Existence is altruism in indie rock

Go to Pitchfork's curated page for Kickstarter right now and you'll see five projects: a photography book on NYC block parties, a woodcut graphic novel, a film exploring the relationship between Chicago's architecture and its post-rock scene, letter-pressed greeting cards, and a webseries on African inventors. These are all interesting projects that are admirable in their worldliness and creativity, to be sure; what's odd, though, is that only one out of the five has anything to do with music, despite the caption at the top describing Pitchfork as "the web's most popular music resource." And even then, that one is actually a film about music, not a music project itself.

Now, I could be wrong, but my hunch is that the average person wants to know which projects interest the Pitchfork crew specifically in their capacity as music writers, not as ordinary individuals who follow a wide variety of interests. After all, other pages never stray too far from their general theme and purpose; Sundance mostly spotlights films, and RISD showcases art projects. Pitchfork is the only one displayed on the main page that's related to music in any way, so it's pretty obvious what Kickstarter was expecting from them. Don't get me wrong, Pitchfork can do whatever they want; I'm not arguing that they're obliged to meet anyone's expectations. I'm simply observing that they clearly feel no pressure to do so. And I think I know why.

In every other artistic medium such as film, dance, fine arts, or graphic design, the path beyond entry-level competence is still very much through academic institutions. Music seems to be the only medium in which independent artists are at no disadvantage, and may even hold an advantage, for possessing little formal training or acquired expertise. Most would argue that this is a good thing, and I don't disagree myself, but such institutions at least provide some measure of objectivity. There are too many musicians itching to get ahead, and in the absence of an objective system for ranking the music itself, one will inevitably arise based on other criteria: image, ideology, personal connections, and so forth. And one has.

But who'd argue? We support this scene and trust the indie labels to bring us the best music out there, yet we're given very little transparency regarding how they go about doing it, and most of us don't bother to ask. On top of that, if objective standards just don't exist, then there's little reason for them not to sign their friends and ideological compatriots. In fact, some respected labels like Sounds Familyre and Kill Rock Stars virtually declare such to be their mission statements. In other artistic mediums, the process of selecting independent artists for exposure is a weighty task often reserved for impartial juries. In indie rock, though, it's a simple matter of going to a party and looking around the room.

I'm reminded of a Simpsons episode in which a representative from a soulless toy company assures Lisa that all the profits go to benefit children, only to then follow with a disclaimer that, well, we're all somebody's child. Similarly, if you're in a scene that's all about supporting independent musicians, and everyone you know is an independent musician, how can you ever be criticised for being good to your friends? It's altruism, not favouritism or parochialism, and all of us in this scene have internalised this mentality to some degree. In indie rock, being who we are and doing what comes naturally to us are celebrated as noble qualities in their own right.

So Pitchfork may write about music, but their real job, the one for which they're most admired, is to be themselves. That's how they see it anyway, and clearly, they're not exactly wrong.

Update, August 23, 2011: It's still the same five projects, as of today. Their curated page hasn't changed in any way.

Artistic invention needs top-down models

I made a Kickstarter page to help create buzz for my upcoming Rosalind Franklin comic book and album, and now it's looking pretty likely that it'll fail, having reached only 25% of my stated goal of $2000. I didn't ask my friends and family for pledges beyond sending just a casual email, for the same reasons I hate badgering them to come to my shows. This ultimately hurt me, I think, not just by denying me visible momentum, but because earnest self-promotion is probably the kind of thing that Kickstarter's crew looks for before considering a project worthy of further endorsement. I bring none of this up out of resentment or disappointment. Rather, I've been thinking lately about top-down versus bottom-up models for music distribution and exposure, and what it all means for artistic inventors. My thoughts on Kickstarter happen to tie in rather nicely with this subject.

At any given time, there are eight projects being promoted on the Kickstarter main page, and twelve for each individual region and category. Click to see more, however, and the results immediately grow too numerous for any one person to reasonably sift through. And since each search is based on only one criterion, it's not really possible to narrow the choices down any further. I don't think this is an accident. There are too many truly amazing projects out there, and not enough donors to fund them all. If each of us were able to find the one project out of hundreds that speaks to us the most, our money would be spread too thin, and few projects would meet their goals. The present layout is probably the optimal way for the highest number of projects to be successfully funded.

