All year you taunt me with your Brit pop and your jam bands. Yet by bringing you to see Cursive last Thursday, March 27, I have proved once and for all that my music is better than yours.

Let’s say you judged bands on toughness like sports teams. Openers No Knife get toughness points and the spirit award for coming out and putting on a great set even though lead singer Mitch Wilson was out of commission with a stomach ulcer. Ryan Ferguson, strongly resembling Christian Bale, filled in, with Tim Kasher of Cursive spotting vocals on a couple of tracks. Kasher himself is a champ, having recorded an album and gone on tour after suffering a collapsed lung that required major surgery and substantial hospital time.

But musical groups are not judged on toughness. They don’t require perfect vision or nerves of steel. They are judged on skill and quality of music. No Knife’s Riot for Romance delivers tightly-crafted pop tracks, and Cursive’s latest, The Ugly Organ, integrates the organ and cello into their “D.C. sound,” even though they are from Omaha. Kasher capitalizes on all that alone time the collapsed lung provided to dwell and ponder, emerging with some introspective lyrics. The music is a little faster than what was on their last album, Burst and Bloom, but I thought you could handle it. I guess I was wrong.

But maybe those lyrics are a little too deep for you. Maybe you prefer to look at the stars, how they shine for you, and all the things you do, and how they are all “yellow.” Maybe you want to pretend you’re Travis and get in a big, dumb, aristocratic food fight, throwing octopus in Great Britain. Maybe you just don’t enjoy hanging out at the Black Cat, where you can drink good beer while in a venue where you can actually see and hear the bands you paid for. You wouldn’t know a good band that wasn’t on a major label if it bit you in the ass. Suck it, Brit pop weenis freak.

I can’t believe you dragged me to that place again. I hate the Black Cat. Everyone there wears weird clothes and has multiple piercings, which I personally find unsanitary. I’ve put up with your crap music all year long. Built to Spill? More like Built to Crap on Your Face. Modest Mouse? More like Modest Vomit. What you need to listen to is more Brit pop.

Ever heard of The Verve? Yeah, I bet you haven’t. They’re only the building block to all contemporary rock. Without Richard Ashcroft, there would be no “The” Bands. Nope, no Strokes, Hives, White Stripes, Kinks, Rolling Stones, or Beatles. And if you want to get really experimental, you should listen to my burned copy of Coldplay’s B-sides. I mean, it’s really out there, but you might understand.

But I gave you a chance on Thursday to impress me. I had never heard of No Knife or Cursive before, but then again they’re not in Rolling Stone … Oh, they are? Cursive got a four-star review, eh? Well, not from my perspective. I gave them four thumbs down. All they did was yell and play cacophonous guitar. They did throw a cello in there, which I respect because Boyd Tinsley from Dave Matthews Band plays a violin. When I asked you what that screechy noise was during one “wailing solo,” you told me “feedback,” and I didn’t know what that meant. You think you’re so above me, but me and the rest of the world knows that sensitive lyrics and melodious falsettos are more important than talent and indie cred any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I can’t believe you gave toughness points to these lame bands. They don’t have that one-armed Def Leppard drummer, that’s for sure. And as for surviving pain, I think Coldplay’s Chris Martin deserves a purple heart. You, or the lead singers of No Knife and Cursive for that matter, can never know how alone and heartbroken a guy who dates Gwyneth Paltrow is. Why couldn’t either of these bands feature a soft piano ballad and a lights show? I hate your music, and I hate the Black Cat. I mean, you actually have to ride the bus to get there.