Meaning of rockism | Babel Free

Definitions

A kind of music snobbery that views rock music as superior or normative and values music with "authentic" production values over modern "manufactured" and electronic forms.

derogatory, uncountable

Examples

“Near as a body could tell from here, rockism wasn’t just liking Yes and the Allman Brothers — it was liking London Calling.”

“The rockism debate began in earnest in the early 1980's, but over the past few years it has heated up, and today, in certain impassioned circles, there is simply nothing worse than a rockist.”

“You literally can't fight rockism, because the language of righteous struggle is the language of rockism itself.”

“If the idea of rockism confused you, and you lazily thought Pink Floyd were automatically better than Gang of Four, and that good music had stopped with punk, you were a rockist and you were wrong.”

“Broadly speaking, rockism is the belief that rock is the most important form of popular music[…]”

“By the mid-00s, rockism seemed suffocating. To move beyond it, [Kelefa] Sanneh suggested we envisage a world where “it’s impossible to separate classics from guilty pleasures” and try “to acknowledge that music videos and reality shows and glamorous layouts can be as interesting – and as influential – as an old-fashioned album”.”

CEFR level