My New Favorite Band is...

Lowbrow Answer: Mumford & Sons
Where they hell did these douchebags come from? All of a sudden, every girl I've ever met is selling her ovaries to get a ticket to a Mumford & Sons concert. I don't get it. They sound like a roofing company or a real estate firm. If you're going to pander to upper-middle class girls with semi-coherent, vaguely poetic ramblings about love, at least have the common courtesy to call yourself "Coldplay" or "John Mayer."

Every girl tells me how dreamy it is that Mumford & Sons used to be homeless and play on the streets of London or wherever. I'm sorry, but women don't like poor dudes. They like diamonds and Audi's and guys who pick up the tab at The Geisha House. I know you like to think that Mumford & Sons are some motley band of starving artists, but they're not. They're on Island Records, for Christ's sake. They probably use hundred-dollar bills to blow coke off Megan Fox's chest.


Middlebrow Answer: Florence and the Machine
Okay, so she's pretty hip. And her voice is sometimes great. And "Dog Days Are Over" is a fucking good song. But I already spent all my energy liking this band back when they were called Metric /La Roux / The Gossip / Goldfrapp / The Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Silversun Pickups. Does the planet really need another tone-deaf anorexic girl mincing around stage in platform shoes? Hey honey, see that thing you're doing where you're not quite hitting any of the notes? That's called going flat.

I don't really get this whole heroin chic look that Kate Moss made famous. You know, that thing where you wear a lycra unitard from the 1980's and you overuse dark blue eye makeup and you wear stilettos that are 15 inches too high and your legs look like fleshy toothpicks and you vomit up every packet of Splenda that you allow yourself to eat and your boyfriend looks like he was kicked out of The Strokes for being too cool. Can somebody explain it to me? Mischa Barton, I'm looking at you.


Highbrow Answer: The London Philharmonic Orchestra
You ever notice how pop music is totally inane and stupid? Yeah, me too. Here's an idea. Don't listen to it. You want well-crafted, profound art? Bach is your boy. Or Mozart. Or Liszt. Or ANY OTHER European classical composer. (Except for Wagner. Antisemitic prick.) As much as I appreciate Katy Perry's futile attempts at harmony, I think I'll stick to Beethoven's fifth. You may have heard of it. It's the one with the 57 separate instrumental lines and 15 sections of syncopated rhythms. Oh, but yeah, "California Gurls" is great too.

It's hard to argue with 40 different instruments all playing the same song. Look, I like Lady Gaga as much as the next guy, but her music really suffers from a distinct lack of contrabassoon. I think that earthy tone could really add some depth to songs like "Pokerface" or "That one where she's dressed like a French sex toy in the video." Mankind has taken the time to invent the English Horn - why not use it? (I will hunt you down and kill you in your sleep if you ever say anything bad about the English Horn. Goddamn miracle of nature.)

Best Figure in Diego Velázquez's "Las Meninas?"

Check out the full painting here.

Lowbrow Answer: The Little Blonde Chick
You smug little brat. I see you giving me the Stink Eye. I don't care how wealthy your parents are - I'll wipe that smile off your face with a Brillo pad. And you're like five years old; you should be playing with dolls and kissing boys behind the jungle gym, not getting your nails done for a state dinner by some Flemish wet nurse named Helga.

And what the fuck are you wearing? You look like you're about to go play bass for The Arcade Fire. I could set a whole picnic up on the top of your skirt. Do yourself a favor and get into something a little tighter - you'll never marry a marginally handsome inbred English prince in that getup.


Middlebrow Answer: The Dog
Normally, I'm pretty anti-dog. They poop everywhere, they drool everywhere, and they smell like the inside of an NHL locker room. But check this guy out. What a legend. He's actually sneering. I like to think that somebody just offered him tickets to an Edward Albee play and he refused: "Albee? Are you fucking serious? What do I look like, some jackass English major from a small liberal arts school? It's Beckett or nothing, thank you very much."

This dog also looks like he's wearing black warpaint on his face. Bad. Fucking. Ass. I can think of only a few other things that are as awesome as a dog wearing warpaint:

- A flying Panzer Tank
- Powdered Donut-flavored gum
- A Polar Bear in a bowler hat smoking a cigar
- Brad Pitt from "Fight Club" beating the shit out of Brad Pitt from "Meet Joe Black"


Highbrow Answer: The Crazy Dwarf Lady
This chick smiles for no man. You want her to look pretty for your painting? Fuck you and fuck painting. She has important dwarf stuff to do, like sing about the Yellow Brick Road or drown in a lake.

Dwarfs are epic. In Norse mythology, they're the metal workers of the Gods, which means if Lord Odin ever needs a new sword or a trowel or chrome rims for his Cadillac - he calls in the Dwarf squad. The most famous Dwarf is probably Alberich, a central character from Wagner's 28-hour opera "Die Ring des Niebelungen." In the story, he forges a ring that brings about the death of all of the Norse gods. Not too shabby for a guy who wouldn't even be allowed to ride on Space Mountain.

Best German Classical Composer?

Lowbrow Answer: Ludwig Von Beethoven
Ode to Joy? Really? You're going to write an epic symphony, your last, in fact, and you're going to call it "Ode to Joy?" Why not "Ode to Puppies and Sunshine and Butterflies?" Happy people blow.

The only reasons anybody knows who you are is that they've either seen "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" where you're introduced as "Beeth-Oven," or they've seen Charlie Brown cartoons where Schroeder plays your Moonlight Sonata over and over again until I want to kill myself. Either way, my friend, you're deaf and you're lowbrow.


Middlebrow Answer: Richard Wagner
Wagner's Ring Cycle is the most epic opera ever written. It's basically four operas in a row that take seventeen hours to perform. I can't even sleep for seventeen hours in a row, let alone write an opera of that length. Well played, Richard.

On the other hand, you're an anti-Semitic douche. You wrote essays on why Jews are inferior creatures and Hitler and his Nazi buddies all listened to your work. Asshole. Besides, my feelings concerning The Ring Cycle are identical to my feelings concerning a Porn-star's Penis: Just because it's long doesn't automatically mean I want it in my ears.


Highbrow Answer: Johannes Brahms
You know that piece of music that has become the Lullaby? The one that gets played during Loony Tunes cartoons when Daffy Duck is sleeping and Bugs Bunny is sneaking up on him with a sledgehammer? Brahms wrote that. He wrote the lullaby. What the fuck have you done recently?

It's also widely rumored that Brahms seduced Schumann's wife, Clara. What a legend. He could have gone after any girl in 1860's Vienna and who does he choose? Schumann's wife. That's like being offered a choice between fighting a Whooping Crane or fighting a Velociraptor, and choosing the raptor. Just because you enjoy a challenge.