So this may be old news to many, but there has been a flurry of hipster guilt trips flying around due to such occurrences as The Decemberists signing to a major label and LCD soundsystem having been nominated for two Grammys. Hipster guilt is not rational, so it seems…

First, while I am clearly no supporter of the RIAA and their tactics, Colin Meloy claims that Capitol is giving him a great deal and that “band approval” is written all over their contract. Well good luck Colin, I hope that you have a good, objective lawyer and solid contract-interpreting abilities. Clearly one could imagine many ways in which “band approval” could be used against a band… The quality of their music might change as well—over-produced, over-polished—much like what has happened with such recent indie-to-major converts as Le Tigre (thanks Nick!) But, in the end, it is of course the band’s choice to do so, and while they may lose some fans in the process, they stand to gain a lot more by potentially appealing to the masses…

Similarly, apparently James Murphy has been getting a lot of shit from the hipster crowd for LCD’s 2 Grammy nominations. Now we all know that the Grammys are essentially an engine of the RIAA to sell more records. Best dance records? Chemical Brothers? Fatboy Slim? That horrible Daft Punk album?! It seems as if the Grammy association only knows the five mainstream “dance” groups around. Hey Mr. Grammy, have you heard of anyone not on a major label? (To be fair, the Arcade Fire album on non-RIAA Merge Records was nominated in another category, but so was their single on EMI). In any case, I don’t blame James, I’m sure EMI wants to sell more records too… And even if all the best LCD singles had been released prior to the full-length (and many included), they’re still better than most of their fellow contenders. I hate to say it, but I kind of hope that Kraftwerk wins…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 20th, 2005 at 4:12 am and is filed under Unreasonable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.