To be fair, this is not entirely his fault. Like most adults who don’t have careers that directly pertain to music, Simmons is stuck admiring the most popular sounds of his youth, placing artists like U2 and Bruce Springsteen permanently high on the pedestal.

What is unknown is what Simmons’s fans think of his taste in music. Perhaps they like it; perhaps they’d like his taste in music to reflect his opinions of sports. That is, rather than focus on the most obvious and popular names and faces, he would pay attention to the more deserving acts of an era and constantly be keen to new and emerging players in the field.

Here’s what we know. Despite the fact that Simmons grew up in an upper-middle-class home and attended college in New England during the 80’s and 90’s, he managed to entirely miss out on the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Mission of Burma, Radiohead and all hip-hop that wasn’t played on MTV. Fortunately, for his credibility, some of the acts that he name drops, like Nirvana and the Notorious B.I.G. were the defining names of a brief moment in time. However, his admiration is proven coincidental any time he feels empowered to critically comment on music history or trends.

For instance, in a recent column, Simmons asserted that, “The Wallflowers were flying pretty high at the time (looking back, you could even make the case that they were the most underrated mainstream band from the latter half of the '90s).”

Wow. Let’s give it a try, shall we?

First off, he’s attempting to do the near impossible: speak critically positive of the Wallflowers. I personally side with Bob Dylan, who knows a thing or two about music, in his description of the band: “They suck.” That’s pretty hilarious, if you know anything at all about the Wallflowers. Second, I’m guessing that “flying pretty high” refers to their one album (Bringing Down the Horse) of zero critical acclaim that contained exactly one tune that remains recognizable less than ten years later.

Next, Simmons refers to the Wallflowers as an “underrated mainstream band,” the oxymoronic foolishness of which has almost rendered me unable to comment on. But I’ll try. I guess he suggesting that the Wallflowers carry the mantle of the Grateful Dead, very popular but not that good. But, the Wallflowers were never nearly as popular as the Dead where, nor even half-as-talented. Finally, Simmons posits this assessment of the Wallflowers is in “the latter half of the ‘90s”, even though they released only one album, the aforementioned Horse during that time, in 1996. I guess what all of this leads us to be that it’s probably a good thing that Bill Simmons is obsessed with sports, because his eye for talent may not be translatable, and it clearly does not lie with music.

But this off-handed comment is only the tip of the iceberg that Simmons continually drives his Titanic-sized columns into. (How’s that for figurative wordplay!) Many contemporary writers over-credit their favorite musical acts from their formative years, but unlike, say, Dave Eggers’s affinity for Big Country or Chuck Klosterman’s love of ‘80s metal, Simmons simply does not possess the literary chops to seamlessly pull off the underdeserving hero worship.

Personally, there are two specific ways in which Simmons proves his musical ineptitude while simultaneously undermining his own credibility as a writer – Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam.

A little disclaimer: To my knowledge, Simmons has never gone right out and stated that Springsteen is his all-time favorite solo artist. However, he on more than one occasion has favorably compared the Boss to Larry Bird, who Simmons has coined “the Basketball Jesus,” so I think it’s pretty safe to say that he holds Bruce in pretty high regard. I like Bruce, too, but he’s no Bird, which would be akin to claiming that Springsteen is one of the five or six greatest musicians in the history of rock’n’roll. If all Simmons meant was that Springsteen is his favorite just like Bird is his favorite, then I guess all could be forgiven. Unfortunately, he tries to validate his view with horseshit reasoning. In an attempt to make some ridiculous analogy, Simmons points out how both Springsteen and Bird came from small, rural, working class towns and eventually grew to dominate their respective fields through equal parts talent and hard work. (For an indirect analysis of this theory, please read this essay by Malcolm Gladwell.) This comparison might fly for an audience that either: a. knows nothing about sports or b. knows nothing about music. However, for those that are familiar with both of those areas, his comparison comes across as uneducated at best. A description that would also befit Simmons’s many laudatory descriptions of…

