Music critic: How well an underground rock groups recordings sell is

EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT

Very tough question. This isn’t one to waste much time on if you’re not already hovering around the 160 mark.

The conclusion is the first sentence: “How well an underground rock group’s recordings sell is no mark of that group’s success as an underground group.” The rest of the argument attempts to back that up: “If a recording sells well… it may be too trendy to be… underground.” And, “Weak sales may simply [indicate] incompetence.”

So it’s an ultradouchy argument about what’s properly considered “underground.” If you don’t sell enough, says the hipster, then you might just suck. But if you sell too much, then you might be “trendy” and therefore not properly called “underground.”

We’re asked to help “justify” the music critic’s argument. In other words, we’re trying to prove the music critic’s argument. First, I’m going to argue with the douchebag hipster and see what happens. Here’s my objection:

“Dude. You just said that weak sales might indicate incompetence, and good sales might indicate trendiness, and you seem to imply that either incompetence or trendiness would be a sign that the group is not successful as an ‘underground’ group. But your conclusion is, ‘Sales are no mark of success as an underground group.’ How can this be true, if you just said that both low sales and high sales might indicate whether a group is successful as an underground group?”

I’m actually not sure how to get from the critic’s evidence to the critic’s conclusion, since the critic’s evidence seems to go directly opposite the desired
conclusion. I’m in trouble here; we’re going to have to go into the answer choices without a prediction.

A) If this is true, it supports the idea that sales can indicate a group’s success. (You’re more likely to be successful if you sell middling numbers of records.) So this answer goes directly against the desired conclusion.

B) This at least supports the direction the critic was trying to go. Above, I noted that the critic had assumed that incompetence means you’re not successful as an underground group, and also assumed that trendiness means you’re not successful as an underground group. Since answer B at least covers up those two assumptions, it helps the argument that the music critic is trying to make. It’s still a **** argument, don’t get me wrong. But B is an assumption of the argument, so making B explicit does strengthen the argument. I don’t love this answer, but I could see picking it if the rest of the answers suck.

C) This does strengthen the argument, but not as much as B. So it's out.

D) Like A, this answer supports the idea that sales can indicate a group’s success. (You’re more likely to be successful if your records do not sell well.) So I don’t see how this can help the critic. B is still the best, by far.

E) This answer takes all the words from the argument, puts them in a blender, and barfs out a bunch of nonsense. I can’t make a case for this answer choice helping the music critic. We did make a case for B, even if it was a weak case. So let’s choose B and get the hell out of here without wasting any more time.

Our answer is B.­

From the passage: "Music critic: How well an underground rock group’s recordings sell is no mark of that group’s success as an underground group. After all, if a recording sells well, it may be because some of the music on the recording is too trendy to be authentically underground [sell well+ too trendy=unsuccessful ]; accordingly, many underground musicians consider it desirable for a recording not to sell well[Sell low+ undesired=unsuccessful ]. But weak sales may simply be the result of the group’s incompetence.[Incompetency=unsuccessful ]"

cases for unsuccessful are following:
1) Incompetency
2) sell well+ too trendy (basically people misunderstood)
3) Sell low+ undesired

Only option B matches this option.