Rather than address the article herein immediately, why not a few words of wisdom from Reynolds' prototype ... the Brother Jones article:

"There’s no point in faulting Arcade Fire for what it doesn’t do; what’s missing from the band’s musical DNA is missing from dozens of other popular and accomplished rock bands"

"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?"

"The cadence of African slave hollers shaped the rising and falling patterns of blues singing, but there is still debate about the origins of the genre’s basic chord structure—I-IV-V"

All I can say is WOW... the very article presuming to critique 'britpop' (the term au currant) or segregationist grounds manages, in the first few paragraphs to evoke genetics, black extravagance and slaves... A remarkably similar rhythmic pitter-patter to that of America's finest anti-miscegenists and separatists.

Perhaps luckily, the author here throws out his own grenade, rehashing the same allusions of black music having great 'feel' but then spends 3 pages listing off songs with some rather short hand elaboration what's to like or dislike about them. Fantastic! The article feels like a meth freak flapping around your room, smoking and jabbering on regarding any particular thought that happens to bubble up. None of them have any merit whatsoever, of course, as this is, after all, a mind-bent drug bunny. The fact that most postings here pin the article down to the race topic may illustrate the weight race plays on our minds in our particular society, but I tend to think it is really as much an attempt to contrive coherency our of scatter brain nonsense.

I much rather would have preferred an article discussing Kraut Mod Rock, German racism and fecal matter (sheisser porn) forming a triangle of German insecurity regarding their own bodies resulting from centuries of instability and partition as well as the birth pains of Bismark's consolidation. 99 Red balloons certainly reflects the optimism as well as the potential backslide inherent in the new, multi-racial German society....... ?

Is that the jist of your post Anon? "The internet is a big place"? And those of us who would like to see a little more diverse music coverage on Salon should go elsewhere? Like where, Anon, Soweto or some world music Bantustan? Why should we be ghettoized because our musical tastes are a little broader than yours?

Fact is, we happen to LIKE Salon, you arrogant, dissmissive dickhead, and we'd like to see its musical coverage expand to match the rest of its cultural coverage and not be so, um, monochromatic.

The article criticizing britpop's self-segregation finalizes with a shout out to "Mike Skinner of the Streets, Lily Allen, Hot Chip and Lady Sovereign".

Lilly Allen? Lady Sovereign? The latter has an absurd, arguably offensive, black-face/steppenfetchit shtick but none of these could be considered positive in any way. They are all HORRiBLE!!

Now, Amy Winehouse is fantastic and even if you don't like her, her singing is observably outstanding, with phrasing and tonality the equal of any in the r&b business. But the again, her influences could well have been the same as Mick and Keith's.

"Is that the jist of your post Anon? "The internet is a big place"?"

Yes. Don't blame me if you're too inept to find one of the thousands of sites dedicated to all of those artists you're interested in.

"And those of us who would like to see a little more diverse music coverage on Salon should go elsewhere? Like where, Anon, Soweto or some world music Bantustan? Why should we be ghettoized because our musical tastes are a little broader than yours?""

Again: ever heard of this thing called downloading music? You don't need to actually go there hear this stuff.

And I never said I didn't like music from other cultures. One of my favorite recent CD's is Raushan Orazbaeva's "Akku"--you probably know who she is, being a sage in all things non white. It was your insistence that you've "outgrown" "whiteboy" music and now graze in the greener, oh so profound pastures of world music that annoyed me. And where you got the idea that I said white boys rule and everyone sucks is beyond me--I'm not even white.

You've obviously not outgrown the need to call someone offering a good natured music nerd ribbing a, quote-unquote, dickhead.

The gratuitous sneer at Masterpiece Theatre pretty much says it all: an Anglophilphobe. What underlies this enormous review--other than sheer ignorance--is a dislike of Anglophiles. It's true the pure Anglophile is ridiculous--tho not as ridiculous as a suburban whiteboy pouncing as a gangsta rapper.

>>What as a opposed to fat Americans, who gorge themselves on Kentucky Fried chicken leftovers and who feed there hormonally challenged brains with episodes of brain dead shit like the “Survivors,” and reruns of Beavis and Butthead? Country Music trailer trash constituency is a younger subset of the same exact demogrpahic (uneducated middle class Americans), and is based on an identical syndrome: whom think Republican Candidates like Mike Huckabee, or Giuliani are profound intellects. A country where the majority of the population thinks the world is no more then 6000 years. A country where more people believe in the devil then believe in the theory of evolution? A country that could care less for civil rights! Where the average person’s idea of literacy is reading “The Secret” by Rhonda Bryne.<<

Gosh, did you make that up out of your own tiny brain?

I guess I don't see the Smiths, the Cure, Depeche Mode and others having "stumbled" in the US...if so, how did Morrissey fill up the Hammerstein 5 nights in October about 10 years after his peak?? (among many other successful tours). Obviously the latter two bands were hugely popular. having grown up in the 80's, I have to say that back then almost all of the quality pop bands came from Britain- and the CLEARLY dominated MTV back when it was worth a damn during the same period. I mean how high is the bar for success? do you have to fill up a fucking football stadium and sell 10 million copies of the same record?

Funny that Oasis is just about the only band considered a success by the author when they pretty much put out garbage.