[kid cue]

i don't see why there is a need to feel threatened by "conformists" blindly following trends. they aren't going to undo your 20+ years of work. look, i spend all my time on a pretentious university campus / brooklyn / lower east side, nyc so i know what you mean. but every music scene has this preoccupation with who's in & who's out. it's just that the indie kids are the most populous & visible.

even if you somehow exist outside of any & all scenes, what does it mean to be deciding what music is and is not worthy of attention, and then to use your conclusions to explain why people like what they like? the omnivorous music snob is basically a one-man scene. you're not doing anything different from scenesters trying to be cool just by calling out everybody for trying to be cool.

the only obvious reason anyone likes anything popular is because of marketing and press, and bands get marketed for happening to have certain qualities. you don't have to be a lazy blind follower to be subject to marketing. Justice hired a guy at Sonar to go everywhere holding a giant styrofoam cross. didn't you start a thread on the creative marketing behind Bjork's new album? i could bitch everyone out for blindly following Bjork's hype machine around and drawing attention away from singers that better deserve the hype. it's not going to change the fact that more people have heard of her, and thus will listen to her instead of someone else.

total apathy towards scenesters is the way to go, it's the closest one can get to being free of scene.