Pitchfork should really lay off its mockery of NPR...

[Before delving into this post, I encourage you to visit the NPR Music website to hear a debate between Ryan Schreiber and Dave Thompson entitled, "Which Reigns Supreme: New Or Old Rock?"]

One lesson Ryan Schreiber should take away from this debate: it's far more fun to be full of shit than to play the straight man.

I think anyone would be hard-pressed to declare a "winner" in this affair when Dave Thompson so beautifully manipulated the direction of the discussion -- he dictated the pace, found ways to catch Schreiber off-guard, and wisely inserted more earnest critiques whenever necessary. A good chunk of the discussion was likely edited out by an NPR staffer (who seem to favor Thompson), but Schreiber still seems entirely unprepared to handle an opponent who is playing by his own rules.

To liberally paraphrase, Thompson basically argues that pre-1976 rock "reigns supreme" because of its lofty, often-chic "presentation"--a point embodied in his appeal to great rock-'n-roll footwear. In his words, bands had to inject more personality into their acts to account for a lack of resources/inspiration and were more willing to transform themselves to that end. While such an idea may be somewhat useless (how does one begin to measure the incorporation of personality into music?), Schreiber doesn't do much to negate it.

Thompson also shrewdly picks apart Schreiber's appeal to D.I.Y. ethics, noting how artists had put out music independently before punk and how the genre simply had better "P.R." In Schreiber's defense, I think Thompson oversimplifies the spirit of D.I.Y. in the late '70s (which the Pitchfork creator points out), but not without decent evidence to back his point. Namely, it's easy to ascribe "P.R." retroactively as the main factor to punk's rise to prominence, but it does very little to credit the co-optation involved--the subversion of mainstream culture in behavior and clever use of semiotics. I would be very interested to see how Thompson distinguishes the level of performance in "punk" versus the level of performance in pre-punk rock--it would seem that punk, of all genres, is acutely aware of its presentation and places as much, if not more, effort into creating an image as any preceding genres.

Ultimately an enjoyable listen though, and while I may criticize Schreiber, I think he deserves credit for putting himself out there/defending a legitimate point. I mean, how else would we have learned that Thin Lizzy could be such a peacemaker?