Don't get me wrong, I'm confident that Kickstarter does its best to shine a spotlight on the most interesting and unique projects out there. But as more and more projects pour in, this role of curator becomes increasingly difficult, forcing them to step further aside and let things run their natural course. This seems to give the advantage to three categories of projects: inventions that serve an immediately useful purpose, works by professionals and established artists, and those by amateurs with enough friends and family who support their efforts. Not coincidentally, all three hold a natural advantage in the real world as well. So the more projects there are, the more Kickstarter becomes an impartial forum for conducting transactions between creators and consumers. Like CDBaby a decade earlier, its early adopters might remember it as a true game-changer, but for most of us from here on out, its reputation will be that of a trusted facilitator.

My aim isn't to criticise either of these fine resources for artists and creators. They just serve to illustrate my point that every top-down system ultimately settles into a bottom-up one, regardless of original intent. Now, I'm naturally predisposed towards top-down models myself, given my own artistically inventive tendencies. My music just isn't accessible enough on the surface to build grassroots momentum from the bottom up; it needs to be validated first from the top down by music writers and distribution agreements. So I recognise that my perspective on this matter might be biased. Even so, I believe this argument is perfectly reasonable: We all have to concede that history is the final judge, and history is very much a top-down affair. Historians ultimately have the final say over who gets remembered and which works are deemed relevant, with or without the consent of the general public.

So why is it so difficult to preserve top-down institutions, given their greater accordance with history? I think there are four reasons. First, as evinced by the Kickstarter example, bottom-up is really just the default situation in the absence of any input from a curator. The top-down mindset seeks to impose a value system, but extracting order from entropy requires constant effort; at some point it slips or gives up, and then everything returns to the default manner of ranking. Second, we all want to belong to the elite, yet none of us wants to be an elitist. (The English language, incidentally, is a beautiful example of bottom-up design!) So it isn't rare to see some of the biggest beneficiaries of top-down thinking in bygone years turn around to become its loudest critics today. (One word: Radiohead.)

The third reason is that one person's top-down might be another's bottom-up, and vice versa, so it's easy for one to be given the other's credit or blame. For example, which one aptly describes the major labels? If I understand today's indie rock scene correctly, the accepted narrative is that the corporate bigwigs shoving their generic music down our throats represent the top-down model, while those bands working hard to win over one new fan at a time represent the bottom-up. But for me as a college student in the 90s, it was the opposite: The music of the masses was what you heard on the radio. Meanwhile, I wanted to be like the snooty record store clerks who told me I had to check out Tortoise and Mogwai, just because. Good music wasn't determined by vote back then; it was decreed by a mysterious league of enlightened insiders. And I wasn't alone in feeling this awe.

The more I think about it, though, the more I realise that neither of these viewpoints captures the bigger picture, which is that both major labels and indie labels began as top-down systems, and both eventually subsided into bottom-up ones, just like Kickstarter. And there's no parity between top-down and bottom-up: The former turns into the latter, and never the other way around. So regardless of which approach anyone favours, I think one point is indisputable: Top-down systems are much more rare, and may even be extinguished long before new ones arrive to take up their mantle. This is worth pondering because each privileges a slightly different subset of the creative population. I mentioned earlier that certain projects hold a natural advantage in the real world. Technological invention makes our lives easier, for example, and we all crave artistic beauty, so we're inclined to reward creative pursuits in either of these directions. This is where top-down and bottom-up thinkers are in complete agreement.

Artistic invention, however, doesn't solve any problems; on the contrary, it makes things more complicated. And rather than work with familiar notions of beauty, it strives to create exotic and alien ones. So no one needs it, and understandably, most don't want it. History does reserve a high seat on its totem pole for artistic inventors, though, and top-down thinkers are more likely to consider the bigger picture of how the present fits into history. So they'll readily champion the tendency towards artistic invention, even if, like everyone else, they're not always enthusiastic about the results. This is the one issue, and perhaps the only issue, on which top-down and bottom-up thinkers disagree. But it's big enough to give us the fourth reason why top-down models are so difficult to sustain: Top-down thinking will always reserve the right to give the world what it neither needs nor wants. And that, to nearly everyone's sensibilities, is just plain crazy.

So what is there for artistic inventors to do? I don't know, but as we walk the earth in search of unspoiled top-down pastures, I think it's important to remember that we did sign up for this. Even if we never did read the fine print, this was always part of the agreement. Beyond that, I'm afraid there's probably not much else to do but sit back, keep trying out our half-baked ideas, write some long blog posts, and wait for history to give us our big break.

