists and myself became clear to me. I was reading through some year-end lists and noticing that among many of the pop-laden lists were a token country album, a token pop-rock album, and so on. These genres, the kind that get a single album in the top 100 albums on these lists if they appear at all, ostensibly fit the mold of poptimism as I defined it in the first paragraph. They are “pop” albums, regardless of what hyphenation might follow that word. However, these albums are not the ones touted by poptimists, so the definition of “poptimism” must be narrower than the one I have laid out somehow.
Anybody that knows me can testify that I am a longtime unabashed fan of pre-hiatus Fall Out Boy. I think that they put out four of the best pop-rock albums ever made. Their music is visceral pop-oriented music with catchy hooks and great singing. Their songwriting is top-notch and their lyrics are more than passable. However, I have only ever seen scorn directed at them from the poptimist crowd. Identifying why they aren’t mentioned alongside other pop acts might be the key to honing the definition of “poptimism.”
Fall Out Boy don’t have that much cultural capital that can be latched onto and converted into one’s own cultural capital. Their prime was a few years ago and their lyrics are emotional and vulnerable in a way that pop songs generally are not. There is an additional fear of association with the “scene” crowd that likes their music. As a “guilty pleasure” there is actually a cultural cost to associating your taste with them. Therein lies the hidden tenet of poptimism: it isn’t about broadening taste, but about refining taste and fitting top 40 dance/rap/pop music into the definition of “refined.”
The result of this mindset on indie music websites has not been pretty. Pop act tabloids have found their way into indie news as a way to generate clickbait views. Established acts are being praised and circulated to the detriment of undiscovered talent, raising the barrier to entry. There is less room for an artist to benefit from a publication’s cred. Instead, the publications bank on the big-name artists’ cred benefiting them. Even though they are “pop,” there is no room for pop-rock or country because they cost cred instead of giving it off. This dynamic runs completely counter to the idea of having an “indie” publication in the first place. Digging is dying.
During this decade, we have seen “poptimism” grow from a much needed rebellion against rock elitism into a celebration of the status quo. It didn’t destratify the worth of genres; it simply reorganized them. It isn’t a celebration of common tastes. Instead, it is an appropriation of some of those common tastes into the “tastemaker” listening archetype. It is a shame that such a useful idea has been morphed so much and there hasn’t been a word to replace it.
50 Followers?
Well, thanks you all! Hope you're enjoying the music as much as I am.
Poptimist
That Pitchfork column. Reading all past articles now. YEEEE!!! SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS ME
Celebrating Phonogram, a two-series comic expressing the love of music, the music that gets loved, and the way that love ...
Since it's Phonogram Tribute Day (TM), I went back and re-read the column about it I did for Pitchfork, which is more about being a music fan of a particular kind* than it is about the comic per se, but was interesting now I'm a lot more familiar with Kieron and Jamie's work.
I first read Phonogram shortly before I wrote this - it's actually the only thing I have ever been sent unsolicited that I wrote about for Pitchfork (sorry music PRs!). It would be nice to re-read it at leisure, I enjoyed it a lot but it also reminds me of that terrific yet horrible 2010-11 phase where alongside almost any cultural activity I did would be this shrill goblin voice snapping "CAN YOU GET A COLUMN OUT OF IT" at me.
*it makes vastly more sense, I suspect, if you know I think the Long Blondes were shit.
(I’m Rick of Collector’s Edition, and I’m writing about my favorite albums of 2013 throughout December)
Haim - Days Are Gone
A steady growth of socially acceptable pop hits, patiently sprouting up like unattended weeds, suddenly you look around and they're everywhere and the once-solid concrete under your feet is starting to crack from the pressure. It's time to jump to one side.
If you use the divisive conversation surrounding Haim to take the temperature of the music-consuming public, it seems like people are burning hot for - or over - REAL musicians that use REAL instruments to make unabashedly hook-oriented music. This is something that people need to talk about right now? Poptimism. Poptimists? People who dare to think that hooks are okay, I guess this is a new thing, I don't know. The invisible threat has shown its face, and that face has three faces, and they are sisters.
Haim is fine. They are very good! "The Wire" is great, though I still think that it was ghostwritten by Shania Twain (which can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it). Nothing about this band is controversial. They drew some hype with early singles, recorded a good album with a hot producer and broke out just like they deserve to.
It's a familiar, fast-paced career arc driven by excellent music, but Haim's breakout has been breaking point for some folks who suspect that this pop-forward stuff is some kind of trend. Poptimism is at its peak, and Haim has become the focal point of a debate about a shift in pop music politics. Poplitics? Populism? Politipop? God, someone kill me. Anyone. How about you, Jim DeRogatis?
Has indie-rock seriously gotten so twee and “poptimistic” that it can hail as a buzz band a California trio aiming at a modern update of Fleetwood Mac but barely achieving a less polished version of Wilson Phillips? Really?
DUMB AND MEAN. I'm sorry that you don't enjoy LA-bred pop bands that hock the 70's, Jim DeRogatis. How's Foxygen treating you? They're in your top-five albums of the year? Ah.
