The harshest takedown of a pop music star that's also the safest possible critique ever

[Alma]

In which a Washington Post critic rightly rips into a popular rapper named Post Malone while simultaneously saying all the right, liberal-approved things possible.

And it even includes a word that almost no one would ever know, and dammit, I had to look up to make sure I knew the meaning. (I did!).

Naturally, this piece is being celebrated (and critiqued) all over Twitter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...?utm_term=.2737c41f3d9b&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

I read it on the wire a few days ago. That was the nastiest evisceration I’ve seen in a while. Not just of him, but culture in general.

 

[User 149557]

He took down a cool kid while being a cool kid. @Alma, you must be so conflicted here.

 

[Alma]

I read it on the wire a few days ago. That was the nastiest evisceration I’ve seen in a while. Not just of him, but culture in general.

Well, a specific kind of culture. Liberals don't account for a single note of it. You can read that piece and think: America is **** and none of it is my fault. Certainly not Jeff's fault.

There's a kind of eye-rolling cheapness in that kind of critique.

 

[Alma]

He took down a cool kid while being a cool kid. @Alma, you must be so conflicted here.

Oh, very.

 

[Guy_Incognito]

I couldn't get through it. I want to read the review doing that to his review.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Post Malone is what you get if you take the bro country formula and apply it to hip-hop. **** that guy.

 

[DanielSimpsonDay]

 

[poindexter]

In which a Washington Post critic rightly rips into a popular rapper named Post Malone while simultaneously saying all the right, liberal-approved things possible.

I clicked on this thread, read the first line, and played "guess which poster wrote that?"

I won.

 

[Azrael]

How do we compare it with this?

Restaurant Review: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square

 

[poindexter]

I couldn't get through it. I want to read the review doing that to his review.

Same here, except I don't even care to read the review of the review.

 

[typefitter]

I have zero admiration for Post Malone and think a lot of modern music is **** (although a lot of it is transcendent, too), but that piece did nothing for me. Too long and satisfied with itself, and too sneery. I don't like criticism as a profession in general, or at least his kind of criticism. It's pointless except to make the author and some of his readers feel superior to people who don't read. That piece is a lot of acreage to change no minds.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

That's was kind of fun but flogging a really easy target.

That review may be the music critic equivalent of the sports columnist writing a "(Opponent's town) is a dump" column.

 

[Alma]

How do we compare it with this?

Restaurant Review: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar in Times Square

Not favorably, in part because I don't get the impression Pete Wells would mind the kind of food ol Guy was hawking if it had been any good. The review was posed as a long question boiling down to: Do you know how ****ty this restaurant is with your name on it?

For example, this graf:

What exactly about a small salad with four or five miniature croutons makes Guy’s Famous Big Bite Caesar (a) big (b) famous or (c) Guy’s, in any meaningful sense?

is a pretty damn good question.

 

[Alma]

Perhaps what bothers me most is that it's pretty clear Jeff wants to imply we got to cultural low point because of Donald Trump and white privilege and racism, but just can't write those words. Because that would be too banal or something, to write plainly?

This is where the conservative critique of liberals "they think they're better than you" fits like a glove. Jeff thinks he's better than Post Malone or any of the other people there. And it is possibly he is better, I dunno. But I remember having a conversation about year back with someone who was embarrassed to admit they liked Little Caesars pizza, because it wasn't whatever wood-fired, beer-infused-crusted pizza all of her friends liked, and, what's more, because she thought the company she was in - which included me - would care. It was a sad moment had by all, bowing to an imagined tyranny of pizza cool.

 

[User 149557]

This is where the conservative critique of liberals "they think they're better than you" fits like a glove. Jeff thinks he's better than Post Malone or any of the other people there. And it is possibly he is better, I dunno. But I remember having a conversation about year back with someone who was embarrassed to admit they liked Little Caesars pizza, because it wasn't whatever wood-fired, beer-infused-crusted pizza all of her friends liked, and, what's more, because she thought the company she was in - which included me - would care. It was a sad moment had by all, bowing to an imagined tyranny of pizza cool.

The sad thing is the other side lives by their own tyranny of refusing to even consider anything they might consider high-brow. It locks lower income and rural people into **** choices in life simply because they don't want to be judged by their own neighbors. And it's how things like museums, libraries and classical music die in this country. It's how I can take my parents to a world-class restaurant and they refuse to enjoy it because they're worried about what it costs. It's how anyone with a college degree is suddenly locked out of the conversations on the engine line I work at. Because that person is an outsider who thinks they're better than everybody else.

Both sides are trapped by their egos instead of judging things by their actual quality.

I think food is a great teaching tool to get out of this situation. I think most of us can enjoy Little Caesars' (okay, I'm not a fan of that, but I actually love Domino's pizza since their reboot) and the wood-fired pizza. That attitude adjustment applied to the world at large would make a big difference in our society.

 

[Azrael]

It was a sad moment had by all, bowing to an imagined tyranny of pizza cool.

Does the existence of 5400+ Little Caesar's pizzerias not argue exactly the opposite?

Or 3500 Arby's? or 38000 McDonald's?

That the real tyranny is mediocrity?

 

[cjericho]

Who has the better facial tats, Post Malone or Tekashi69?

 

[Alma]

Does the existence of 5400+ Little Caesar's pizzerias not argue exactly the opposite?

Or 3500 Arby's? or 38000 McDonald's?

That the real tyranny is mediocrity?

Arby's makes a damn good fries, IYAM.

Also, that mediocrity offers benefits and helps put people through college (or food on the table, as it may be.) I always have this argument with people who carp about chains, like some standalone local gourmet burger joint - that's just as fatty as the chain - is somehow better for the community because roots.

 

[Azrael]

Arby's makes a damn good fries, IYAM.

Also, that mediocrity offers benefits and helps put people through college (or food on the table, as it may be.) I always have this argument with people who carp about chains, like some standalone local gourmet burger joint - that's just as fatty as the chain - is somehow better for the community because roots.

I guess my point is that the insult - the cultural tyranny of the elites! - is indeed imaginary.

The middle of the Bell Curve won long ago.