—

Nitsuh Abebe, in Slate.

Don’t you hate it when someone with a big audience says something really stupid about something you really like? You end up having to defend the thing from charges that that particular description of the thing is stupid. And in your head you’re thinking, “I KNOW it’s stupid! It’s not my fault someone with a bigger audience than me said that shit!”

Sigh.

(via andrewtsks)

More problematic is that the quote is essentially lazy hipster bashing. To say a band has boutique (read: niche) appeal is to say that it isn’t mainstream. U2, Coldplay, Rihanna don’t really have boutique/niche appeal, they are the prototypical mainstream act so then looking at any act that is outside that sphere is to essentially be looking at something that has “boutique appeal.” The charge here is that Liturgy are a prototypical “hipster metal” band in that they appeal to that subset of people in Brooklyn who would otherwise buy into those other artisinale products which at the moment signify “hipster.” 

So what the fuck of it then? What about that charge lessens the band? Is it shorthand for some notion that the band is inauthentic, that their sound seems constructed to appeal to a set of people rather than an organic outgrowth of their influences? So fucking unpack that argument. Using boutique appeal + Brooklyn to diminish the record seems like a tongue in cheek, overly lazy tact and leaves little of substance to discuss.