Is Rick Moody Too Wealthy to Criticize Taylor Swift?

People are angry that Rick Moody has opined that Taylor Swift’s music is ten kinds of commercial suck. Their beef is this bit: That it will not matter that we all will realize that she is terrible, “because her parents work in finance, and she has good manners, and she’s going to marry up, and she’s going to get into the movies (not just guest appearances in CSI), and she’s going to launch some clothing lines at Target (no, wait, I think she already did that), and a personal fragrance (I think she did that too), and parlay all her bad press into some self-serious complaints, making good on every opportunity to monetize her career at the expense of making actual art.”

The anger is about how he’s in too glassy a house to throw that stone, which is not really accurate, I don’t think? I mean, just because: The Black Veil v. Fearless? One of those is a commercial enterprise.

The criticism is still in the semi-inchoate early Tumblr levels now; surely someone will write something more thorough later, explaining why someone who isn’t poor can’t criticize someone for being a truly devoted brand-builder on the back of cannily crafted pop music.

Let’s compare and contrast: Wikipedia’s “early life” section for Taylor Swift describes where she “summered” and also has this: “Swift’s first hobby was English horse riding.” Also she has ALREADY, terribly, dated a Kennedy? At the same time, Rick Moody’s Wikipedia includes the sentence “He lives in Brooklyn and Fishers Island.”

This is a good turn of events overall though, because once upon a time only rich people were allowed to have discussions about books or movies or music. Now it is something we flag.

Me, I’m just mad that he slagged off Alanis along the way — criticizing the “faux-confessionality” of “Jagged Little Pill”??? HOW DARE YOU SIR. Pistols at dawn.