Music Criticism with the Westboro Baptist Church

Things have been slow for the Westboro Baptist Church recently. With the country’s attention firmly focused on the Republican primaries and slutty law students contraceptives, Fred Phelps’ goon squad has been relegated to also-ran status in the race to the bottom. Never content to rest on their laurels, the Westboro Baptist Church has abandoned its routine harassment of gay Americans, dead soldiers, Whitney Houston, and victims of natural disasters to try its hand at music criticism.

Last night, the loonies of Westboro Baptist Church embarked on a road trip to Kansas City, Missouri to picket outside of a Radiohead concert. Yes, Radiohead. Your college boyfriend’s favorite band now ranks among gays, Jews, the “ungrateful Chinese,” and Barack Obama as one of the preeminent threats to American salvation. Evidently, the Church is not a fan of ambient, experimental rock music and they expressed their displeasure in a written statement to the band’s producer, Nigel Godrich, which called the band “freak monkey’s [sic] with mediocre tunes keeps you busy and focused by lightness.” The statement continued:

You try to get the people to look at the nonsense and not at the wrath of God that abides upon them.  “Look at the circus monkey over there and the fluffy setting, blah, blah…” Meanwhile, God is undoing this nation and effecting all of your lives, with the moth that quietly eats the very fabric of your national garment. Radiohead is just such an event.

“Freak monkeys” with “mediocre tunes,” eh? Well, even a broken clock and all that jazz…

For their part, the band, speaking through Godrich, have declared the Westboro Baptist Church’s protest the “highlight of the tour so far.”

Here’s a handy guide for learning to dance like Thom Yorke in the “Lotus Flower” video, you freak monkeys.

Source: Pitchfork

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