In the tiny music circles I move in, I sometimes encounter the word “rockism” thrown around, but not as an agitator’s axe or a mocker’s pistol; if anything, it’s simply descriptive: a “rockist” simply chooses to see things from the rock side of things, and often with a moral imperative, that is to say, a conscience that convinces someone an entire Ariel Rivera album shouldn’t be something one should be made to endure, that Dong Abay’s words set to music are the gospel. And the basic rationale is this: rock is sincere, and everything else isn’t. Before it gets muddled up, however, here is writer Kelefa Sanneh’s, hmm, sarcastic definition of a “rockist,” and why perhaps this type should be banished forever:

A rockist isn’t just someone who loves rock ‘n’ roll, who goes on and on about Bruce Springsteen, who champions ragged-voiced singer-songwriters no one has heard of. A rockist is someone who reduces rock ‘n’ roll to a caricature, then uses that caricature as a weapon. Rockism means idolizing the authentic old legend (or underground hero) while mocking the latest pop star; lionizing punk while barely tolerating disco; loving the live show and hating the music video; extolling the growling performer while hating the lip-syncher.

Now.

All that hoopla about the Philippines being up there in “happiness” surveys effectively explains why so much of what’s popular here isn’t rock. Rock takes so much in a listener. There is no way, for instance, that even the most forlorn Willie Revillame ballad can parallel the angriest Intolerant riff in terms of emotional consumption. I caught Joey Dizon and company once at a bar, and I felt like shit after (“felt like shit” in a good way, if that’s imaginable). The sheer madness of it all was viral; it was like the guys from said metal outfit were personally confronting me about something I personally did to them. Needless to say, I was visibly shaken at the end of their monstrous bar set. On the contrary, I see nothing at stake whatsoever in Mr. Revillame’s entire discography, or in Christian Bautista’s remake of Jose Marie Chan’s “Beautiful Girl,” for that matter. He cannot make me care whether he snogs the Venus in question or not. I’m sure Mr. Bautista worked doubly hard on Romance Revisited, his latest disc of, hmm, revisited (read: “remade”) romantic numbers, but I just know that he’ll continue to sleep soundly no matter what.

I guess I’m a “rockist” as per Sanneh’s definition. When Mr. Bautista flashes his pearly whites while supposedly nursing a heartache, I find myself stricken with a nagging desire to smash china.

I’m like this, and several of my closest friends are like this. We’re being unabashedly middle-class this way, I know, and this somehow calls for an apology (even retroactively). Using rock’s barometer to measure non-rock material does seem pretty unreasonable. Getting all upset about the continuing success of cover artists does seem like the behavior of a brat with too much free time in his hands. It’s especially difficult not to be rockist when faced with a pop musician appropriating rock-like gestures. The forgiving will nod encouragingly, but the uptight (and I’m raising my hand here) will want to set the pop singer’s KISS t-shirt (which probably came with a ridiculous tag-price from People are People) on fire.

Granted, a lot of rock is ridiculous posturing, but we have a different set of criteria for that, too (think of how Camille Paglia got to be tagged by some as the “anti-feminist’s feminist”). It gets confusing, and it’s sort of like having some bastard in your basketball team who’s all about his shoes and nothing else; you obviously can’t trip the guy or mess with his lay-ups, but you sort of want to.

But at the end of the day, why not champion ragged-voiced singer-songwriters no one has heard of? Why not idolize the authentic old legend (or underground hero)? I know this is the kind of argument (known in some obscure circles as the “Why not?” argument) you’ll hear from a lazy debater, or from guys who come to meetings unprepared, but I know it’s true. With all due respect—though I may have already expressed much of the opposite—though I may wish all the guys who cover Jose Marie Chan songs the best of health and the brightest of futures, I just want to say that they’re not the first people I think of when the drunk guy at the party goes “The boat is sinking…”

I don’t even want to champion clever, ironic, hyper-referential rock (I’ll leave the obsessive inter-genre wars to the hipsters). I won’t even call for a boycott on unfunny funny-rock bands. I won’t even go into lengthy Dio-versus-Oz-in-Sab debates with anyone, or rally behind the latest Jack White band (I lost count anyway). I just want a world where, hopping into a smelly cab after playing a smelly show, I can at least hope that the cabbie is cranking some Gov’t Mule, no matter how poor a mathematical probability that may be.

And, again, to echo the tiny woman who’s (hopefully) vacating that palace by the river in a couple of weeks (and for good), “I’m sorry.” (Aldus Santos)

Citation:

Sanneh, K. (2005). The Rap Against Rockism. In J. Leroy (Ed.), Da Capo Best Music Writing 2005: The Year’s Finest Writing on Rock, Hip-hop, Jazz, Pop, Country & More (pp. 129-134). Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.

“Boss power!!!” by manu_gt500, from Flickr. Some rights reserved. Willie Revillame: Ikaw na Nga cover art from Amazon. “Miley Cyrus – Wonder World Tour – I Love Rock n Roll” by calmdownlove, from Wikimedia Commons. “20071115_govt_mule_002” by Stephen Dyrgas, from Flickr. Some rights reserved.