The Best Music Criticism of 2009

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The finest piece of music criticism in 2009 did not come from a paper of record. It did not come from a music-dedicated blog. It came from the disastrously-produced superhero film X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

I had the (dis)pleasure of viewing Wolverine the other night, but was tickled pink by one well-put bit of subliminal music criticism. I doubt screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods ever intended for this one particular scene to mean anything but what pertained to that moment, but the hidden meaning was impossible to ignore.

In a battle between Victor Creed (played by Liev Schreiber) and John Wraith (Will.i.am), Schreiber uttered the following:

You’re predictable.

Considering the bland rapper and face of Black Eye Peas received the blunt end of this particular sharp insult couldn’t have been more perfect. Well, sure Schreiber’s Creed could have said something along the lines of, say, “your utter lack of creativity is mind numbing,” but that wouldn’t have worked for the scene. And with the Peas’ 2009 singles – “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” – following the same Lowest Common Denominator pop-rap formula that preceding songs such as “My Humps” solidified, Schreiber/Creed got it dead right.