1. Thou shalt not be "manufactured".
This is strictly for the casual Rockist who doesn't know his (and yeah, it's going to be a him) stuff nearly as well as he thinks he does. To a certain type of Paul Weller fan, the worst crime an act can commit is to have been put together by a svengali, a label or a management company. If you've been manufactured, your output is automatically invalid.

2. Thou shalt write thine own songs.
Now this one percolates right to the top, the very nerdiest echelons of the Rockist tree. You find people at all levels wheeling this one out, both as a way of damning acts they find unacceptable ("they don't even write their own songs!") and making excuses for acts they want you to like ("yeah, but at least they write their own songs"). I strongly suspect that this commandment dates from The Beatles, but I'm happy to be contradicted.

3. Thou shalt mean it.
Sincerity seems to be very important to the Rockist. There's an assumption of autobiography behind the Rockist view of music, even though everyone from Dylan to Axl Rose to Tyler the Creator (duck!) has written in character since the beginning of pop music as we know it. I think this is closely linked to Commandment 2: autobiography is a handy way of verifying the Songwriting Credentials™ of the artist. "This really happened to them! And now they've written a song about it!"

4. Thou Shalt Play Thine Own Instruments.
A cornerstone, this one, and vital to the Rockist preference for guitar-bass-drums(-piano) lineups. In the classic rock band setup, you can SEE WHAT'S GOING ON. It's obvious that the people on stage are Proper Musicians, because - look! - solo! Much harder to see the musicianship when it's been done on a sampler.

5. The Thought Of Financial Gain Shall Never Enter Thy Head. Thou Art In It For The Music.
Nuff said.

Those are the ones which occur to me straight off the bat, and it will come as little surprise that I think they're absolute bollocks. But it's a interesting conversation, I reckon.

Anyone care to defend those commandments? Anyone got any to add?

6. Thou shalt not be 'music for people who don't like music/only own 10 CDs'
I'd never heard this criticism until I came on this blog, and it is one that I don't really understand. I've argued with friends all my life over their/my taste and while we slag each other's music collections off there's never been the suggestion that by liking something we don't actually like music. The implication is that it is 'lowest common denominator' music - the sort of stuff that only morons buy to look like they have taste, rather than an actual expression of taste. Yet it's applied to acts who have millions of rabid fans, who surely can't all not like music.

contradict each of the above beautifully (well... maybe not 2 at times. Or 4).

(nail on rockist head, BTW)

5a However, record sales may be stimulated by the early death, preferably stimulant-related, of any member of the band.
Note that such additional sales must be in proportion to the profile of the deceased band member, the quiet bassist prompting a moderate uptick and the charismatic lead singer's death leading to a No. 1 record.

7) The Live Performance is all and all is the Live Performance.

What? You use backing tracks or, horror of horrors, consider yourselves to be a studio band?

I keep meaning to buy and read this book. Very good apparently. [Link]

Thou shalt listen respectfully to the music, not dance around to it like a crazed loon

My response, to quote the mighty Stiff records, "Fuck Art, Let's Dance!"

Believe it or not, I've heard people expound the theory that bands with women in can be dismissed. Including Noel Gallagher, who I otherwise admire.

Thout shall not "sell out"

If thy promise to split if thy sell a million albums then thou shall not go back on the deal. This should not lead to having own designated toilets backstage at rock festival. Or playing said corporate rock festival in first place. Unless you slag off the whole Satan's cock sucking enterprise while trousering the cash. Then you are still cool and rebellious.

