The Washington Post’s website has good news for hipsters everywhere. After all these years of crying “sell out!” everytime a band – particularly an obscure, culty, indie band – lends a song to a TV commercial, music purists can now quantify exactly how much their act of choice has strayed from the path of righteousness.
It’s all thanks to the Moby Quotient calculator, named for the electronic artist (arguably) most famous for lending his songs for commercial endeavors (and subsequently making us all sick of them, and him). This simple, yet brilliant online calculator uses an equation that measures the disconnect between the product and rock’n’roll’s principles, the sacredness of the song, the origins of the band Are they a notoriously anti-establishment punk group? Or are they a boy band created by a reality show?), the artist’s artistic reputation, how much the artist needs the money, and how long it’s been since the artist’s heydey. This is, of course, all subjective, since readers rate the bands themselves and there’s no way to determine exactly how sacred John Lennon’s “Imagine” is, or how underground Imogen Heap is considered.
Rocket scientists have nothing on these mathematical geniuses.