The compulsion to claim the authority to declare who's music is good good and who's not worth listening to - to the point of insulting those who might disagree - should be a quality found only in high school age teenagers. I wonder how old Mr Romm is.
I feel like certain music critics, and this is particularly true, for example, of the kingmakers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, seem to value "authenticity" (whatever that means) over actual musical ability. A bunch of punks whose ethos is "screw the system" is laudable art, while progressive rock virtuosos get panned as pretentious.
Ironically, these critics actually become what they claim to be against. The article Romm cites, Rosenbaum's, is a perfect example. He goes on for a full article, whining about how Billy Joel complains about phonies in his music but is wealthy and successful, and in the process he's basically doing what he accuses Joel of doing, complaining about a phony.