If thou are "indie" you should renounce all major labels and only release your singles on vinyl at only 50 copies. If you then become world shaggingly popular group then all indie respectability will be erased from history and no-one will admit to liking even your early stuff.

of Gram Parsons / Captain Beefheart / Jim Morrison / Nick Drake / Roky Ericcsson / Robert Johnson / Woody Guthrie / Terry Reid (delete where applicable ad infinitum et ad nauseum)

1. Rubbish. Plenty of good records made by "manufactured" pop groups. (Don't see where PW comes into this one - weren't his favourite group The Small Faces, to some extent "manufactured"? And his big love is of course soul music where a lot of acts are largely "run" by producers/ management / record companies.
2. Bollocks on toast. Personally I think the rot set in when groups got it in their heads that they had to write all their own "stuff". It's as daft as actors only performing plays they've written themselves. If doing other people's "stuff" was good enough for Elvis, Sinatra, Dylan and indeed -since you mention them - the Fabs, it's good enough for anyone. Covers used to be much more commonplace in the 60s/ 70s than they are now and I think it's a missed trick.
3. Obviously some degree of empathy with whatever the song is expressing helps, but performing's performing.
4. Loads of great pop singers and performers don't play instruments.
5. Yeah right. It's a business and a career.
6. People who aren't that arsed about music and just listen to mainstream daytime radio and hardly ever buy records tend not to be lumbered with silly notions about trying to be "cool" and so like music that's ... very likeable. As a general rule, the biggest selling records are mostly the biggest selling records on merit.
7. Different for different types of music I'd say. And for different tastes in how you like to listen. Personally I like listening to records/radio and and am less bothered about live shows. I get a bit bored.

I'm not aiming this at anybody here, I know there's a lot of musicians around these parts. I am one. But most of the worst culprits for these 'articles of faith' have been musicians. Specifically male musicians at that.

The best (and easiest) bands I've ever been in were at least a third female. And none of the women ever ever cared that a huge chunk of the music was run off a sequencer - backing tapes in effect. Nor cared that I was a guitar playing punk fanatic who also loved soul and reggae and Pop with a capital p and wanted to mix it all up.

And yet the biggest rows - apart from creative decisions - all came from the sort of stuff Bob is listing and always involved male musicians. I love drum machines, but one guitarist in particular was never happy with it, "they're not real!" he would shout, kicking his 50 effects pedals across the rehearsal room.

Additionally:

"1. Thou shalt not be "manufactured".
This is strictly for the casual Rockist who doesn't know his (and yeah, it's going to be a him) stuff nearly as well as he thinks he does. To a certain type of Paul Weller fan, the worst crime an act can commit is to have been put together by a svengali, a label or a management company. If you've been manufactured, your output is automatically invalid. "

It's funny that one, I'm a big fan of production line pop, backroom songwriters etc. I think it's part and parcel of, well everything. But you're right, 'manufactured pop' is always the putdown of putdowns. And yet, Elvis, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Motown, The Pistols, Bowie, The Clash and on and on and on. The manufacture may have involved the people in the band, but it's still there, running through the biggest bands of all time. Do people not think that a bunch of people sitting down in a pub drawing up their plans for the band aren't manufacturing in some way? It runs through music like the writing on a stick of rock.

8. Thou shalt adopt a default position of negativity towards any new music

This is normally expressed as an outright dismissal on the grounds that "it sounds just like XXXX" or with a long-winded diatribe against the concept of music ever being able to be "new" since a particular date in time (normally sometime in the 70s) or with a patronising look when someone gets excited by new music that has patently failed to float your own boat.

Again, guilty as charged for many years until meeting up with people on here and at Massive meet-ups who retuned my sensors and rewired my brain to the pleasure of discovering new music which, unsurprisingly, does offer up many variations on well-worn themes but often either improves on those themes or sheds new light on why they are so significant and fruitful a source for ideas.

The point is, I suppose, that we are still reinventing the wheel despite claims to the contrary (cf. nano wheels). I sometimes think it's a form of cultural fascism to dismiss new music based on old music, as if one cannot possibly appreciate the former because of the alleged superiority of the latter, a superiority that is often built on received wisdom rather than direct experience.

Having said all that I'm currently listening to a welter of 50s music because it grabs me instantly but interestingly it grabs me in a way that shows me just how narrow a view we have of popular music in the shadow of The Beatles. It strikes me there are still many musical gardens that have been neglected or overlooked that with a bit of pruning would reveal some radiant sunshine and give joy rather than relying on the neat borders and hardy perennials that seem to fascinate chin stroking rockists gathered around the compost heap of musical taste.