Movements in pop music often seem to have a light relationship to events in mainstream politics - boy bands are a sign of a strengthening economy, everyone's a punk when we have a conservative president, we always need a top-10 ballad after a national tragedy. I won't venture a guess as to what Haim's controversial success means for America, but I'll say this: if this is POPLITCAL, and if you're in the party that can't handle a catchy tune that blew up too quickly to earn your approval: Shut up. You're the person people need a conversation plan to talk to at Thanksgiving. We don't want your vote.
Talking About "Poptimism"
A nice friend of mine recently asked me how I feel about the term "poptimism." This is a term that still feels new to me but has actually floated around for almost a decade now, to the point where it might be out of date. I feel like there has been an ongoing dialogue about this term that I have never been part of, and never want to be, really. Nevertheless, it's on my mind.
For those not aware: "poptimism" is a weird term people use to describe enjoying guilty-pleasure-ish pop music without shame. I guess this would fit me. It is a term designed to combat "rockism," the old guard of fogies who deride pop music and subscribe to Rolling Stone magazine. Disregarding everything they mean for a moment, I think both words are dumb. Hard not to sound negative saying that, but I think they're two silly words used to describe... well, let's be honest, two silly things. I love music discussion but hey, it's silly a whole lot of the time. That's what makes it fun!
If I'm looking at my own musical taste "evolution" as it were, I guess I could peg myself a rockist turned poptimist (gosh what silly, silly words!). I was a purebred pop-hating rockist in my later teen years til my early 20s, and a heart-on-sleeve poptimist after that. Nowadays I don't think I should call myself either, or anybody else really. Because that's a dangerous game to play. And those are odd words.
I mean, I understand. I am the guy who runs the teen pop boy band review blog, which could be "poptimism" in its purest form. Might as well be. I like pop music very much. But the approach Digital Get Down could also be called, for the lack of a better term, rigidly rockist. I'm judging teen pop albums as album-length statements and critiquing how they hold together as a whole, which is kinda unfair for a genre where that kind of stuff is not a priority. Hence, we have a blog that combines the worst of both poptimism AND rockism. It's a beautiful package!!
(Note: I do not actually believe this sentiment and I am just bein a little self-deprecating, I like writing for Digital Get Down very much and think it's a worthwhile website overall)
I have to recognize my "poptimist" tendencies. I scoff at folks who scoff at pop music, which is its own form of snobbery of course. There are times when I catch myself thinking that I'm better than other people for digging much-maligned pop acts without shame in ways that some other people are not, which is silly of course. I recognize rockist stuff too, putting a lot of emphasis on album-length statements and most of the time prefering the sound of live instruments to modern digital synthiness. I recognize all of these tendencies and I'm fighting against them, but the more I try the more I realize that it's futile. I am likely always going to be a little snobby and a little biased here and there. I think all of us will be, especially if we spend a lot of our free time writing about music, the most divisive art form in the world. And that's OK. As long as we all do our best and have fun!
Good hustle, everybody!
It's not rockism or poptimism that I am against. What I am really against is cynicism, dismissiveness, laziness, a lack of thought, a lack of heart. That is what I am against. The genre of music isn't a factor here. Blithe boring cynicism offends me in an instictive way. Outright disrespect of other people's tastes. Disrespet towards artists and musicians. Treating artists and musicians of any genre like they are not human beings, which they are I would wager almost 100% of the time. This is a tendency that I need to talk about all the time every time I see it. It runs deep. Every time I read a cynical mean article telling people they shouldn't like Mumford & Sons because they had the audacity to produce an enjoyable popular music video, I get sad and I want it to stop. I want to wave my hands from hither to thither and magic it away. I want things to be better! This is how I feel.
"Poptimism" is silly but OK. "Rockism" is silly but kinda funny. Cynicism is noxious gas. It's death. Death for all of us. Vent that fuckin gas outta here please! I want no more!
Get rid of the "pop" part. Plain old optimism is fine by me. I like enthusiasm! Even if it's music I can't stand, I can at least appreciate that you like it. That somebody does. Appreciation and fucking respect, that's all so important. If you love a song, write about how much you love it. If you hate a song, write about how much you hate it but keep that hate in check. Don't doubt yourself, but have the courage and decency to take a step outside of yourself and analyze whyyou hate something, with the same passion that you analyze why you love something. This does not make your viewpoint weaker. Fie on anyone who convinces you that it does! It makes it stronger. It makes it more interesting. It makes you a human being, which is what you need to be when you write something and present it to the world.
Something I will say in poptimism's defense: the idea of treating pop music with the same dignity and respect as hip indie rock music was earth-shakingto me at first. It lit a fire in me. So exciting. When I first read an article from way back when describing the term, it was great for me. It let to Digital Get Down and lot of newfound confidence in my tastes. If poptimism inspires this in other folks, I think it's mostly a good thing. For me, it made my music writing a lot more fun.
Such a stupid fucking word, though! And I've used it so much here! Never again, I promise ;)