Entry 8:

Michael, Michael Michael....I never said--during this exchange of ours or in my original essay--that I believed music ever did, or should, matter politically. Nor, again, do I think there was nothing but great music then and nothing but lousy music now. What I do believe is that there was a context for music in what we now call the '60s (and for that matter, as recently as the early '90s) that has been lost. The new context--radio stations where software essentially chooses the records; record labels where the hot new single matters above all; "synergy" hungry entertainment companies whose idea of an important album is a soundtrack that might get a movie a big first weekend--is not conducive to promoting, over time, the best artists or getting the best music being made to the most people, though it is pretty good, I guess, at providing an "outlet for aggression," or something.

If wanting pop culture that doesn't leave the culture out makes me an Epicurean, so be it--and anyway, who else would go on and on the way I'm doing? But you know as I know that I'm not the only one worried about pop music. All these music folks in New York this week for the annual alt-ish CMJ convention: Are they happy with rock radio? Down with the industry? Thinking things couldn't be better? Thinking the real problem are those '60s throwbacks?

One should be very careful, I think, about justifying the reigning paradigm because it is...well, the reigning paradigm.