Pearl Jam. Earlier I mentioned how Bill Simmons’s intense focus on the music of his youth. Specifically, he is frequent and explicit in his adoration of the band Pearl Jam. This is all fine and well – I’m not here to tell anybody who they’re allowed to like or not – but problems arise (again) when Simmons begins to assume that his sports-culture fusion style of writing parlays into credible opinions on music. Most notoriously, he often confusedly lumps Pearl Jam with one of the best artists of the past quarter century, Nirvana. For most people whose main purpose in writing about music, however, these two bands share little in common aside from a relatively close geographical point of origin and careers that overlap for a couple of key years. Most Pearl Jam fans would like you to believe that Cobain and Vedder are the Bird and Magic of alternative rock, but Simmons even goes so far as to claim that Nirvana’s success is partially due to the already established Jam. His favorite argument centers on the notion that Pearl Jam’s first album, the widely popular Ten, was released before Nirvana’s Nevermind. This is true. Peal Jam’s first album was in fact released one month before Nirvana’s second album. Of course, this does nothing to support Simmons’s argument. Events that have transpired since then do even less. Nevermind was certified triple-platinum less than six months after its initial release and charted within the top three ten different countries within a year of its release. Today, it is universally regarded as one of the greatest albums of the 1990’s, if not the entire rock and roll era. Pearl Jam is essentially a very good modern day classic rock band, the success for whom is not difficult to calculate at all. While their peak domestic commercial success does rival that of Nirvana, neither their worldwide fame nor critical appreciation come even close. But perhaps we can forgive Simmons this indiscretion, as PJ seems to be the favorite band of ESPN personalities. Erik Kuselias, the unequivocal Bill O’Reilly of sports talk and host of ESPN Radio’s Sportsbash, lists Ten as one of the three best albums of all time. I’ve heard attempted validations as to why Pearl Jam and sports are two tastes that taste great together. None make much sense.

There is a reason why Simmons’s assertive opinion on this matter bothers me so intensely, and it has actually very little to do with Pearl Jam. Unlike too many other sports writers, Simmons is a writer who succeeds at writing convincing arguments to support his opinions, no matter how far-fetched they originally seem. Normally I approve of this, as I can always use some extra assurance to help explain why the Red Sox are so awesome or the Celtics so inept. However, when he applies the same strategy towards writing about Pearl Jam (or whoever), he just sounds to me like a loon trying to validate why his crappy opinion is actually the fact to end the argument. I guess this is how Yankees fans feel when they read his articles. At the end of it, I’m left wondering if his arguments in favor of the Red Sox really are as solid as I think, or just a bunch of fanboy bunk.

Even though he’s actually in his mid-30s, Simmons’s preferences in current music sound like that of a baby boomer. Much like Rolling Stone magazine naming A Bigger Bang the second best album of 2005, Simmons gives undue credence to late in the career albums by his boyhood favorites. (For instance, in column he once heralded U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb as one of the best rock albums of the decade.) This is an all-too common occurrence when it comes to music journalism.

What further infuriates is that Simmons is not an anomaly in the music-writing world; he is the norm in a guild that overvalues the music of its youth. The reason that the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and other artists of the mid-‘60s to early ‘70s are regarded as the greatest of all time has less to do with their particular talents and more to do with the fact that they are the favorite bands of the people who own all of the music largest publications and television networks. So, I’m not blaming Bill Simmons for his obtuse view of the music world, but I am criticizing him for perpetrating like he has an educated opinion of the matter.

Further aligning himself with the older generation’s tastes, Bill Simmons often mentions the White Stripes and Norah Jones as among his favorite current acts. The Stripes, rightly so, are held in high esteem by pretty much every music publication on the planet (especially Spin). However, for many of these outlets, the reason that the White Stripes are so adored is not for the same reason that sources like Pitchforkmedia and Merry Swankster would mention. A magazine such as Rolling Stone probably likes the White Stripes because they: a) ROCK and b) sound like the writers’ favorite bands of yore. Conversely, the younger, web-oriented critics probably like the White Stripes because they: a) ROCK, and b) sound nothing at all like the writers of Rolling Stone’s favorite bands. In order to understand what new artists mainstream sources will like, it is imperative to grasp that what they like about new artists has little to do with the artists’ talents and a whole lot to do with how much the new artists sound like something familiar. Generally, to predict what sorts of newer artists the newer music critics will like, you have to assume the exact opposite. The White Stripes just happen to fall under both of these categories simultaneously. Norah Jones, on the other hand, only falls under the first category, which is why she is loved by VH1 but is found nowhere near Tinymixtapes.

While Bill Simmons, as a music fan, is almost exactly inline with the larger music conglomerates of the entertainment media, his sports writing is the exact opposite of the greater establishment. So it seems that Simmons’s taste in music, and as a result his writings of music, show a lazy bias towards the artists of his youth. This is in stark contrast to his sports writing, which is usually inspired and entertaining. This is why he covers sports for Page 2, but not for ESPN.com. Likewise, he could probably write music for a large enterprise like Rolling Stone, but not for a more discreet site, like PopMatters.

Bill, if you promise to stop writing about music, and we’ll make sure the Audiogalaxy’s of the world never again run Super Bowl predictions. Also, feel free to post a response, (even if you aren’t Simmons). Keep up the good work, Sportsguy, just stay away from music. And, for that matter, soccer.

-Randall Monty

Tags: ESPN, Bill Simmons, Sports Guy, Page 2, Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Boston