So that's what a pop snob looks like.

First off, I haven't ever really kept track, but I'm pretty sure six is the maximum number of comments any single post has received. So if commenting is the goal, apparently I should just be asking to fill in the large gaps in my musical knowledge.

Stephin Merritt thinks that "Zipadeedoodah" is the best tune in Song of the South, which is just a set of Uncle Remus stories made into a feature-length Disney film. Moreover, Outkast is "innocuous party music for suburban teenagers." Not a single black artist made it onto his Playlist for the New York Times, only eleven in this best-of-the-century list for Time Out, and he can't even get through the first few seconds of a Cee-lo song. (all via Sasha Frere-Jones.)

I guess it shouldn't really be any surprise. Merritt has always made me nostalgic for my Busby-Berkeley-loving, completely campy, but also somehow completely tasteful dance teacher of my youth. Once we stood next to each other in the wings, waiting for my entrance for a meditation accompanied by Palestrina hymn, watching another troupe in the throes of urban funk. He said, "it's too bad your stage identity is so shaped by mine, that you are forever consigned to middle-aged white manhood." My away-from-home father didn't do booty, he did ballet, and you just accepted that. The only bass that appears in Merritt's songs is his voice. So if you've got a problem, go listen to some baile funk, drop to the flo', have sweaty, raucous, get-thrown-around sex, and when you're ready for a perfectly structured pop creation with effortless verbal facility that's only slightly stuffy, come on back to the Magnetic Fields.