Thou shalt deride the musical tastes of people younger than thineself for being less aware of the influences of their favorite band than thou art.

I caught myself doing that when The Strokes appeared. "Ha, have these idiots never heard Blondie or Television?" I would opine judiciously. What a muppet I was.

Similarly

Thou shalt not dance. Instead thou shalt "bounce."

(and fortunately I've never met anybody like them) clearly don't know a great deal about music. I hope you had fun shooting them down in flames, Bob.

and I've finally thought of one. Literally, hooray.

Though shalt recognise rock as the purest form of music.

This may link to rule number 4, but "proper" music should contain electric guitars, bass, drums and vocals (and, pushing it a bit here, maybe a keyboard/piano).

You are not allowed to listen to, nor acknowledge the existence of, disco, soul, funk, hip-hop, dance music, electronica, jazz, avant-garde (except Beefheart and Zappa), but most of all, pop. "Pop" is a dirty word, and even if your "proper" band are creating three-minute songs with a simple chord progression, catchy harmonies and a verse-chorus-bridge structure, they must NEVER be called pop, because that is a pejorative term. The word "pop" indicated something is throwaway and insubstantial, and to be accused of such is the ultimate crime in rock.

Thou shalt have 'chops'.

Unlike many other cardinal rules, this rule is beyond challenge. Any records worth hearing or owning must be produced by people who can actually play their instruments well.

As well as bolstering Rule 4, this rule also acts to emphasise Rule 7 above, in that anyone who can't cut the mustard live will prefer to witter about at home with a sampler (a.k.a. cheating) rather than to perform actual gigs.

Merely strumming chords, even at breakneck speed (Mumfords take note), does not count.

Having eight or more musicians all playing exactly the same arpeggio simultaneously at high volume (Arcade Fire, take note) does not count.

Rule 7 also has a codicil:
Thou shalt not play the keyboard while trying to dry your hair with vigorous and repetitive upper body movements. (Mumfords, again. Sorry boys, but you really must try harder).

You've nailed the most dislikable aspects of the rock 'aficianado' in your commandments.
But then I got to thinking, in the interests of balance, and all that:

The Pop-ist Articles of Faith

1. Thou shalt not be “bearded”
A cornerstone, this one, vital to the Pop-ist long-running war on hirsuteness. Popsters must be clean-shaven and waxed to within an inch of their lives. (Or their Biffins’ Bridges). It is scientifically proven, by Dr Fox (he’s not a real doctor you know), that musicians with beards - and any other body hair - will suck the life out of any room they enter.

2. Female pop stars are not to be taken seriously unless they ditch their skirts and appear on stage wearing just their undercrackers.
This is the Pop-ist decree that all female popsters must NEVER wear lower garments other than their knick-knacks. The only exceptions to this rule are chubsters, who will be tolerated but never truly accepted.

3. There is no 3.
Pop-ists are too busy HAVING FUN ALL THE TIME to be bothered with lists, Grandad.

Do I need to do the ;-) thing here?

ALLOWED
Light shows
Video projections
Horn sections
Uniforms (shows togetherness/dedication to cause of pure music)
Backing singers
Guest musicians
Dedications of songs to the ongoing struggle in Burma/Nicaragua etc
Cover version of pop song by rock act simultaneously showing ironic distance and superior musicianship

NOT ALLOWED
Dancers
Stage sets
Costumes (inauthentic)
Costume changes
Guest rappers
Dedication of songs to boyfriend/mum/dog
Cover version of rock song by pop act desperately borrowing authenticity of Clash/Pistols and subjecting them to Maria Cary-style vocal stylings.

Actually, I think I would stand by No 3. I do want an artist to 'mean it' no matter what genre they're performing.

I love the fact that Elbow imbue their songs with such genuinely felt passion, that the Manics (used to) sing with such rage and bile, just as much as I care that Lykke Li or Kylie, in all their pop glory, are respectively utterly bereft or well up for a bum-shaking party. One of the things that frustrates me about Lady Gaga is that she sounds so mechanised, as if she's programmed to pop rather than doing it 'cos it's fun. The same goes for Westlife, whose idea of emotion is standing up from their stools.

