It’s a reality that caught me by surprise this month. For a whole year, I had listened to music at every available moment – before school, while doing homework, while driving – but had taken in shockingly few of the sounds 2008 had to offer. I had filled my iPod with albums that are older than I am, gathered secondhand vinyl at junk stores, and gravitated toward radio stations with a taste for “the classics.” Meanwhile, I hadn’t bought enough new albums to fill a “top ten” list. O, I had sinned.

Why had I failed so miserably to keep up with the musical times? Certainly, it wasn’t for want of interest. Just as I believe that “old” music should never be discarded on grounds of age, I hold no prejudice against the new offerings of the music world. My list of excuses for largely neglecting new music is long and mundane: I’m too busy. I still need to hear all the classics before I can immerse myself in the contemporary sounds they inspired. It’s okay if I’m not buying new albums, as long as I’m hearing new songs on the radio.

Indeed, as an avid FM radio listener, I pay special attention to new songs that grace the airwaves of my favorite stations. WFUV, the station that is practically my home on the radio dial, habitually plays new music alongside older material. Sure, my taste in modern music does not always coincide with that of WFUV’s programmers. Coldplay, for example holds little appeal for me, and I find Death Cab For Cutie positively cringe-worthy. Still, I have heard some excellent new songs on the radio this year: David Byrne and Brian Eno sound inspired on the singles from their recent collaboration Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, while The Knux’s hit “Cappuccino” is a welcome return to the vitality of hip-hop’s distant past. But I can say nothing about the albums these songs come from, because I did not buy them.

The time-tested theory behind radio exposure is that when I, the listener, find a new single pleasing, I will buy the corresponding album. When this process works as intended, all involved parties win: artists and record companies get paid for their music, radio stations maintain loyal audiences, and consumers find music that speaks to them. It is time for me to renew my participation in this universally beneficial relationship.

I am making a New Year’s resolution to stop making myself content with albums from the past and singles from the present. I will never abandon the music of years gone by, but in 2009 I will make it a priority to live in the musical moment. When I hear a song that I can connect with, I will take the next step and buy the album. And a year from now, I hope, I will have a selection to offer for 2009’s Album of the Year.

But, like any other enduring species, the TV-produced music star was bound to evolve. Over 40 years after the Monkees first rocked the living room TV set, the music industry is still discovering new ways to turn fake artists into real money. While the Monkees’ success banked on smart, enduring pop songs as much as their on-screen personas, it is now possible to sell millions of records purely on the strength of meticulously calculated marketing. And where music publishing was once the domain of a few dedicated music labels, none of these now seem able to keep up with the Disney Channel.

With High School Musical and Hannah Montana, Disney took two seemingly innocent television productions and turned them into record-smashing phenomena. The High School Musical soundtrack outsold any other record last year in the United States, with the companion CD to this year’s High School Musical 2 also tearing up the charts. Hannah’s no commercial slouch, either; her “Best of Both Worlds” concert tour was last year’s hottest ticket, having sold out even faster than perennial road-king Bruce Springsteen. Want a prime ticket for one of Hannah’s shows when the tour stops in New Jersey? Nine thousand dollars on the ticket-scalping site StubHub should do it.

Disney’s key to manufacturing such unprecedented musical stardom for their TV characters is simple: know your audience. After years of creating shows for the pre-teen market, Disney knows just how to craft the kind of characters and plotlines that have turned the American youth into the world’s token couch potatoes. Add the right sprinkling of sing-along anthems, and an epidemic of obsession is born. It’s only logical, then, that fans of the TV shows will be happy to spend their allowance dollars on “albums” of songs from favorite episodes.

For the future of popular music, the implications of Disney-generated music transcend the contents of your sister’s iPod. Where fictional pop acts of yesterday were content to pay clever homage to their musical heroes, those of today are poised to stand aside them. For legions of young Americans, Hannah Montana is every bit as “real” as any other artist; her origins as a TV persona only add to her stature as a pop music icon. Meanwhile, countless off-screen musical talents continue to garner audiences but find themselves confined to a particular demographic of fans. Even those who score major hits are generally unable to cross the borders of generation and subculture.

