By Ira Robbins
In 2004, Kelefa Sanneh — then a smart, eclectic music critic for the New York Times, but soon to decamp to The New Yorker, where he proved himself a generalist of far wider interests and expertise — planted the concept of “rockism” in the mainstream media. As defined in an article pointedly titled “The Rap Against Rockism,” a rockist was not just a diehard music fan clinging to a genre whose preeminence was on the wane, but a person who “reduces rock ‘n’ roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon.” Sharing a few examples of music critics “who assail pop stars for not being rock ‘n’ roll enough,” he takes that accusation a step further to innocently wonder why such hidebound music appreciation “often pit[s] white men against the rest of the world.” Then, in a concerning preview of the idea that has since come to undermine the entire field, he sticks a populist pin in the elitist aspect of criticism, averring that “the problem with rockism is that it seems increasingly far removed from the way most people actually listen to music.” He dismisses as outmoded the notion that artists should write and play their own music and argues, with the hubris of one whose taste should not be questioned, that rockism “makes it hard to hear the glorious, incoherent, corporate-financed, audience-tested mess that passes for popular music these days.” Of course, that’s a “when did you stop beating your wife” trick: offer that the antidote to rockism is elevation of rubbish and you’ve proven his point.
If the term “rockist” summons up an image of an unreconstructed metal lunk in a 50-year-old leather jacket with Sabbath patches complaining that no one makes good music anymore, then sure, hate on them all you want for their lack of curiosity. But it takes a very broad and not very useful brush to paint a competent music critic with a pejorative ism for clinging to the merits of a half-century of music’s evolution. (Yes, there’s a lot of stagnation to complain about, and recycling, and rubbish, but you can’t really say that Chuck Berry and Radiohead have that much in common.) And to view rockism as another form of white male oppression to be sought out and eradicated presumes that blinkered rock critics somehow impede the success or progress of the “corporate-financed, audience-tested mess that passes for popular music.” I fail to see the real-world damage of a rock magazine not covering the latest country or salsa star. One absurd excess of our time is the impulse to root out forms of prejudice that cause no real harm (I am often put in mind of an Elvis Costello lyric: “He stands to be insulted / And he pays for the privilege”). Everyone is entitled to their cultural preferences, even music critics and magazine editors. Publishing, unlike the airwaves, is not a public resource obliged to abide by fairness doctrines — it’s a free-market free-for-all that serves all sorts of audiences. (Yes, this sensitivity of mine began when the genre of music we chose to cover in Trouser Press led the magazine to be characterized as an exponent of racism.)
Where the danger of narrow-mindedness (of any sort) began to really matter was outside the closed little world of rock magazines. As music writing became more prevalent in the MSM, the stakes were raised and more opinions about what needed to be covered, and how it would be covered, came into play. When the gatekeepers of publications purporting to serve a wide, diverse audience that undoubtedly consumes and values many types of music, decline to cover some of it for no reason other than hidebound values, then that’s a disservice to readers. There was a time not too long ago that every major city newspaper had at least one full-time music critic. But I don’t know of any staff critics that haven’t been able to show real consideration and appreciation for all sorts of music. When I worked at Newsday in the early ’90s, I put my enthusiasm for punk, classic and indie rock (as well as bluegrass and blues) aside and covered whatever might be of interest to our readers, regardless of genre, finding value there. That’s the responsibility of real criticism. If I carried old ideas about quality in music into concert reviewing, I knew enough to confront what I was seeing on its own terms. And my goal was always to try and suss out the ideals in an unfamiliar genre and gauge the artist’s relative achievement of them.
In the current issue of The New Yorker, Sanneh has an article that purports to explain why music criticism has “lost its edge” – i.e., why the default appraisal of almost everything released these days is positive. But beyond observing that a lot of music criticism these days is namby-pamby twaddle (my words, not his), the essay doesn’t get very far in spelunking the question. Ironically, although he does not seem to know it, Sanneh already had one of the answers, and he wrote about it twenty-one years ago.
He mentions that rockism report, summarizing it very gently as “suggesting that critics in search of scruffy rock-and-roll energy might be missing out on the considerable charms of pop, R. & B., country, and other genres that sounded too slick, too commercial.” (But what about the whole universe of rock bands – from hair metal to shitty grunge clones to lame emo operators – that earned the condescending enmity of the rockist critics for those exact same failings? Or ABBA?) Rockism is a paper tiger in 2025; how many music writers of any consequence still have their heads in the “not for me” sand? The antidote to rockism, it turns out, is “a more inclusive sensibility” known as “poptimism.” As reasonable and positive as both of those views are made to sound, rockism (as a cloaked form of ageist and sexist opprobrium) and poptimism (as a complete misunderstanding of what criticism is for) are, in fact, a major reason why so much contemporary writing about music is rah-rah bullshit.
With the complicity of video and a growing number of chart records that questioned (or outright rejected) the value of such traditional elements of popular music as verses, melody, wit, purpose and originality, the vilification of rockism became an attack on the yardsticks by which most critics evaluated music. It robbed writers of their common understanding of artistic merit at a time when audiences were being weaned off it. After decades of reverence for the alchemical blur that made Motown/Beatles/Dylan/Berry great, the rock critic establishment – confronting unfamiliar forms while covered in a mist of racial, chronological and genderly self-consciousness — had to reconsider the nature of its appreciation of music.
