Commentary on Pitchfork's Coverage of CMJ

Judging by their coverage, the Pitchfork correspondents are wowed by foreign bands (particulary if they sing in French), bands wearing ironic costumes (or ironic hipster fashionistas) and anybody standing behind a mixing board. On the other hand they're not so wowed by bands on Zach Braff soundtracks or bands from LA. The only LA band they've mentioned so far is the Cold War Kids who they (very predictably) made fun of for not meeting their hip standards (see above).

"Then the skinny-jeaned Christians of Cold War Kids staggered around for a bit, their singer coming off like an embittered Taylor Hicks yelling at you from the next barstool. (The band name denotes that they grew up amid crisis and drama, man.)"

What's most telling (at least to me) is that they're totally concerned with the superficial. The writer (Nitsuh Abebe) once again brings up their Christianity (yeah - and so are 80% of Americans). Probably a safe bet that Abebe's not a Christian, but maybe he took some comparitive religion course while he was studying at Northwestern that makes him more qualified than I (who attended public school) to define people by their religion. Abebe also mentions they were wearing skinny jeans. How dare they wear skinny jeans. They should cover their faces in masks, or use fake blood, or strip off their shirts or wear leggings (see other Pitchfork correspondent photos). Then he compares the lead singer to Taylor Hicks. I'm not familiar enough with Hicks' voice or performance style to know if this is accurate or not, but something tells me that Abebe isn't all that familiar with Hicks either. To Abebe, Hicks represents the anti-cool. Comparing a young, earnest band to Hicks (the anti-cool) is so gratifying to Abebe. You see, Abebe likes the Animal Collective and Junior Boys and Broadcast and Art Brut and Jeans Team. Jeans Team is so fucking good and off the radar that I've never even heard of them. Abebe's last dagger is to make fun of their name. He'll happily listen to a band pretentious (they're Brits, they're just being cheeky) enough to name themselves after an art movement.