My heart broke realizing that Paul Banks, Interpol frontman, arbiter of "Sanfrooklyn" cool, was the argyle and black fur slab of pastrami in the horrific sandwich of Meredith Grey, Harvey Weinstein, and Helena Christensen (who Paul has unfortunately dated ever since I told him that this whole long distance thing just wasn't working for me). Not only did I find this distressing but the lady sitting next to me was clearly repulsed by all the spit-out Grande Espresso Truffle. It was like finding out there was no Santa.
It is easy to chide, with hipsterlike condescension, the commercial bastardization of indie music. This is a topic especially dear to my heart since I have been catching @#$% for years over my undying, unabashed adoration of Coldplay and everything Chris Martin has ever done (with the notable exception of Gwyneth Paltrow). But really, which musicians aren't commercial? Was Mozart a major sellout for writing Don Giovanni on commission? Was Andy Warhol wrong when he said that "making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art"? Was Bob Dylan wrong for telling the heckler who shouted "Judas" at him for playing electric guitar on Like A Rolling Stone "I don't believe you! You're a liar! Play it fucking loud!"? And where the hell would Arctic Monkeys be without all that nauseatingly interminable Internet promotion?
Clearly, if even Paul Banks, that coke-snorting, free-word-associating indie god of the nerd glasses, skinny suits, and endless Ian Curtis comparisons, can find himself front row at a Sean John (blech) show, with an odd black furball that I can only assume belongs to Helena between his legs, chatting up Hollywood's most powerful Jewish exec and congratulating Meredith on her 5,476,378th reunion with McDreamy, we are all going to have to embrace the fact that musical or any other type of "indieness" simply does not exist anymore, if it ever did in the first place.
In the end, all we can do is listen to what sounds good: nothing more, nothing less. And just like you shouldn't feel ashamed for not understanding why whoever bought Damien Hirst's $8 million shark tank deserved to have money in the first place, you shouldn't be ashamed to blast some Jack Johnson out of your car with the windows down every once in a while... but do check to see that you're in the right neighborhood first.
Some of these songs have been on Grey's Anatomy, Starbucks compilation CDs, in cheesy movie trailers and Apple commercials, overplayed on MTV, and pretty much all of them have been publicly repudiated (and privately adored) by cool people everywhere...