So, what became of the rockists? Hip-hop couldn’t be judged by familiar measures, so critics had to decide whether to let audiences be their guide or go with their gut and find ways to contextualize and evaluate the records. World music presented countless similar challenges, and some formerly rockist critics were energized by the adventure. By the time boy bands had come and gone, the challenge became to sort through a hit parade of Auto-Tuned vocals to identify the one teenaged pop star who could really sing the products of a songwriting factory in Sweden. (That had to be done amid the obnoxious argument that writers of a certain age shouldn’t cover music that wasn’t “made for them.” What was that about white men and rockism again?)
Rather than reinvent themselves, some aging OG rock writers prudently left the field of play and found more retirement-minded employment like teaching. Some were pushed to the sidelines, with or without justification, by editors who couldn’t imagine old men fully grasping the genius of [fill in the name of your least favorite pop icon]. Perhaps hoping to serve its desired audience more telegenic online video content about whatever’s hot, the New York Times this year reassigned its peerless lead critic, Jon Pareles, whose non-rockist bona fides are gold-plated.
Fortunately, old prejudices about aptitude, availability and interest that had kept women and people of color from full representation in music journalism were falling, and a diverse generation of young writers unencumbered by old-fashioned ideas of musical merit arrived to judge the output of music made by people their age for people their age. Some, like Sanneh, Amanda Petrusich, Jon Caramanica and the late Greg Tate, moved music journalism forward with the range of their brilliant work. But others became poptimists, unable to form judgments of their own and so using success as their guide. Critics with “a more inclusive sensibility” are a boon to the culture, but empty-headedness is a real detriment to criticism. There are two tenets smart rock critics honored that aren’t in the poptimism starter kit: don’t judge a record by its position in the charts or a concert performance by the response of an audience. (A few days after writing that sentence, the Times ran a lavishly illustrated article titled “Audience Report: Oasis Returns, in All Its Glory.”)
Before careerism corrupted it in the ’80s, rock criticism was a self-contained lefty counter-cultural world with a genetic suspicion of the music industry, of Top 40 radio, of audience taste, of commercialism. Sure, blame rockism for the “disco sucks” movement, but where were the rave reviews for bubblegum, which was guilty of attributes also attributed to disco? Rockists were a discerning lot in a limited arena, unable to adapt their values to unfamiliar music. Rolling Stone didn’t start out as a corporate ogre, but in 1996, Jann Wenner fired Jim DeRogatis over a “negative-leaning” review of Hootie and the Blowfish’s second album. Built into poptimism is a prejudice toward popularity that can turn a critic into a shill. In fact, as Sanneh allows, “The idea of poptimism sometimes bled into a broader belief that it was bad manners to criticize any cultural product that people liked … The idea that people’s taste have a right not to be criticized is, of course, quite fatal to the idea of criticism itself.” Well, at least we can agree on that.
As its most egregious, poptimism is not just unable to judge art for art’s sake, it’s unaware that’s the assignment. And as the poobahs of print lost their last shred of courage to lead, not follow, their audiences, writers inclined to like everything that sells are a balm to corporate concerns. No angry advertisers, no subscription cancellations by indignant readers angry at the rubbishing of some favorite star. Sure, give us the lurid gossip, but don’t tell us what we should like. Meanwhile, the streaming era has made critics bystanders to instant individual appraisal, and the rise of online journalism – both serious and nonsensical – has minted a million new “critics” unaware that rando opinions on their own are not of much value. (In his TNY article, Sanneh — betraying a poptimist’s embrace of dubious quality — gives it up, at length, for a self-proclaimed music reviewer with three-million YouTube subscribers who has the bottle to not praise everything.)
The apotheosis of this whole debate leads inevitably to Taylor Swift. I’m not a working critic any longer, so I am not obliged to have a thoughtful appreciation – positive or negative – of her work. But the critical acclamation she has earned, rightly or wrongly, is a slam-dunk defeat of music criticism and its purpose of challenging artists to really accomplish something creative, to add value to the culture, not just pander and profit. I’m not calling Swift a cynical mercenary – as a public figure, her behavior has been consistently positive and inspiring to many – but my passing familiarity with bits of her music has not convinced of her merits as a songwriter or a singer of distinction. What she is is a star, and the icon of millions who find themselves in her romantic ruminations. Would I be qualified to write about her music without feeling what an adolescent girl feels? Of course. Music has qualities that surpass emotional impact, and criticism of all kinds relies on examination that occurs in the head, not just the heart. But use that approach on someone as famous as Swift, an artist beloved not just by young people with no basis for comparison but their parents as well, pleased to see their children with a wholesome figure to follow, and you’re sure to be attacked from all quarters with all the old tropes: “that’s just your opinion,” “you’re not the intended audience,” “you’re a sexist old cisgendered white man,” “why are you a hater?” Fear of digital retribution, as Sanneh notes, is another cause of temperate opinions.
Critics who like everything add nothing to the conversation. But as the logic goes, pointing people to music they don’t know about is more valuable these days than telling them what they like is shit. Curmudgeons are no longer in favor, no matter how entertaining they may be to those who can take criticism as commentary, not consumer guide. Like a lot of other aspects of life in these United States, speaking the truth may no longer be worth the bother.