Wes Phillips

Honestly, every time somebody says anything along the lines of "all of x music" sounds the same, he or she is expressing his or her stone ignorance about that subject. I don't care whether it was me dissing disco back in the '70s, my red-diaper—baby cohort slagging punk for being "decadent" in the early '80s, or Ken Kessler dismissing classical collectors for wanting to experience multiple interpretations of the same work at HE2007—it's an admission of one's limited experience and lack of interest. Nothing more, nothing less.

Worse, though, Brooks cites Sasha Frere-Jones' thoughtful "A Paler Shade of White", saying that it noted "that indie rock is now almost completely white, lacking even the motifs of African-American popular music." Umm, no, what Frere-Jones posed was a far more complicated question: "Why did so many white rock bands retreat from the ecstatic singing and intense, voicelike guitar tones of the blues, the heavy African downbeat, and the elaborate showmanship that characterized black music of the mid-twentieth century?"

A different kettle of fish, you'll admit.

But what SFJ then went on to do—and this is the part that young fogeys like Brooks don't get at all—was use this Internet thingy to conduct a dialog with, get this, his readers (here, here, and here), that expanded upon and clarified what he was attempting to say.

In one article, Brooks managed to prove he doesn't read for comprehension, doesn't get out much, and has seldom met a complex subject he couldn't miss the point of—pretty much the trifecta for an OpEd writer. That we also suspect he also doesn't get the Internet was just icing on the cake.