Village Voice vs. the Decemberists

Ooh! Chris Ott of the Village Voice writes a Decemberists takedown rife with factual inaccuracies and personal attacks, but then the Decemberist's lead singer's girlfriend writes in to defend him (scroll down to the bottom of the page). Saucy!

Colin Meloy does have a bit of an ego problem; he wrote the 33 1/3 book for the Mats' Let it Be entirely about his childhood, and didn't even pepper it with ship or war or pelanquin references like he does his lyrics. His band's music is pleasant and lush and a little boring. I'm just excited that someone feels strongly enough to rip into him personally and irrationally. I really love how irrationally upset music makes people sometimes.

I enjoyed this exchange:

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"Familiar world of self-pitying white people looking for reasons to be unhappy?"


"Is that what you'd call a dance off contest, a pretend lava pit down the middle of the audience, three sing alongs, and cell phone calls to audiences members' mothers?"
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Does that sound like happiness? 2,000 people singing the lines "I am on reprieve
lacking my joie de vivre" in ensemble, some stranger getting your mom out of bed late at night (my mom's a poor sleeper to begin with), and dozens of people pretending to burn to death in a fake lava pit?

Well, it certainly sounds like happiness to me. Like Twister on acid.
Stay lugubrious, Decemberists!