Poptimism

Poptimism is a school of thought in popular musical criticism. The major tenets of poptimism are that pop music deserves the same respect as rock music and is as authentic and as worthy of professional critique and interest. Poptimism has been called the prevailing ideology of today's music criticism.[1]

Origin

While the origins of the term "poptimism" are thought to be Simon Reynolds' attempt to critique the unbridled positivity surrounding pop music,[2] since the early 2000s it has been used to describe the critical position that pop music is equally authentic and worthy of intelligent analysis as rock music. Music critics associated with poptimism are Kelefa Sanneh, Carl Wilson, and Tom Ewing.

Development

One document that has been called the "poptimist Magna Carta" is Kelefa Sanneh's 2004 New York Times article "The Rap Against Rockism."[1] While the piece never uses the terms poptimism or poptimist, its arguments countering rockism and in favour of valuing genres such as disco encapsulate the poptimist position.[3] Carl Wilson's 2007 book Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste explored criticism of Celine Dion. When reissued with new material in 2014, the 2007 original was referred to by critics as poptimism's founding text.[4] From 2007 to 2011, Tom Ewing wrote a monthly column for Pitchfork titled "Poptimist."[5]

Criticism

In 2014, the New York Times Magazine published critic Saul Austerlitz's piece "The Pernicious Rise of Poptimism."[6] Austerlitz criticised poptimism as a product of click-driven internet journalism that aspired to the lowest common denominator while being actively hostile to people who are fans of genres and bands associated with rockism. He further criticized it for allowing pop music fans to avoid expanding their taste and contrasted the types of music lauded by poptimists with the literature and film praised by book and film critics. Washington Post writer Chris Richards argued in 2015 that poptimism cheerleads the already successful while privileging consensus and smothering dissent.[1]

In other fields

A 2014 article in Flavorwire argued that literary criticism "needs a poptimist revolution" in order to understand current literary phenomena such as Fifty Shades of Grey and better connect with the reading audience.[7] In 2015, Salon published an article subtitled "Book criticism needs a poptimist revolution to take down the genre snobs," in which Rachel Kramer Bussell argued that book critics ignore often very good work and alienate readers by focusing only on genres considered "literary."[8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Richards, Chris (April 16, 2015). "Do you want poptimism? Or do you want the truth?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  2. ↑ Ewing, Tom (July 10, 2009). "Chartopia". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  3. ↑ Sanneh, Kelefa (October 31, 2004). "The Rap Against Rockism". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 5, 2015.
  4. ↑ Guriel, Jason (June 6, 2014). "Let's Talk About Love, by Carl Wilson: Review". National Post. Toronto. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  5. ↑ "Poptimist | Features". Pitchfork. Retrieved 2015-11-19.
  6. ↑ Austerlitz, Saul (April 6, 2014). "The Pernicious Rise of Poptimism". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on 2015-10-31.
  7. ↑ Donnelly, Elisabeth (August 28, 2014). "Why Book Criticism and Literary Culture Needs a Poptimist Revolution". Flavorwire.
  8. ↑ Kramer Bussell, Rachel (May 19, 2015). "Simon Pegg has a Franzen moment: Book criticism needs a poptimist revolution to take down genre snobs". Salon.

External links

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