The ridiculo-sublime idea of the “poseur” has got to be smashed. I can’t be the one to do it though — I think too much of my identity still requires it. But seriously, the standard narrative that a band like The Monkees somehow has less integrity than another LA band like, say, the Byrds, and even weirder, that their pre-fabness would somehow correlate to less musical quality, has been by this stage of the game definitively chucked, right? Then why hasn’t it been ditched across the board? Why do we need nerds and box sets to do our appreciating for us and then tell us it’s alright to like “sellouts”, now that what we could refer to as the Monkees Precedent has been established? To wit: all poseurs have as much chance of making amazing music as the coolest of the cools.
1. 8th Wonder, Sugarhill Gang (Sugar Hill, 11/24/82)
