The Authentic Pretenders

This exhaustive/exhausting review of post-clever British indie rock manages to be pretty diverting and cool while also leaving the reader feeling more hopeless and beside-the-point than ever. The only thing that really seems worth saying in a judgmental fashion involves juxtaposing these elements of the piece:

As the author Dave Eggers, writing in Spin, observed, (about the Polyphonic Spree, but we can disregard this as his point holds true) nowadays audiences are hungry for bands that actually do something; who create a sense of mystery, glamour and showmanship, instead of crafting stodgy meat’n‘spuds rock with Everyman appeal.

And then:

Jack: ‘It’s not like we’re trying to be an intelligent band.’

George: ‘Yeah, that’s crap. I keep reading things like that and, personally, I don’t like it.’

They are, Jack explains, not about intelligence or science but magic.

And then:

The last word goes to Foals motormouth Yannis Philippakis. ‘The moment that the tag ‘this band is going to save rock’n‘roll’ started, that was when you knew rock’n‘roll was dead, man. Optimistically, our band in some small, quiet way stand for something that goes against the super-sexed, super-consumerist, over-packaged music industry and comes from an authentic place.’

Believe me, I get it, I get it, but I am beyond tired of the cite to Dave Eggers, and I weep for the future if the only way to ‘come from an authentic place’ nowadays is to ‘create a sense of mystery’ by being ‘about magic’.