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a mini-rant about a Stereogum ‘news’ story about Grimes

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Here’s the Stereogum articleLet’s reprint its final paragraph. Fair use, and all. Apologies for missing the part where the writer compares her to an elf.

Of course, Grimes’ cyborg unicorn stance is an updated ideal on the continuum of the asexuality that a certain strain of indie rock values, up to and including twee. Ultimately, though, Grimes’ blog prominence is more rooted in a quest for meaning: We understand that our fractured existences are increasingly moving from the corporeal to the computer-ether, but as we’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to step back and see how we’ll be impacted. That Boucher seems perfectly manufactured from this cyber ether is certainly exciting on paper, but just like the constant feed that filters through on your dashboard, tomorrow there will be another song to reblog. In other words: We don’t believe you. You need more people. Dot gif.

And here’s Seattle Weekly music writer Eric Grandy‘s response on Facebook, reprinted with permission.

Some of the most impressively bad writing about Grimes the internet has yet produced. (And out of character for the author, afaict.) Accuses Grimes of being a tumblr, a robot, an elf; of not using “THE DARK ARTS OF WOMANNESS” properly; privileges the idea music with a “corporeal” presence over “wispiness”; finds “twee” an invalid vocal technique; includes the phrase “the paradoxical intertwining between nature’s ether and that of the web.” OOF!

The following comment from Eric also seems relevant.

 i mean, there’s a few things going on here, really. there’s the attempt at an objective/authoritative tone to disguise personal preference. (don’t like twee vox, personally? fine, but that doesn’t make them inherently retrograde or whatever.) there’s the inflated word-count for heft. there’s definitely the writing *around* the music.

Whatever. I guess the article is generating comment and hence traffic, which is the bottom line. Right? The very nature of the Internet encourages troll-writing: what better way to generate ‘controversy’ than print badly thought-out opinion pieces? (c.f. Scott’s article on Chuck) I should be coining it in. Right?

Here’s a review of the new Grimes album that just went up on Collapse Board. It’s more readable.

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