What he's saying is that a lot of the more elitist punk fans make a big deal about working class status of musicians. And one of the criticisms of prog was the upper class backgrounds of the musicians involved.
That of course is a retarded reason to praise or criticise any musician. He was just pointing out the irony and hypocrisy of it.
I also think he has a point when it comes to technical skill. It seems you can do a bloated as f*ck double album or concept album, full of long instrumentals, crptic lyrics, sci fi themes and such. When clasically trained musicians with a lot of chops do it, it's pretentious.
But when post punk and post rock bands did essentially the same kinda thing, only with primitive musicianship. Then it's somehow acceptable. Critics and Pitchforkians alike eat it up.
You tell me how Public Image Ltd doing 10 minutes of atonal noise is any less pretentious than ELP doing toccatas on moog synthesizers. I could never figure that one out.
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