Older music lovers may look upon all this with despair, ruing the day when Hollywood learned to corrupt the youthful idea of artistry. But have the Monkees of yesteryear truly evolved into chart-hoarding monsters? Or has the traditional music industry let its once-great circus of top artists degenerate into a sleepy petting zoo?

Despite the ongoing decline of record sales, today’s labels are unwilling to take the kind of bold, adventurous risks that once made popular music so vital and exciting. Top radio stations are content to play the same predictable sounds ad nauseam, while the most inventive acts have no greater champion than college radio. For the first time, millions of teens are losing patience with today’s hits and turning to the stars of their parents’ generation. When the music business seems bored with itself, it should hardly come as a surprise that the youngest listeners don’t feel compelled to stick with “real” artists.

Fundamentally, Hannah Montana and the cast of High School Musical are scarcely different from their predecessors. The use of TV characters to sell simple pop tunes has been central to every TV-produced musical act since the Monkees. How, then, did these adolescent stars overtake the position once reserved for the most elite musical talents? The answer has little to do with the performers themselves. Rather, the sickly music business has become so feeble and uninspired that an innocent gimmick is now enough to conquer its top position. It’s a reality that the dominance of fictional music in the mainstream has gotten out of hand. But if the music industry hopes to regain its footing on both commercial and artistic ground, it has bigger problems than Hannah Montana to face.

If you wanted to survive the month of December without ever hearing a holiday tune, you would need to make some severe lifestyle changes. You couldn’t walk into a grocery store or a coffee shop, or even along the sidewalk of a commercial street. You’d have to plug your ears and run at the sight of pedestrians in groups, for these might be carolers. Television, of course, would be strictly off limits. And you wouldn’t dare touch your FM radio dial.

And for all that effort, you’d earn yourself a reputation as a social pariah. To most Americans, it would seem bizarre that anyone would want to avoid holiday music. Aversion to Christmastime fervor – Scroogism, if you will – is considered about as foreign to American culture as ritual foot binding. A real American, we are taught, has the warmth of heart to partake in the wholesome Christmas Spirit, and accordingly-themed music is part of the package.

Of all the types of conformity American society expects, this may be the one I find toughest to abide. It surely doesn’t help that I identify as a Jew, but what really stands between me and the Christmas Spirit is my distaste for the sonic trash that pollutes my musical environment this time of year. And though I do my best to judge all songs with a fair and open mind, I have grown convinced that holiday music is uncommonly derivative and predictable. Over the years, I have formulated the following categories for the easy classification of all holiday songs:

1. Winter Weather – Paradoxically, many holiday songs have little to do with an actual holiday. Instead, they espouse the defining meteorological feature of winter – namely, snow – and all the fun it entails. This category happens to include several of the most popular holiday songs of all time: “Jingle Bells,” “Winter Wonderland,” and Bing Crosby’s enduring smash “White Christmas.”

2. Santa Claus – Old Saint Nick may not be real, but you wouldn’t know it from the volume of pop music written in his honor. For the sake of convenience, we will classify all songs about reindeer in this category by association. Familiar examples: “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Little Saint Nick,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

3. Christmas Wishes – These most generic of songs have so little thematic substance that they can do nothing more than simply wish us a Merry Christmas. Think I’m exaggerating? Consider the following: “Feliz Navidad,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

4. Jesus – He may be the birthday boy, but the actual airtime devoted to Christmas songs about Jesus is comparatively slim. The best-known ones tend to be old seasonal hymns that predate the advent of recorded music, such as “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and “Silent Night.”

