Hi Miles,
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So I wanted to write to you about the Pitchfork piece you wrote [“Indie Rock’s Not Dead,” July 20], since it didn’t ring true. I think that you correctly identified one of the big downsides of Pitchfork culture: the idea that, because the tent is now so wide, everything can potentially smack of tokenism.
OK, I didn’t see Clipse (missed Saturday due to a Baby Teeth show in Madison), but it seems like their “thug-posturing” is the work of an act that knows full well that they’re indie-rock tokens, and doing everything possible to pander to their audience, to the point of turning the whole affair into a modern-day minstrel show. Similarly, Of Montreal (whose new record I think is absolutely brilliant) didn’t trust their own material to hold up live, and instead watered down the depressive lyrics with a tawdry stage show that, again, spoke to their fear of getting consumed by a “too-much-too-quick” cultural shift.
