This Week’s Best And Worst Comments

5:27 PM EDT on July 22, 2011

Today we're gonna try something new. Welcome to Stereogum's version of Monsters' Ball, that long-running Videogum franchise highlighting the week's highest and lowest ranked comments. Since we shut off anonymous hatespeech commenting last year, we don't get as much feedback as we once did -- apparently we should cover more Chili Peppers? -- but Amrit, Brandon, and I are regularly impressed by the levelheaded discussions that take place in these threads. You guys are smarter than commenters on other music sites, yeah? That deserves acknowledgement. So after the jump, check out this week's five highest rated comments (featuring a indie rock celebrity cameo), the lowest rated comment, and the editor's choice.

THIS WEEK'S 5 HIGHEST RATED COMMENTS

#5		Kip Berman \| Jul 15th	Score:7
		Mhann24. We’ve never been shy about acknowledging the musical inspiration of MBV’s Sunny Sundae Smile EP, especially on our earliest recordings (our 2007 s/t EP, subsequent “Come Saturday” split 7? on Slumberland). We mentioned it countless times in past interviews, listed “paint a rainbow” as an influence on our myspace (audacity!) and were always eager for people to discover some of the earlier, less famous recordings of that iconic band. We were extremely honored that MBV invited us to play the All Tomorrow’s Parties they curated in 2009 and getting to perform and then watch them immediately afterwards was a very once-in-a-lifetime kind of thrill. On a more general note, all bands grow up emulating other bands and ideas. You can trace the routs of any artist (even the most “original”) to bands that came before them – insofar as that act of imitation fails, creativity is born. Music – or at least the last 50 years of western pop – is a great continuum where even the most iconoclastic, idiosyncratic and revolutionary bands are connected to that which comes before and that which will come after. I think that’s a really cool thing; that Animal Collective is part of the Beach Boys and the beginning of something totally different, that The Ramones were part The Stooges, the young adult classic, “The Outsiders,” and a Spector-esque vision of 60s rock and roll and yet such a thorough and arresting break from it as well. Nirvana somehow found inspiration in the immediacy of K Records cassette culture, as well as the ferocity of The Pixies and Melvins. To argue for any kind of “golden age” of absolute truth and absolute originality is a form of fundamentalism that is antithetical to our optimistic view of pop – that it can get better and more interesting over time, while acknowledging the brilliance of those visionaries who came before.
	Posted in: Under The Influence: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart Belong

#4		Logen Franklin \| Jul 19th	Score:8
		That’s cool. I think it’s mind blowing.
	Posted in: M83 - "Midnight City"

#3		Donovan Earl Herman \| Jul 20th	Score:8
		After Album, the EP, and now this, I’m convinced this band was most definitely deserving of their hype.
	Posted in: Girls - "Vomit"

#2		tim tuffle \| Jul 16th	Score:12
		this would be a good song if it was completely different.
	Posted in: Red Hot Chili Peppers - "The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie"

#1		Nathan Kerce \| Jul 19th	Score:18
		I think you guys may have ended that “song of the summer” contest a little too early. Woah!
	Posted in: M83 - "Midnight City"

THIS WEEK'S LOWEST RATED COMMENT

#1		woozefa \| Jul 19th	Score:-12
		obnoxious song.
	Posted in: M83 - "Midnight City"

[Editor's note: Huh?]

THIS WEEK'S EDITOR'S CHOICE

	Harveyz01 \| Jul 21st	Score:5
	It’s funny because the album is better than anything Diplo has, and ever will, produce.
Posted in: Diplo Disses Washed Out, Joins No Doubt