Sounds like you just don’t like his style. Honest question: were you familiar with the author before buying this book? Like, did you ever read his columns over the years?
As for your imaginary thank-you card about a sweater, I would personally find that amusing/hilarious.
Last but not least, would you mind confirming that you’re not from the Midwest?
Honest answer: I'd read some of his articles on Grantland years ago that kind of vaguely rubbed me the wrong way, so I just didn't really go seeking out his other articles after a while - the only things I really remember are that: (1) he seemed pretty giddy about the Ryan Adams cover album of Taylor Swift's "1989"; (2) he also wrote about how he was just such a big Oasis fan that he decided to harbor his own weird grudge against everything Damon Albarn did (Blur, Gorillaz, solo stuff, etc) - he seemed to admit that it was silly, but the length of the article seemed to indicate that he was like...proud of himself for it; (3) He kind of trashed Katy Perry's super bowl performance as being like too safe (even though it was actually one of the better and more memorable super bowl halftime shows ever [left shark, that walking on stilts thing she did for "Roar," Missy Elliott, etc.] and said that taking risks was what made them good and that's why the Justin Timberlake - Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction super bowl halftime show was the greatest ever, in his opinion. I used to read Grantland's Hollywood Prospectus pretty consistently and remember loving nearly everything Andy Greenwald, Rembert Browne, and Alex Pappademas wrote and I'd at least skim most of the articles by Amos Barshad, Molly Lambert, and Mark Lisanti, but for other writers like Hyden and Jay Caspian Kang, I'd only really read their stuff if the title/topic of the article was intriguing.
My impression of Hyden was this weird mix of, on the one hand, seeming fairly pretentious about his own authority as a music critic while, at the same time, never really giving readers anything substantive or insightful to justify his strongly-worded opinions (I remember looking for those breadcrumbs haha), and also fanboying out about stuff that he seemed to know wasn't really that important, but he just didn't really care to spare readers by editing himself at all. He also seemed condescending towards certain artists in a way that wasn't based on their technical ability, creative decisions, or ability to perform live for a crowd, but rather based on whether they seemed "cool" or not in a cultural sense. He doesn't seem to have any actual musical knowledge or experience other than as a listener. I hate to draw this comparison, but it's kind of been staring me in the face - I think the first time I interacted with Storf on the forums and read some of his stuff, I googled "Grantland contributors" to see if it was the same guy. Same obtuse energy under a chatty veneer of click-bait-y pop culture soundbytes.
But, I have a lot of friends (including people on here) who, in recent years, have enjoyed and recommended Hyden's books, and since I love Kid A, and it seems like he does, too, I figured that this book would be a good entry point, and that I wouldn't really have to love his style to still enjoy the book. I was also open to the possibility that maybe he'd changed his style over the years or wrote his published books with a different, more careful, less casual tone than he used in blog articles. Or maybe I'd pick up on something in his writing that I'd missed before that would make it click for me. Or maybe, he'd just stick to talking about Kid A and Radiohead and not go on about his opinions on everything else. But yeah, none of that seems to have happened.
Last but not least, to answer your question: I wasn't born and raised in the Midwest but my parents were and I've spent some time out there with family every year of my life (that's where literally all of my aunts/uncles/cousins live). I also did 4 years of college in Minnesota - so, even though I don't consider myself to be Midwestern, I have a lot of Midwestern friends and family - I'm not like bigoted against Midwestern people. And none of the Midwestern people I know would presume to tell me what to think about music without actually knowing something about it themselves haha.
