A fantastic article on music, simply fantastic! Here's a couple thought-provoking excerpts, although I encourage everyone to read the full article:

Among the more dubious inventions of the last century is the teenager. Concocted after World War II, the teenager is a marketing construct, a thing devised to sell things to....Now, as we grind ourselves into this brave new century, when we think of our culture, we think of teenage iconography, the marketed artifacts of adolescent years.

Having a youthful identity crisis? Not to worry; the music industry will tell you who you're supposed to be.

After 50 years of this music, it's enough, already. Bad culture makes for bad lives, and a culture that points its youth to mindless and empty consumerism, that tells young girls to see themselves as little more than sexual appliances, that fuels impotent rage flailing at itself in mosh pits and body piercings, is a life-denying culture. It's a culture that seldom affirms anything noble in us, that feeds self-pity, self-absorption and, ultimately, self-loathing. It brings out the best in no one.