I Thought The Violent Roadkills Were Much Better Before They Sold Out

From the Wire’s review of the latest Squarepusher album:

I once knew an Underground Resistance obsessive who, whenever I bought up anything on Warp – Plaid, Plone, Boards of Canada, even Autechre – would shake his head and just murmer “kitsch… kitsch”

An admirable sentiment, I’m sure you’ll agree. Trashing another person’s musical tastes, especially accusing their beloved musicians of “selling out”, “going commercial”, or worst of all, horror or horrors, making music that might appeal to teenage girls.

I know because I used to do it. When I was at school, a film called The Doors was released and proved to be inexplicably popular amongst my peer group and others who weren’t even there for goodness sake. The music became popular too.

Research in those pre-interweb days was tricky, but it was very satisfying when someone asked me if I liked the Doors to reply dismissively “Oh no, I much prefer Jefferson Airplane.” This was a tricky choice since they did turn into 80s mulleted stadium nightmares of course. Far better to plump for Pearls Before Swine. Or, even better, the Godz. (though they often got confused with metallers of the same name)

This got boring for me quickly though and I eventually went completely the other way in an irritating attempt to be different. I remember once singing the praises of rubbish 3rd-rate Steps rip-off Scooch. (before they sold out and did Eurovision of course)

Which is just silly.