I bow to no one in my love of the fabs, but werent they a bunch of wannabee greasers until Brian Epstein 'groomed' them?

Another thing I have come up against, guitar isnt real or worthy of God status unless its lead. Bollocks!

Fair cop sir. We keepers of the sacred flame of rock are guilty on all accounts. But we don't mean to be rude. We just prefer to listen to bands/artists who "mean it", are prepared to challenge accepted norms, have the guts to explore uncharted musical waters sometimes risking their chances of greater commercial success, have a bit more integrity about their live performances, care more about their hard core fans, place more emphasis on hard touring than media gimmicks to develop a fan base, don't rely on trite cliched boy meets girl style lyrics to sell records, be different/unique/weird even.

In other words not be like Take That, Duran Duran, the Bay City Rollers or Engelbert goddamn Humperdinck.

and it is absurd making these beliefs as absolutes. But as said above there are other genre-ists, as it were, who are equally prejudiced and follow a similar kind of code or set of rules, whether it be in dance, pop or hip-hop. A pox on the lot of them but then they are the losers. It's so nice to be able to enjoy the whole spectrum just focusing on the key points - does it work as a record or is it a performance that moves me in some way? Beardy or beardless, extended virtuoso soloing, brief concotions of programmed found sounds, or naive, untrained experimenting with instruments to make fresh, exciting noise! Still, we are dealing with rock and this is an entertaining thread.

The only thing I stick to that will be thought sort of rockist I suppose but isn't really, is the belief that mid sixties (or so) to mid to late seventies remain unsurpassed and contain an embarrassment of riches never really bettered - whether rock, pop, soul, country, folk, electronic, disco, reggae etc (manufactured or otherwise) of the form of pop that still dominates today. That's not the same as saying nothing decent since 1975 (or so) by the way, cos' that really would be ridiculous.

of the Massive are huge chart pop fans. Still, for the hell of it I'll try and be devil's advocate.

1. Thou shalt not be "manufactured".
If you've been manufactured, your output is automatically invalid.

...well no. But I defend my right to think Westlife and Boyzone are rubbish just as much as The Monkees and Girls Aloud are great.

2. Thou shalt write thine own songs.
Now this one percolates right to the top, the very nerdiest echelons of the Rockist tree.

Well, would a Clapton fan think that? People who like 'the widdle' tend to like the Blues and people who like the Blues seem happy enough with huge swathes of cover versions.

3. Thou shalt mean it.
Sincerity seems to be very important to the Rockist.
A lot of the pop stuff I like, from Robyn to Pulp to Abba give off a vibe that they mean it, or at least what they're crafting has some meaning to them.

4. Thou Shalt Play Thine Own Instruments.
If you buy a ticket for a 'live' gig and it's not really 'live' isn't it ok to feel a little bit cheated?

5. The Thought Of Financial Gain Shall Never Enter Thy Head. Thou Art In It For The Music.
From the local band in the pub to the stadium act I'd imagine finances cross everyone involved's mind at some point.

Lastly, I remember the rockist debate in the 80s which seemed to come from the fact Johnny Marr had grown his hair in a Keef stylee and added a rhythm guitarist to The Smiths. It was as bizarre then as it is now. There's good pop and bad pop, good rock and bad rock, just as they're rock snobs AND pop snobs. Whether you regard Kate Bush, Prince and David Bowie as pop or rock, people are always going to be awed by their skill, songcraft and force of will not to be manufactured. That's got to be a good thing.

Thou shalt ride a demon/motorcycle hybrid, fuelled by Jesus’s tears, out of the lips of a flaming vagina, across a shark-infested lake of blood, and into the eye of hell itself.

In 1998, Belle & Sebastian released a single titled: This Is Just A Modern Rock Song. Some of the lyrics went:

“This is just a modern rock song,
This is just a sorry lament,
We're four boys in corduroys,
We're not terrific but we're competent.”