Update, August 10, 2011: The Kickstarter campaign failed. Again, I want to make it clear that I didn't write this post in bitterness or frustration. I just care deeply about the future of music, so I'm always contemplating how this business model or that social ideal will shape its progress. Up until now, I've been treating this blog as more of a repository for talking points. It's not that I've intentionally kept mum about it; rather, I've just been lackadaisical about making it public⁠— the same attitude I harbour towards anything not directly related to creating music. However, this carries the disadvantage and danger of keeping my thoughts locked inside an echo chamber. So, in the next few days I'm going to be more proactive about promoting this blog. Feel free to leave comments, especially if you think any of my ideas might warrant a rebuttal.

Academic respect for rock and hip hop?

I've met many people who believe it's only a matter of time before rock and hip hop come into academic respectability the way jazz finally did a couple generations ago. The thinking goes something like this: A new musical movement lowers the cost of entry for participation, drawing disdain from the mainstream establishment. But among this new influx of participants, a select few will find a way to stand out, thus raising overall standards of proficiency. Over time, they'll become so good at what they do that, despite its different aesthetics and approaches, the genre as a whole will win the respect of established musicians. Jazz now shares equal footing with classical as serious music; and as it went with jazz, so it'll eventually go for rock and hip hop.

I think comparing jazz to these two populist genres, however, ignores one crucial difference between them: The former, like classical, is product-oriented, while the latter are persona-driven. Classical music wasn't always free of biases regarding those behind the music, of course; in the past, opportunities for Jewish, female, and ethnic composers and performers were severely limited. However, this was symptomatic of the societies that spawned classical music, not the genre itself. Today, few such barriers exist, with many schools and conservatories actively courting women and minorities in the name of diversity. And jazz was a melting pot from the very beginning, since its focus was always on how well you played. Dave Brubeck and Bill Evans, both White men, faced no difficulties in being embraced by the genre's black pioneers.

In rock and hip hop, by contrast, it matters quite a bit who you are, where you're coming from, and how you go about doing things. And I'm not just talking about all the superficial fluff out there; I'm talking about the kind of music that gets critically acclaimed and is undeniably relevant and important to music history. Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet could only ever have been made by young, disaffected Black men. The members of Pavement could only ever have been young, unambitious White men. The former were angry about lacking empowerment and demanded to be heard; the latter casually disowned their natural privileges. For both bands, the power and appeal of their music had everything to do with who they were as individuals.

In other words, it's not just fans of Nickelback or Soulja Boy preventing rock and hip hop from joining the ranks of classical and jazz; it's also the Robert Christgaus and Chuck Klostermans of the world, along with people like you and me who recognise that identity is central to the message in these genres. We want to know about Dizzee Rascal's troubled youth, Liz Phair's feminist views, and Daniel Johnston's schizophrenia. Their stories don't just bring these artists to our attention; they actively infuse their music with greater meaning, helping them reach deeper into us. We don't want to see them crowded out by hordes of middle-aged, gray-haired men who possess the advantages of time and money to cultivate superior technical skills and musical craftsmanship.

But this is exactly what we'd need to happen for rock and hip hop to come into academic respectability as jazz has done. And no fan of rock or hip hop today believes the tradeoff would be worth it. So let the academies have their music, and give the masses theirs; interested listeners can make the effort on their own to trek back and forth between the two camps. Because at the end of the day, we really don't want them to meet; we really do want to preserve rock and hip hop as refuges where youth, image and backstory will always reign supreme. We just don't want to be caught saying so.

Indie rock's place in music history

Let's say you know nothing about classical music, and you ask me to recommend a good composer for you. Suppose I were to respond, "Well, there was this guy two hundred years ago who was really well liked by everyone in the Hamburg scene. He was always promoting upcoming shows, and he'd stick around for hours afterwards, signing autographs and chatting with fans. Oh, and get this: He started his own music publishing company, because he wanted to empower himself and others as independent artists!" If I were to say all that, I think you'd look at me like I had sponge cake for brains. These aren't traits we typically value in long-dead composers.

