Hirschorn and Marzorati

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.

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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.

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Michael Hirschorn is the editor in chief of Spin. Gerald Marzorati is the editorial director of the New York Times Magazine, where his article on the death of rock 'n' roll culture, "How the Album Got Played Out," appeared.

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