By: Ben Johnson
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| Hey man! Just want to say I'm not a big fan! |
You’ll never guess what just happened.
Somehow somebody—presumably a real live human being—wrote a series of words. It’s possible that some of them were arranged in an order chosen by a person, and were potentially even transcribed through such bygone methods as typing or dictation.
Then, and this is truly incredible, that series of words was then published and distributed by a media outlet. Can you imagine? In the year of our lord 2026?
But wait. It gets even better.
This particular series of written words was about music. Can you believe it? Words… written by a person… about music?! There’s only one word that can describe a phenomenon such as this, and it’s “retromania.” The person who wrote these particular words about music, the ones I saw and am now talking about, seems to enjoy choosing that word, or at least not feel much embarrassment about it.
Before I share any other thoughts, I think it’s appropriate to reflect on the series of miracles that has just transpired.
Take a moment.
A person wrote words about music. These words were published and shared. Opinions and discourse occurred. About music. By people.
Amen.
Now.
This piece is terrible and it sucks and that’s what I think.
I honestly forgot how often this used to happen. Seeing it now is like unexpectedly bumping into somebody you vaguely remember as being one of the most annoying people at high school. You haven’t thought of them in years, and while it’s not exactly wonderful to see them, it is oddly comforting to be reminded that you can’t truly know if or when you’ll see something or somebody for the last time.
There was a not unenjoyable period in my life when I’d leap at the chance to disagree with, mock, recontextualize, and otherwise glom onto all the words this person has written about music. I do believe the words and ideas in this piece are quite wrong in spots. And they’re also not terribly well arranged, in my opinion.
I mean, you can see for yourself if you want. Hell, click on it. Give it a rage click. Ordinarily, historically, I would caution against clicking on things that are not good due to the perverse economic incentives involved. But this is in Jacobin, which, if you’re both already familiar with as a media outlet and aren’t actively trying to destroy, you already know is worth an occasional, notionally supportive click. Also, crucially, it’s ostensibly about or at least contains several mentions that are tangentially related to music, which you might also want to encourage.
You can click on it, because it exists, and even read it, although you should be aware it’ll be just as difficult to enjoy as you remember from the old high school days. In a way that may be so familiar that you’ll have to suppress an urge to say, “Good to see you, man!” as you recall that it is not, in fact, good to see you this specific man. You wouldn’t want this actual man to think you’re down to hang out later.
Want a summary?
We’re talking about rockism and poptimism here. We’re positioning cause and effect interchangeably and ahistorically between musical trends, aesthetic trends, and critical trends, and ascribing political ideologies to each, seemingly willy nilly, in order to obtusely grope in the direction of a quantum-state thesis about music with electric guitars in it being good, actually.
We’re talking about The Strokes. We’re being critical, or more accurately offhandedly dismissive of Taylor Swift, and Mumford & Sons, and Kanye West. We’re listing a whole bunch of decade-plus-old musical act names one paragraph after baring teeth in contempt for the concept of SEO.
Such as what musical act names are listed in an online publication in a way that is openly disdainful of Search Engine Optimization, you ask? Popular ones such as Katy Perry, Beyonce, Bad Bunny, Young Thug, as well as less SEO-friendly but also popular and SEO-friendly acts such as “Julian Casablancas, Will Oldham, Stephen Malkmus, David Byrne, Jack White, Michael Stipe, Jeff Mangum, Conor Oberst, James Murphy, or Jeff Tweedy.”
Additionally, it is reasonable to posit that the author would presumably also list, if it was a band name that could be obliquely shoehorned into whatever meandering point might be hinted at here, “Rare Footage of a Sydney Sweeney Blowjob.” If this sequence of words was the name of a band, they’d have to be super underground at the moment. Including this fictional band name—which, again, would be “Rare Footage of a Sydney Sweeney Blowjob”—in a published article about music could plausibly highlight either the goodness or badness of this status.
Remember rockism vs. poptimism? The argument?
If I remember correctly, which I do not, and am capable of summarizing both reductively and incorrectly, which I am, the debate was basically “it’s good when people like things” versus “unless we’re talking about electric guitar things that I personally think are cool, no it’s not.” The “it’s good when people like things” people won the moral highground. The “no it’s not” people had a loneliness epidemic.
Then 99% of all the music that has ever been recorded became available near instantaneously at the click of either one button or a small series of backup buttons, and nobody ever needed to read words about music or listen to that one annoying person from high school talk about music ever again.
Anyway, the guy who wrote this thinks it’s neat that there’s music with electric guitars in it sometimes. And also he doesn’t seem to like Hillary Clinton very much. I actually agree on both counts, man.
What’s that?
Do I want to cure the loneliness epidemic we are both experiencing? What am I doing this weekend? Hang out? In person? Uhhh. No thanks. I am not busy at all but I am good. I’m just going to chill out with my wife and dog doing as little as possible until I’m dragged out of my home and thrown into a ditch by whatever local or federal band of law enforcement affiliated reivers will eventually do that. That’s the current plan.
Give me your number, though. I’ll text you a Music League invite. That is the exact amount of hanging out and talking about music I am ready to do with you right now.