And yet, it's openly acknowledged and celebrated that building up a following and being self-reliant in matters of promotion is precisely what gets a band noticed and respected in the indie rock scene. The priorities that set indie rock proudly apart from the popular mainstream, in other words, are also counterintuitive to music history as a whole. If a band aspires to get signed to an indie label, they're expected to expend enormous amounts of time and energy on doing things, and being things, that really don't matter much to the greater world of people who listen to and appreciate music across oceans, generations, and ideological divides.

It's not that actual music is incidental to indie rock; rather, the goodwill that a band naturally generates by being out and about invariably carries over into our assessment of their music. Objective standards provide a mechanism to counter this tendency, but a scene like indie rock that rejects such standards will grow to cheer it on instead, comfortable in its assertion that a band's artistic worth is inextricable from its likability. So if one runs an indie label, and one likes Band A better than Band B as individual people, then one will attend more of their shows, one will hear and like their music more, one will judge them to be the better band, and one will ultimately sign them over Band B. And since supporting indie labels is how bona fides get earned, we're left with relatively few past instances in which these judgments have been openly called into question.

But how long can this kind of support last before it finally begins to erode? After all, the difference between Band A and Band B is still a blind taste test for the general public. We'll always choose Band A over the Band B we know nothing about since they didn't get signed, of course, but we don't live in a vacuum; all of us know some amazingly talented Band B working our local scene. Overall, they probably number in the tens of thousands. Check out the most recent addition to any indie label's roster, though, and chances are it won't be readily obvious what advantages their music possessed to have vaulted them over the tens of thousands of other bands equally worthy of consideration. Don't get me wrong, they're almost always pretty good. But the same could be said about all the forgotten bands snapped up by the major labels in the heady 90s. Remember Chalk FarM?

Back then, the major labels were casting a wide net, signing every band out there who'd worked hard to build up a regional following, hoping to find just a few who could make it big and recoup all their investments, with a tidy sum added to boot. The rest had their fins sliced off before being thrown back into the sea. The majors were hoping to make a killing; by contrast, the indies in these uncertain times are simply trying to make a living. Signing bands who signal a can-do spirit towards self-promotion minimises their risk of losing money. So it's easy to sympathize with their struggles to stay afloat; nobody will be penning an indie-label counterpart to Steve Albini's rant against the major labels anytime soon.

And yet, their respective criteria for choosing which bands to sign aren't really all that different, are they? And as such, couldn't the same be suggested about their respective places in music history?

A resistible Canaanite's request for crumbs

I don't pay much attention to what's happening in indie rock these days, but I still keep tabs on Bon Iver. Justin Vernon is like my doppelgänger of sorts: Heartbroken and feeling like life had reached a crisis point, he and I each withdrew into seclusion to write and record an emotionally cathartic album. Our stories kind of diverge from there, of course. He got signed to Jagjaguwar; I got rejected by their sister label, Secretly Canadian. His album made it onto numerous "best of" lists; mine sold something like fifteen copies, mostly to friends and family. His latest album is now receiving the same level of critical acclaim as his first; I've spent the past five years unsuccessfully trying to convince music critics that I exist.

I think his music sounds pretty enough, so this post isn't meant to criticise Bon Iver in any way. Rather, it's a commentary on the Pitchfork review of his latest album, in which Mark Richardson writes, "There's something irresistible about the thought of a bearded dude from small-town Wisconsin retreating, heartbroken, to a cabin to write some songs…" Some of you may remember my thought experiment from last month, in which I asked you to imagine the music of Sufjan Stevens and Beirut being made by people whose physical appearance probably wouldn't lead anyone to presume an indie rock affiliation. As you've probably already guessed, this post continues where that one left off.

Richardson isn't arguing that image and identity should matter in indie rock, but his statement reveals an ingrained comfort with the notion that some physical appearances and provenances possess greater myth-making potential than others. Maybe this doesn't bother women from small towns or bearded dudes from big cities too much, but we might ask whether there exists some point beyond which an outsider's personal identity is just too distant or foreign for this scene to recognise them as one of its own. To be clear, I'm not saying Bon Iver doesn't deserve the attention and respect he gets. I just think we can also sympathise with those who don't start out with his advantages.

Now, some might argue that music, like romance, isn't and shouldn't be concerned with providing equal opportunities. It's about what we as listeners and lovers want for ourselves, and nothing more needs to be said or defended. I understand this. But what people want can also expand and mature over time, so those of us who aren't presently wanted can still work hard to build up our merits, knowing the day will come when those efforts finally mean something to somebody. We all understand this as well. That's why, as a short Asian boy, I've learned to be gracious and not gripe about my lesser fortunes. And that's why, as a songwriter, I try to write songs that showcase objective mastery and aren't vulnerable to the subjective tastes of any particular time or place.

