More Stuff On Music

I read Idolator pretty often, and I still don't have a fix on what kind of tastes it's posters have. Anyway, there were two items they had up today that I found kind of baffling. This one is about a year-end list by a blog, which had some "egregious" choices, such as Final Fantasy, Xiu Xiu, Silversun Pickups, and Guillemots. Guillemots, which I have and have listened to a number of times has some cheesy-ass lyrics, so I understand that. The Pickups I don't know much about. Xiu Xiu I never got into, but they have a following, and it's not like they're Audioslave, where choosing their album as a "best-of" is a truly offensive choice; Idolator has joined the bandwagon on challenging bands before, like The Knife, whom I find to be self-serious and cloying. The biggest question mark is the slap at Final Fantasy, who had an album as gorgeous as anything Andrew Bird has produced, which is no knock on Bird. But their commentary on the album - "Final whatnow?" suggests... what? That Final Fantasy is but a trifle? This is kind of baffling since they're a music blog, and Final Fantasy is an indie band, and Pitchfork and their likes champion indie bands, and whether they want to admit it or not, Idolator knows or has heard of every album on Pitchfork's Best New Music section. Hm. Guillemots were featured in that section, too.

It gets tiring, too, to wade through the mess of people who proclaim themselves leaders of the backlash. Pay attention to how Clap Your Hands and the Shins' new albums. Maybe music criticism has to be a self-conscious endeavor, but it gets a little tedious for reviewers to point out their own limitations, then trumpet or blast a band as if they have the last word on the issue.

The other interesting item is this line: "Obligatory Pitchfork dig: When it comes down to it, we'd rather read about livestock than the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album." Well, that's just dumb. Unless they just mean they'd rather read about livestock than the turgid prose that is sure to greet the new CYHSY album.

So, anyway, I'm beginning to doubt Idolator's plaudits.