Readers are pushing back HARD against the article I linked to about “Is MGMT like the Goldman Sachs of music?”

Let’s address reader JC‘s concerns:

David Rees, I don’t write to blogs… until now because that quirky article about mgmt you linked to is just so…   

I can’t say I have a horse in this football game.  The “Kids” song was fine, but I have no idea where mgmt come from or why they have made this Leor man so mad.  But his reasons for being mad are kind of crazy.  As far as I can tell, those reasons are:

1.) Musicians who are private school educated and upper middle class are bad.  So David Bowie is bad.

Correct. David Bowie sucks. Who listens to him? “China Girl,” are you serious? With the ching-chong-ching melody? Oh wait, sorry, “Ziggy Stardust” is great … yeah right … who wants to hear songs about a transsexual spaceman? That makes no kind of sense … NEXT–

2.) Being a spoiled neo-hippie surfing in Malibu is bad.  Does that implicate Brian Wilson?  Or is it OK that he’s an OG hippie?  Why the hostility to coastal living?

Correct! Brian Wilson (singer of the Beach Boys) is HORRIBLE. I don’t care that his melodies are clever inversions of Bach minuets, or whatever musical trick he pulled 1,000 times to impress geeks. The Beach Boys suck. “No, you don’t understand how innovative they were. They used a theremin!” Please, a theremin? The dumbest musical instrument ever invented? An instrument so stupid, you don’t even have to touch it to make noise? And the noise it makes sounds like a woman who’s not a good singer. Who cares? I know they used a theremin in the theme to Star Trek … news flash: everything about that show sucked.

3.) Alternative rock is just like mainstream rock, but marketed to a different demographic.  Did we just figure that out?  Is this a music column?

There’s nothing to make fun of in refuting this point, so I’ll ignore it. NEXT–

4.) You can substitute “MGMT” for “Goldman Sachs” in a scary paragraph.  You can kind of do that with “high-fructose corn syrup” or “oxycontin” or “oxygen” too.

Point to JC; this made me laugh. NEXT–

5.) Post-modernity and not playing instruments are bad things.  So we shouldn’t listen to DJ Spooky or Girl Talk.

Reader JC, are you only now realizing that you shouldn’t listen to DJ Spooky and Girl Talk? Welcome to Grown-Up World, enjoy your stay. NEXT–

As far as I can tell, this all adds up to mean that good music comes from public school educated, politically conscious musicians from non-coastal areas who play their own instruments.  So I think The Roots are probably OK, though I’m not exactly sure where they went to school.

The Roots are not OK; they are the worst rap band of all time and I’m so glad they’re on the Jimmy Fallon show because it means everything on Earth is finally getting organized according to suckiness.

I’m totally down with this guy not liking mgmt because he thinks they suck.  Does he need to awkwardly force his dislike into a greater social commentary of our time?  He could have drawn a picture of Calvin peeing on them, and everybody would be happier.

Advantage JC. “Calvin peeing on them,” LOL. His points are well taken. The MGMT article is not a model of airtight argumentation, but it resonated with me (ooh, maybe I’m a theremin!).

Something about that group comes across as a little too skeevy, a little too “faux-primitive-raver-hippie-rich-kids,” a little too Dash Snow. (Dash Snow was a famous cocaine addict and ‘artist’ who was adored by underemployed young people living in curated squalor in New York City. Oh and by the way, he totally died when he overdosed on drugs. So yay for that.)

And that’s it for today’s installment of “I Am Secretly 80 Years Old!” Until next time, stay off my lawn.