Cross-post!

[swimmyplus]

So I was thinking. There are really only a handful of songs in the whole world you can listen to without looking like a tool. These few songs will make you look transcendently cool, while all the others make you look like a whore for a genre, style, aesthetic, or whatever else. Since almost all music has a genre, there's no way to avoid it. (

Comments

[capraesque]

1. Velvet Underground is a sort of anomaly, because aside from the fact that they have some awesome songs that fit cosily within the sex/drugs category (I'm thinking "Heroin," yet taking exception with "Sister Ray." There is such a thing as too much), they (as you have stated before) are to blame for every douchebag since who shat out distorted "music" to earn indie cred under the guise of "I wanna be like Lou Reed." They are partially responsble for...

#2 Pixies popping up in the mainstream. Ok, so it happened, and we are tools. But compare Dolittle to everything else being released at that time. I do hate the fact that Fight Club (also a symptom of a much larger problem) used a song from Surfer Rosa, since that album does a pretty good job of being inscrutable and completely delightful all at once (go team indie!).

#3 You may completely disagree with me here, but I just thought I'd throw it out there. I don't think PJ Harvey (at least most of her stuff) makes you a tool for one reason--Tori Amos. Tori's all "oh, I'm sooo dark, look at the fairies, pain pain pain, but gee, ain't I purty in an angsty sort of way?" PJ does that too (minus the fairies), but you believe her. She gets dark without being silly, and she sings from her guts. I can see why she and Nick Cave dated.

Then again, I might be a tool for thinking PJ's different from some of these other ladies. But that's ok...