“Rock Stigma Refreshingly Denigrated”

Ya know, sometimes I sit back, and it puzzles me: why do I still find some music good, and some music not good? I love the new Cloud Nothings, but some other bands in the past couple years haven’t done it for me — bands which had, before. All of our communications methods are mired in the Internet, essentially, and almost any tunes you desire are available sans-charge, at the drop of a click. With seemingly so few things SPATIAL, why is it that the concept of QUALITY still even reigns?
I dunno, but either way, with this looming and looming underdog predicament of music, particularly of rock, a relatively antiquated language compared with rap and electro, one thing has become clear, and MOST REFRESHINGLY so, today — the punk vs. hippie stigma has been all but completely emaciated. Today, you can truly listen to whatever kind of guitar pop you want to, whether it’s Goldfinger’s “Answers” or the Grateful Dead’s “Fire on the Mountain” (god dang does the West Coast seem to be the kings of these things), and nobody will blame you, nobody will doubt your intentions, and most importantly, NOBODY REALLY CARES! You’re seen as an old fogy anyway. Heck, fine with me. This past semester I played for my class The Wallflowers’ “Three Marlenas” and the Meat Puppets’ “Flaming Heart.” Sure, they generally purported themselves as if they’d rather die a slow death of tuberculosis than actually ENJOY my music, but one thing you couldn’t ascribe to them would be the ability to actually aesthetically JUDGE the juxtaposition, like say that The Wallflowers aren’t “punk” enough for the Puppets’ company, et. al. The fact that rock has been so bereft of its wheels, I think, was more than evidenced by this one dude on facebook I saw one time who in the spring or early summer liked to listen to “country and pop rock.” In the mid-’90s country and pop rock were about like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox — sworn enemies. But now we’ve zoomed out. All those little Mexican jumping dots are starting to look about the same as each other. It’s the end of the world, and I feel fine. Another observation I’d like to make is that the Grateful Dead – Shakedown Street cover looks a lot like the Green Day – Dookie cover — and they’re even both from the Bay Area.