The internet is just an excuse. I think most bands have had good record collections since the beginning of records. It would be pretty foolish to be, say, a rock guitarist and not listen to Django Reinhardt, or Grant Green, or Sonny Sharrock, and I bet a lot of the great guitarists who don't sound like any of the aforementioned artists only don't sound like them because they were able to synthesize what they were able to learn from them into something new.
The whole eclecticism racket is just a hedging of bets, an unwillingness to have an opinion. It's being so afraid of being wrong that one ceases to be; one is overcome by influences instead of fighting through them.
I think critics like these type of artists because these artists are like critics in the worst sense - striving for "balance", always "objective", meaning non-committal, never willing to take a risk lest they lose the minuscule amount of cultural cache they have gained.
I know Simon called this attitude "record collection rock" years ago. While he was most likely thinking of it in terms of a band's willingness to show off their taste through their music, there is another way of thinking about it. A record collector, as opposed to a music fan, buys records he thinks he should have based on some sort of external criterion. A Detroit techno collector has all the releases on Transmat, a classic rock collector has every Doors record, and to them, it doesn't matter if they don't like "The Groove" or LA Woman. With creativity, deciding what something will be before it is made is the easiest way to ensure nothing new will take place.
Miles Davis: I'll play it first and tell you what it is later
Sonic Youth (the band most likely to be called "curators"): Kill yr idols
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