Song, by Toad

Right, disclaimers first. Apparently Sasha Frere-Jones is a respected music critic, so presumably this implies that he is not this bone-headed all the time. Also, given I’ve only read one of his articles I am in no position to judge his general output, but his recent excretion ‘A Paler Shade of White‘ is just bloody thick. He manages to shoehorn needless racist divisiveness, outdated stereotyping and a truly impressive ignorance of indie music into one article which is about… yes, the racial compartmentalisation of popular music.

Generally when people write nonsense like this they defend their idiotic statements by describing it as a ‘thought piece – intended to provoke reflection and debate’. The problem I have with this is that it is possible to justify pretty much any cretinous rubbish on this basis, no matter how infantile, shallow, facile or ignorant. This is not a thought piece, it is lazy and intellectually vacant, and were it not for the fact it happens to be in the New Yorker it would merit no more than a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, perhaps accompanied by a murmur of ‘fuckwit’ or some such similar response. Read the rest of this entry »