is justice faking it?

Beatportal this week published a photo of one-half of Justice, Gaspard Augé (above), "performing" via an unplugged controller (which would make it just window dressing) at one of the duo's recent shows. The photo might suggest that the popular band, perhaps the most successful of the recent nu electro wave of Daft Punk acolytes, is faking it. Auge responded that the necessary cable happened to have fallen out around the time of of the photo and that "I plugged it back in, big deal!"

As I've said before, I'm no big fan of the act. I haven't seen it live, but I've heard bad things from professional pop critics in-the-know. I find its popularity, particularly in the light of much better acts such as Digitalism, the Black Ghosts and Simian Mobile Disco, confounding. The band's stardom, in my view, is testament to the triumph in music of marketing over talent. Its album contains two decent tracks, but its career is surrounded by a lot of hype. This only adds to to the mystery.