It is possible that Stuart Murdoch was having a little joke when he wrote this. As a practising Christian he would have been well aware that nobody from Scotland has ever defeated an Arch Duke of hell, whose seldom-spoken name consists entirely of consonants, while wearing corduroy. The correct apparel for this kind of ruck is a leather jacket, a wolf skin, or an ill-conceived loincloth manufactured from the bodies of your defeated enemies.

Had Murdoch really wanted to write a modern rock song it would have gone something like this:

“This is just a modern rock song
I’ll ride my bitch-ass demon motorcycle
into hell & back, baby
and punch Satan in the face
for a taste of your sweet lovin’
in 1998.
Woah yeah!”

No band who could fixate on the minutiae of a nerdy female librarian’s humdrum life can really be considered a true rock group, unless the girl in question is a succubus and the library is a library of agony, in which case carry on my wayward sons.

I'm not fervent about it but the first five, at least, sound fairly praiseworthy to me to me. In fact, I think I would apply them in other contexts too. Suitably adapted they could be refer to food, books etc.

I'm not saying that I've never eaten a McDonalds, read a tabloid newspaper or listened to a boy band - but they're generally not my first preferences.

article of faith..
though shalt be male, white, pedantic, dull, quite ugly, possibly sexually frustrated, an heterosexual (honest)and most comfortable in the company of other boring knobs hence described...
i'm afraid to most people it's simply entertainment...
i'm afraid it only matters one fuck to a very small minority...
changing that requires the kind of radical action a guitar and leather jacket doesn't really cover...

it's all tied up in out-dated 20th century dualistic revolutionary rhetoric y'know..

all the more embarrassing it's proponents are increasingly wretchedly ancient...oh...

i have been guilty of elements of such pish in my youth...luckily i managed to crush that part of myself..

Not join in the jam at the beginning of "Later".

Thou shalt wear boots.

would keep the rockist happy by Bob's commandments yet I doubt they feature too heavily in most rockist record collections. I was very wary that my musical tastes weren't a snug Word fit and was attracted to the blog by the breadth of discussion and good natured feel more than the music. I am delighted that music for fun appears to be acknowledged more now but that mustn't detract from those who take their music seriously. I'm a confirmed cricketist and believe the game should be four or five days with the possibility of a draw and that only English should represent England not the South African mercenaries. I can bore to death about cricket and often do but that doesn't mean I can't see a place for 20-20, test match cricket needs the one day stuff to survive, rock needs pop to survive one doesn't work without the other. I will watch 20-20 cricket and enjoy it, I have even learnt to love Jonathan Trott so you rockists out there get yourselves a copy of "Pelican West" and listen to all the reasons you love music but performed with a cheeky grin, an arran sweater and a high slung guitar you might just enjoy it.

No one does bitter and acerbic as well as Joe (apart from Tom Lehrer perhaps)

you've just gone simultaneaously outed me as a 'rockist' and explained my fondness for the 'kooky' Miss Kate Bush:

1. Thou shalt not be "manufactured".
Perhaps a little over-hype post 'Kick Inside' but ditching her producer in 1979 and taking on the duties herself was a master-stroke

2. Thou shalt write thine own songs.
Erm, well, not all that many, I agree, but all ineffably Kate's - and she started at 11 (with The Man With the Child in His Eyes)

3. Thou shalt mean it.
"It's not important to me that people understand me"

4. Thou Shalt Play Thine Own Instruments.
Well, in the words of one John Lydon, "Kate Bush and her grand piano? that's like John Wayne and his saddle"

5. The Thought Of Financial Gain Shall Never Enter Thy Head. Thou Art In It For The Music.

Well, she was canny enough to make a mint out of her career but as she said "I wouldn't buy something that I couldn't live with, like a country house which I don't need. I'd rather buy a huge synthesiser that I could live with all day."

OK, I go all wobbly at about 75% of her music, but she is so "authentic" I'm afraid she almost slips into the next category up of 'keeping it real': FOLK (which is where you'll end up if you start living by these five commandments)

Excellent thread and kudos to Bob for the OP.

