By Joshua Errett

Maybe it’s because they’re not coming through Toronto on this tour, but there’s a small contingent of the universe that believes Broken Social Scene is from Montreal. That small contingent includes New York Times writer Jon Pareles, who just now realises the band is from Ontario’s capital city, not Montreal. Only this is neither a typo or a small oversight, since the crux of Pareles’ review is that the band is from Montreal and they have something to do with the Arcade Fire ‘exuberance.’ A Star article on the subject was particularly effective:

More or less every instance of Pareles’ mistake — in fact the entire review — is bullshit. Because he believes the band to be from Montreal, he attributes all sorts of their qualities as consistent with or diverging from their fictitious hometown. At one point he even compares their previous work favourably to Arcade Fire, a band that actually is from Montreal, while at the same time denigrating BSS’s work for refusing to “ride on Montreal’s momentum.”

Ouch. How very silly.