Simplicity, maturity, and resolve

Chris Ott, in the Village Voice, writes:

"Over the last few years, my peers in pop criticism have celebrated the dourest, most difficult or deranged music they can find. In the anxious universe of early adoption, we seem to have decided that complexity and severity equal authenticity: We need to prove we "get" the death-dirge apocalypso fusion of Bowie/Byrne protégés TV on the Radio and the Arcade Fire, and the ill- defined nihilism of Deerhoof. But rather than question what these musicians are moaning about—and more to the point, whether their tangible conceits are sound—critics uniformly punt, hiding behind a cloud of subservient hyperbole. They are all "impossible to describe," "genre- defying," "miraculous," and "completely original" if you believe Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and . . . MSNBC. Not only do the aforementioned bands hail from an established lineage, they are ultimately descended from the same progenitor, and are all shooting for the conceptual moon, which leaves critics a larger slate.

Simplicity, maturity, and resolve are abhorrent qualities now, polarized to pointlessness as hokey Springsteen nostalgia—the deplorable new Killers album, Canada's overripe working-class romantics the Constantines, or cloying pastiche like Sufjan Stevens. You don't hear stoic rock songs—classic rock, blues rock, even powerpop—about love and loss and wonder anymore, by singers who acknowledge their mistakes and move on. Rather we wallow in petulant regret, holding our cuts open, staring bug-eyed at the blood, never realizing that shock is a form of paralysis."

i think there's a whole lotta truthiness here. do you agree?

xo j.v.