I have been guilty of applying all of these rules at some point over the last 35 years. I think it's part of becoming a music fan - having some criteria to apply, however bogus, to justify your choices. To show that you're serious about something that to many is just the wallpaper to their day. Nowadays though, I find myself applying only one rule. How does it make me feel? If music of any genre doesn't move me in some way then I pass on by in the knowledge that there will be something more to my liking along soon.

"authentic"..."seminal"..."timeless"...

As you are reading this chances are you are part of the enlightened few whose tastes in music are catholic and meandering. When asked what your favourite music is you probably shrug your shoulders and answer uneasily because your choices, ‘Err, downtempo music, krautrock, Stevie Wonder, Moodyman, early Cure, Brazilian, dub, electronica’ (although saying the word ‘electronica is like drinking vinegar) make you sound like a liberal democrat architect. You can’t easily convey the breath and enthusiasm for different sounds that a love of dance music in all its forms (not just the current form smeared with white jeans, parched eyes, 80s haircuts and let’s all move to Berlin can do) has opened your ears too.

Lined-up against this is the rockist attitude. A Calvinistic strain present in those unhappy many listening to the internal monologue of plodding drive time Virgin Radio and the monthly Coldplay marathon. Rockism is the ultimate genre specialism, rock without the roll, or any discernible blackness (right on Norman). Current symptoms, a love of bands not any bands but BRITS nominated “bands” and routinely a firing four piece.

Four people together is an unhappy car trip or a crap party, not the musical equivalent of prime numbers. This is a farmers market of, insipid, clueless wonders caked in shit. Q magazine cover stars – The Killers, Muse, U2, Coldplay, Keane, Kings Of Leon – we’ve all heard Jeff Buckley but you and I didn’t go off and write anthems of personal insufficiency about a French exchange that went wrong (‘Oh Didier why hast thou forsaken me’). Bands who don’t just take the moral high ground but built a fucking tax dodging, sanctimonious, carbon free palace on top of it.

Rockist attitude is like IBS. Latent until some stressful event triggers full combustion, i.e. visiting the Virgin Music festival AND being disappointed that KT Tunstall has cancelled because she’s taking lessons from Annie Lennox on how to exist as a twat.

So why care? Because rockism is pervasive and everything culturally is viewed through this monocle of mediocrity and half-cut power ballad. Rockist journalists peddle the “no personalities or opinions” of dance music or the gaudy materialism of black music or flippancy of pop as a catch all rejection, whilst wondering aloud how the Kooks can follow their last opus ‘Jammin’ on a groove and shit’. It’s got to be U2 or speak and spell Radiohead, everything else is contemptible.

The musical wing of rockism is just headline dog whistles. At the kernel is an innate conservatism, a distrust of the other and a passive acceptance of join the dots culture. Actually while here, when Giles Peterson bangs on about joining the dots does he realise that most join the dots pictures are actually blindingly obvious pictures of parrots or pirate ships? Well they were last time I looked at my four year old’s colouring book. What colouring book has Gilles got? One that was produced by Jazzafuckingnova that’s what.

Anyway, after trashing Michael Howard for ‘having something of the night about him’ (i.e. please insert your own form of bigotry), Anne Widdicombe went off to see Embrace supported by Starsailor at the Forum. Even she was disappointed by the sexless atmosphere.

This rockist attitude shows a lack of passion and no real enthusiasm for anything other than a dirge. Some lacklustre criticism from rockist journalists has landed on “landfill indie” as the cancer eating our souls, but that lets too many off the hook and we shall come for them later. We all know that every time Neil Young appears on a magazine cover an angel dies.

So what’s it got to do with me? Well the upshot of this is that we must celebrate our different-ness, the many paths in music and culture, reject press pack collusion, embrace our love of immigration even if this means Somalian pirates washing your car window at Staples Corner, mourn the death of John Martyn, 1000% tax on Paul Weller, or sit on the sidelines making rude gestures.