Wednesday, July 18, 2007

One final thought about the Pitchfork Music Festival ...

One final thought about the Pitchfork Music Festival ...

My Pitchfork Musical Festival pieces have brought the usual amount of negative commenters out of the woodwork, slamming hipster / indie kids and their ilk. The thing that these folks are missing is that the whole hipster thing is largely a suburban myth. Sure, I saw a few kids in gym shorts, or white belts, or leg-warmers; but mostly I saw folks in shorts and t-shirts that looked just like every other person you would pass on the street on any given day.

The truth of the matter is that the bands Pitchfork trumpets aren't really underground anymore. Heck, Pitchfork isn't even underground, and one could make the argument that now they're actually part of the establishment. And the people that read Pitchfork, well, they extend far beyond the independent record store clerks and late-night club kids. In fact they look an awful lot like you, and me, and that guy working out at the gym next to you, and the girl working the customer service line at that law firm. Indie rock is now mainstream, and there's no escaping that simple truth. So for folks to blindly rip on a music festival largely, it appears, based on their perceptions of who bought tickets, seems ignorant, at best.

No comments: