21 June 2009: "Should I dance around sexily 2 my fave relevant mp3 songs?"

This post is about aesthetic relativism. Carles declares that he is "not even sure what the ‘best album’ of 2k9 is" -- a meaningless statement meant to highlight the uselessness of evaluative criteria for pop music, the value of which is established by network effects. This Carles demonstrates by describing the signaling effects of championing various albums -- already the obvious "best album" contenders because of the discussion they have proven capable of generating, as opposed to their intrinsic merit. What the albums represent has emerged within the crucible of contemporary pop punditry, as any would-be critic knows -- and it is mastering the nuances of this emergence that establishes a critic's reputation, not a thorough knowledge of music theory or any other basis for an objective criticism:

Wonder what ‘the internet pundits’ will say is the best album of 2k9. Feel like people will pick Grizzly Bear because they are ‘very personal bros’, and from what I have learned, personal connections ‘mean everything.’ While people ‘love’ anco, they are still not entirely engaging bros, nor could u imagine having a ‘chill convo’ with them. I think that people who pick the Dirty Projjies to be the best album of 2k9 will be the ‘type of music reviewing bros who are ghey/don’t get girls in real life and feel closer 2 women by enjoying female artists.’

Such fine-tuned interpretations of what consuming various albums signifies is the only viable avenue for contemporary criticism. Any effort to establish an aesthetic criticism with a pretense to objectivity is ultimately reducible to what is depicted in the video with which Carles begins the discussion: a youth masturbating alone, desperately eager to persuade others to watch him in his onanism. "Look at me, I appreciate music so much more thoroughly than you -- it provokes me to orgasm. Witness my jouissance, Other." Carles dismisses this sort of would-be critic with a stinging rebuke: "I think he might be one of those bros who has a post-post-pre-ironic internet personality, just trying to be ‘a think piece’ on the internet 2 set himself apart from ‘every other loser with a mnstrm facebook profile.’" In other words, attempts at objective pop criticism are not merely masturbatory, but they are pathetic ploys for attention for those too witless to make optimal use of the social networking tools now available to us. By trying to project criteria that transcends the social context, such critics cease to be the subject criticizing, but become instead an object in circulation, a "meme," a "think piece" rather than a thinker.