Q101‘s recent decision to play a leaked version of the new White Stripes album, Icky Thump, ended up pissing Jack White off something fierce. Since then dozens of bloggers have debated Q101’s decision, and in a recent Reader article music director Spike defended playing Icky as a necessary move for a medium being eaten alive by the Internet. White’s only public word on the matter was in a recent A.V. Club Q & A in the Onion, which Spike responded to last week on his MySpace blog, essentially calling White—if you want to break it down like that—a poseur and an asshole. I have to agree. I’d be a lot more sympathetic to Jack White’s viewpoint if he didn’t put it out there in his faux-naif, “Well I’m just a small town boy who don’t know much about the fancy-pants big-city entertainment industry” schtick. Or as Spike puts it, “he pretends not to know what show Entertainment Tonight is. RIIIIIIIIGHT. I bet you know what it was when you were in Cold Mountain and doing Renee Zellwegger. I bet at that point in time you were totally aware of which show Mark McGrath hosts, and what time Pat O’Brien does the features about celebrity couples and brand new movies.”
