no, but its canonization as an indie classic is certainly Pitchfork's lamentable responsibility. if you haven't noticed yet, their influence is enormous and widespread on the indie community in general. and their seal of approval is equivalent to a mark of success for a band. it's a broken system but that's how it's been since the early 00s.

So if a Pitchfork writer gives an album a good review it's automatically bad?

did i say that?

No. What I'm getting at though is that an artist doesn't control whether or not Pitchfork likes them. I think that the majority of people will like an album if it's good. Yes there are the hipsters that like it simply to look cool, but that shouldn't ruin the album or it's honest fans.

See I associate indie with the generic mainstream music that comes out and pretends it's underground. The whole "indie" name has been tainted by a relation to a specific sound. People tend to forget all extreme metal is released on independent labels, yet no one would jump to call them indie. And as such the usage of the word indie is now, and probably always will be related to the sound of the band, rather than the actual label that they're on. Which is a shame, because it means a lot of bands that don't adhere to that certain sound will probably be ignored.

It was on 4chan naturally :pimp:

It saddens me that Neutral Milk Hotel and In The Aeroplane Over The Sea will now always be associated with Pitchfork and hipsterdom. To many times have I been called a hipster for saying it's my favorite my favorite album of all time. I was freaking twelve when I first heard it, I didn't even use the computer unless it for typing English assignments. I find it fascinating that even though even though it came in 90's, they managed to sell it anew to entire new audience. People give Pitchfork and blogs in general to much power, both the people who love them and hate them. It's to much hyping and then nothing but backlash and "UGHGHGH Why do you people like this band? Stupid hipsters!" Sorry, I felt like ranting.

Anyways, as for the original post, even though it's making fun of some of my favorite bands (well, NMH, Animal Collective and Radiohead, not so much MGMT) I thought it was pretty funny.

How would one band pretend it's underground?
That's not the band's fault because it's the fans and reviewers that initiate the elitist shit.
I agree, it's dumb that indie produced a sound rather than just not being signed, but that doesn't mean that the music itself should be judged.
I can understand it being an indiefail but still after all this time, no one has ever given a valid explanation of what "hipster" really means.
This is a funny thread, but somewhere in the joke, you pushed it too far.

I don't know why some people are getting so upset over this. I have music by all the bands being parodied here. Some I like more than others but I don't openly hate any of them.

I think this thread just goes to show exactly whats wrong with music these days. Too many acts being hailed as something they're not, blowing any sort of good qualities these bands have out of proportion to the point where you wonder if they're even talking around the same record.

It's always 'now! now! now!' , everything has to be mindblowingly brilliant about a first album, And if it's not most of the time they're written off after just 2 or 3 albums. Gone are the days when a band could learn their trade in relative obscurity honing their craft in both songwriting and playing. I mean aside from a one off novelty hit single nobody gave a **** about Thin Lizzy until their 6th album. And the same was true of a lot of bands like them at that time.

I don't blame the bands for any of all this, I blame the music press for having to sensationalise everything. I mean Oracular Spectacular was voted by the NME as the album of 2008 and given 8/10.

Lets think about that, 8/10. That means the NME think that album deserves a place among the top 20% of every album ever made ever. Which of course is ridiculous for a blatantly average electronica album.

That's why there's so much crappy music around, people are satisfied to overhype albums that are nothing more than average.

Bands don't even have to make an effort anymore to be praised to high heaven, just look at In Rainbows for proof of that.

Two of the 4 parodied bands have actually traversed a fairly long road before coming to a point where their albums were called masterpieces. Of course, I don't see how that's relevant seeing as how there were and are bands which are able to produce a spectacular debut.

Also, this In Rainbows goading it becoming really tiresome. There's a very substantial mass of critics and regular people who praise that album, so unless you can find some sort of mathematical proof your opinion is more correct than others' you need to shut the fuck up and move on already.