Well, here's where it gets tricky. So far, indie rock hasn't appreciated any of my efforts in the latter department, and now I have to wonder whether this modus operandi of mine will always backfire in a scene that values humble sincerity and frowns upon calculated effort. But really, how else could I possibly do it? I'm not a bearded dude from small-town Wisconsin, and there's nothing irresistible about the thought of someone like me doing anything, period⁠— much less retreating heartbroken to a cabin. So if it's plainly obvious that I don't know how to go about things, rest assured: I'm not totally naive, either. The reason I don't bother to make the kind of music that indie rock never fails to appreciate… is because I have good reason to suspect it wouldn't be appreciated coming from me.

Here's a personal anecdote. When Liz and I left New York, we shipped a lot of our stuff to Seattle through Amtrak. Now, their website doesn't give too many details, so when we got there, the charges turned out to be more than what we'd been quoted. I tried to stay good-natured and compliant, but Liz started sulking and shooting daggers from her eyes⁠— and amazingly, this is what worked. The poor guy let us go with our original quotes. It then occurred to me that we all instinctively do things in ways that work best for us. Now, I'm a short Asian boy, and Liz is an even shorter White girl with a Southern drawl, so we both get walked upon with some regularity. But no one likes to make Liz upset, whereas I'm only an amusing clown when I get upset. Thus we've learned to react very differently to the same situation.

So, getting back to indie rock, I'd wager that few in this scene would lament my current lack of recognition, given my insistence on creating an unwelcoming monstrosity filled with Easter mondegreens, doublespeaker rhymes, and emotions buried beneath thick layers of sardonic wit. But I'm just not someone who can hole up in a cabin for months, laying down my unadorned whispers into something painfully earnest and vulnerable, and expect to be loved for it. That wouldn't work for me. I've been who I am my whole life, I've seen what my identity signifies to others, and I'm pretty self-aware as an individual, so you'll just have to trust me on this one. If it does work for some, I'm only glad to hear it; I wouldn't want to live in a world incapable of spawning Bon Iver, Joanna Newsom, Daniel Johnston, or any other artists making the kind of music that only those like them could ever be loved for making.

In turn, everything I do is done with an intuitive understanding of what works best for someone like me. Now, given that my life's journey up to the present has been an endless series of sputters and false starts, it's obvious that my intuition is oftentimes downright wrong. But in my defence, I really don't have many precedents to work with, much less goodwill to inherit. If, by some miracle, Mark Richardson were ever to review a Bobtail Yearlings album, he wouldn't be tapping into any universal sentiment about short Asian boys from California. And so I struggle over and over to create new archetypes from scratch, despite my perfect record of failure thus far, because creating new archetypes is all there is for me to do. It doesn't get me any love here and now, true⁠— but it's the only way I can do it if I'm ever to be loved at all. Tomorrow's music historians will certainly be sympathetic to this predicament of mine, and I think some of today's indie rock fans would too, given the chance to know about it.

The question is, will they ever get to know about it? That's not my decision to make, unfortunately. I'll leave you here with a parable. Jesus only preached to his fellow Israelites, so when a Canaanite woman persisted in begging him to heal her daughter, he told her, "It isn't right to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs." The woman replied, "Yes, but even dogs eat crumbs that fall from the master's table." To which Jesus then said, "Woman, you have great faith! Your wish is granted." My point is that I'm not looking to be anyone's favourite here. What I'm asking for really amounts to just table scraps, and I've certainly proven my persistence. Hopefully, one of these bearded dudes around here will rise up to be my messiah!

Rise of the comic book album

When a band is established and widely respected, fans will spend hours parsing lyrics that were written in a minute. But if you're a complete unknown, no one will spend a second bothering to understand a line that took you days to write. When it comes to discovering and judging new bands, most of us are only willing to give a single perfunctory listen at best, all the while asking ourselves just one question: "Do I dig it, here and now?" This isn't a judgment of anyone's priorities; I do it as well. Time is precious, after all, and there are just too many other bands out there waiting in line to be heard.

