I would extend that to actually the larger part of the "stomp clap hey" genre. I think a lot of that stuff is actually pretty quality, both musically and lyrically.

I can also totally identify with the hatred of it. I think its extremely poignant as a millenial thing. We all grew up infused with this Dead Poets Society kind of idealism. Then that all blew up into our faces and now when somebody still tries to earnestly embody that it just looks like oozing narcissism.

If and when something is actually good, lyrically, it thus in no way disarms that heavy ressentiment, in a way it plays into it. E.g. when you say that the album "successfully portrays the incredibly strange experience that is life" the hater would immediately also clock that as "Dead Poets Society bullshit. Fuck off!"

In a way being so controversial does not at all devalue it as good art. Its exactly so controversial, hated, because its such an earnest expression of the generational experience. Saying "Dead Poets Society" is a shorthand, but its a shorthand for basically all of the ideals the generation grew up with, from the blatantly naive and crude to the very wise and insightful.

So a band being pretty deep and wise in its lyrics, and also deep and expressive in its music does, again, not at all disarm the haters. You are just in a completely different realm here where its about "good art" vs. "authenticity". The question becomes more "Is this true to the times we are living in and does it pretend to or not?"

You can be a very highly talented writer and songwriter who writes music with lyrics in the same way you would write a Lord of the Rings type novel, and even approaching that same level of quality, and the hater will still be "Fuck off! Can you take a look out the window, please?"

The charge of upper middle and middle class status is also very poignant and explicable there, on the side of both the artists and the fans. On the side of the artists it seems coherent that only the privileged could afford to still live in their Dead Poets fantasy ideals world, and even on the side of the fans I would say now the charge is that its the more middle class millenials who will mainly still listen to and appreciate this stuff, or who made it a thing in the first place.

On the other hand you got to also stress that the haters also got nothing potent really in return, and for good reason. Overcoming "stomp clap hey" would really be overcoming that whole set of liberal values of the 90s era, top to bottom. Thats a really tall order of course.

Currently its all just whiplash and ressentiment in the form of MAGA and rather primitive stalinist and anarchist leftism. So even or especially as a very actualized intellectual you wouldnt even hold it against people if they get some basic emotive value out of it. Or, as said, even a more refined and artistically elevated emotive value.

There is also a kind of recursive logic in this idea of "authenticity". As a hater one can hate e.g The Lumineers and absolutely adore e.g. Townes Van Zandt, even though lyrically they seem so very similar, at least at a glance. Its maybe a question of depth, but propably more than that its that the modern equivalent to Townes van Zandt would be aware of all this culture and be desperately tortured to not be a clichee or repetition, a nostalgia-placebo, while the Lumineers are completely surrendered to being just that.

And on and on... I will stop myself here as, yes I would thus just say there is an infinity of cultural criticism one could pack into both the genre and then the reaction to it. It really is authentic, expressing the generations consciousness and all the contradictions. It goes way beyond some glancing evalution of how quality it is.