Buddyhead Sticks A Pitchfork In It

Apoplectic rock site Buddyhead has enlisted its writer Chip Norman to craft its official response, if you want to call it that, to Pitchfork’s rundown of the top 500 singles of the decade. Surprise: He hates it! A few choice terms from the piece: “a sycophantic hegemony”; “a time where every shitty animal band was not merely popular, but each its own little zoo-themed, techno Elvis”; “Vampire Weekend is not better than Pulp.” (OK, he’s right on that last point. But he’s wrong on pretty much everything else, especially his constant denigration of Kelly Clarkson. Dude, c’mon. Fight the real enemy.) And the first comment, instead of going with the old-school exclamation “FIRST111111!!” exhorts the killing of all hipsters, which, sigh. Can we just say, at this point, that people who derisively use the term “hipsters” are even more predictable and annoying than the vague, amorphous mass of whiteness that they claim to be against? Because a) the term “hipster” has really come to mean “a person whose tastes make me feel sorta-insecure about the righteousness of mine, even if I don’t want to admit it”; and b) MOST OF THE PEOPLE WHO ARE MAKING FUN OF “HIPSTERS” ARE “HIPSTERS” THEMSELVES. I know, it’s some “enemy of my enemy is my friend” logical mindfuckery going on right there, but if you think about it for more than half a second, it’s the truth: The internecine squabbling about which bands are better; the making fun of fashion; the separating of people into “lemmings” and “cool people”—who’s guilty of that, exactly? Is it the people who are called hipsters, or is it the people who are arguing against them? Or is it both? Or everyone? (There’s a reason that Heathers resonates enough for it to be turned into a TV show after all these years, even if said reasoning is probably going to result in something pretty dreadful.) I mean, give Buddyhead credit for something: Its stinky blotch of Internet puke got its head honchos some extra Beastie Boys ad revenue. It’s already garnered 55-plus responses on a slow-ass August day when the possibility of a Kings Of Leon remix album seems like it might have a drop of “newsworthiness” to wring from it. But next time you’re going to take a list to task for being something that offends your sensibility, it might help to have an argument more coherent than “lol I don’t get LCD Soundsystem, are they like Sufjan? Klosterman!! NERDY GLASSES?!?” And if you’re going to cite a publication’s “credibility falling down like [a very unpleasant and pretty misogynist image],” you may not want to use a review from the late ’90s as part of your salvo, because your message? Turns out to sound a hell of a lot like the “lol pitchfork sucks” sounds you made back in the day. Oh, and one last thing: You would probably be taken more seriously if you took the time out from your “rant” to at least spell “Britney Spears” correctly. It’s called Google, dude. She’s pretty findable there. Lil Wayne 2000: Pitchfork Snorts A Decade [Buddyhead]