But in any case, this means that, when you're just starting out as a band, you're at a huge disadvantage if you aim to create music laden with deeper meaning that's evident only after repeated listens. Time and effort are finite resources, after all, and while you're busy investing them in things you won't be given any credit for as an unknown band, plenty of other bands are happy to focus solely on those features that are immediately visible at the surface. In the end, they're the ones who have the best chance to become viral sensations on Fluxblog and Stereogum, not you. In fact, you're really not part of the competition at all.

I learned this the hard way after getting zero critical reception from my forays into doublespeaker rhyme on Yearling's Bobtail. So for this next album, I vowed to drastically simplify my songwriting, and I think I've been pretty successful for the most part. Still, I found myself writing lines like, "As a clamp for cords ties the slack in her gown." Rosalind Franklin had ovarian cancer, you see, yet ironically, she was placed in the hospital's obstetrics wing. So, you know, umbilical cord clamp, emaciated body in maternity gown… In theory, a listener paying full attention would make these connections by the end of the song. However, like I said, when you're an unknown band, such thoughtful listeners don't actually exist for you in reality.

And that's how I came up with the idea for this comic book album. With pictures arranged in sequence, the meaning behind my songs can be readily understood upon first listen, while the music itself remains perfectly uncompromised. At the same time, the sheer presence of a competently drawn, full-colour comic book might help to signal the album's seriousness to record labels and music critics in ways that all the bluster of an accompanying onesheet never will. Of course, this isn't just a marketing ploy, but an artistic endeavour in its own right as well. And thank heavens for that, since I'm the nobody that I am today at least partly because I find unabashed attempts at self-promotion so unpalatable.

I don't plan to make any more comic book albums beyond this first one, though. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, it's challenging, it makes me a more well-rounded individual, but man… drawing panel after panel is really, really time-consuming! Plus, beyond artistic satisfaction, I really only have one purpose for it in mind, and that's to get my foot in the door. So if my little experiment succeeds, then there won't be any impetus left to keep doing it, since there are so many other uncharted paths to explore. And should I really want another comic book album to my name, I'll just storyboard it and use my newfound leverage to hire an illustrator.

Anyway, if I can set a precedent by getting the indie rock community's attention as an unknown band with this comic book album, I foresee two things happening. First, the playing field will be just a little more level for music that's less conducive to live performance. Good live bands have always held the natural advantage and always will, of course, but that advantage has become untenably lopsided in recent years due to changes in how music is distributed and promoted. Setting music to sequential art won't counter the imbalance for every innovative songwriter out there, but it could help a few.

And second, the notion of how unknown bands pay their dues might finally be expanded to include the time-consuming effort that goes into writing thoughtful and innovative songs. In the world of indie rock, respect is earned by winning over a new crowd every night, not by sitting alone hunched over a desk for hours. But no one in the world of comic books feels this way. And this isn't a minor issue. How much we credit a band with having paid their dues enormously affects how charitably we approach their music and how much we're driven to impress it upon others. So those few of us dedicated to songcraft at the expense of opportunities for performance have a vested interest in allying ourselves with those of a like temperament in different fields. It's always good to have strength in numbers, and those like us in the world of comics are especially many.

Subjectively better versus objectively better

Indie rock is largely about discounting hard work and cultivated talent in favour of more intangible qualities. No one here has a problem with this, since we're all aware that many of the most admired works of the past century followed this principle. But the thing is, the default advantages associated with work and talent are not arbitrarily handed out by some overseer; they're intrinsic to the very nature of work and talent themselves. In other words, if you keep working hard and developing your talents, you'll eventually accrue enough advantage to overcome the disadvantage of anyone else's personal tastes being disposed against your favour. At that point, you'll be the better band by all possible measures.

And if the scene continues to ignore you after that, it doesn't really matter, because objective talent can steadily deliver in a way that subjective aesthetics simply cannot. You'll eventually make it, even if it takes much longer than expected. Once that happens, though, everyone loses. You end up looking bad for competing with bands below your paygrade. And they look bad because in a scene that's all about celebrating the underdog, suddenly you're shown to be the real underdog, not them. No one ends up looking good, obviously, so it's in everyone's best interest not to let this kind of thing happen too often.

Thus, we should keep in mind that in a scene where subjectively better bands are valued above objectively better ones, an objectively better band might still prove to be the better band overall. We'll find out in a year or so whether my argument is correct. And if I'm wrong, well, you probably won't chance to read this blog post to begin with!