5. Christmas as Proxy for Something Else – Record executives know that for two months a year, they can shove anything down America’s collective throat, so long as it contains the word “Christmas.” So we get listless, formulaic pop that uses Christmas as a front for something even more mundane, like a run-of-the-mill love affair or a child’s dental woes. Instructive in the phenomenon: “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” and Jimmy Buffet’s wretched “Christmas In The Caribbean.”

6. Christmas as Comedy: Snobs like me enjoy making a mockery of Christmas music, but a few recording artists have beaten us to the punch. Weird Al Yankovic won laughs as usual with “The Night Santa Went Crazy,” but it’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Dr. Elmo, whose sole claim to fame is the omnipresent “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.”

7. Hanukah Songs – So far, Kwanza has been spared the trivializing effect of pop songs in the Christmas mold. Hanukah, sadly, has not been so lucky. Since most Jews can’t remember what Hanukah is about and most non-Jews never learned, popular Hanukah songs don’t get more specific than a vague allusion to “days long ago.” Three examples, all of roughly equal religious merit: “O, Hanukah,” “The Dreydel Song,” and Adam Sandler’s “Hanukah Song.”

I once believed that anyone who records Christmas songs is an incorrigible sellout, but I abandoned that theory because the list was so overwhelming: Springsteen, the Beach Boys, Sinatra, B.B. King, U2, The Supremes, The Beatles – heck, most of the great artists in the history of popular music have at sometimes turned to Christmas music. To me, these recordings represent the low points in the otherwise stellar careers of highly talented performers. Sure, there are those who claim that the intrinsic joy of holiday season forgives its trite soundtrack. Bah, I say. Humbug

P.S. My apologies for the lapse in blog posts. Entries will now resume with normal frequency.

In 1983, Ahmet Ertegun was determined to settle the score. The Atlantic Records founder set out to establish a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, paying tribute to rock’s greatest performers and other important figures in the genre’s still-young history. By 1986, Ertegun and a committee of so-called rock experts were ready to honor the first class of inductees, ushering in an era of official recognition for achievement in rock and roll.

Recently, I was greeted with the chance to make a rock pilgrimage of sorts to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. Being a self-professed popular music snob, I naturally approached this commercialized institution with some degree of suspicion. After all, could a panel of critics and label execs really be trusted to spell out the history of rock and roll in fair and accurate terms? Despite my cynical apprehensions, I found myself standing at the museum’s door fully ten minutes before opening time, making me the first over-excited idiot of the day to show up.

Inside, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a veritable paradise for rock musicologists. With multimedia and artifacts representing every era of rock history, the museum offers a nerdy thrill a minute. Rare footage and objects from popular music legends abounds, as does written material that puts rock lore admirably in perspective. Even when interest in historical minutia begins to wane, it’s difficult to deny the entertainment value of the psychedelic paint job on Janis Joplin’s Porsche or David Bowie’s outrageous stage garb.

Although the museum pays tribute to current inductees and non-inductees alike, those who have been officially honored are enshrined in a video presentation that keeps the focus appropriately on their music. And though it certainly doesn’t hurt to be a multi-platinum megastar, it would be unfair to say that only the most commercially successful artists are candidates for induction. Rather, the primary criterion seems to be far-reaching influence; alternative rock pioneers such as the Velvet Underground and the Ramones have been admitted despite being relative commercial flops in their respective heydays.

In a musical culture so often defined by rebellion against capitalist institution, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame seems to have a sobering effect on its inductees. This, of course, is endlessly ironic because the Hall is as capitalistic and institutionalized as it gets. Yet, even performers with a history of public squabbles with the record industry, like Tom Petty and John Fogerty, have become gracious and enthusiastic acceptors of the honor. Indeed, the Hall of Fame has cultivated an air of legitimacy powerful enough to make many counterculture icons willingly accept a pat on the back from the man.

Not every honoree, however, has responded with such gratitude. When the Sex Pistols received word that they had been chosen as inductees for the Class of 2006, the legendary punks posted a hastily scrawled note on their website, declining to attend the induction ceremony and casting the Hall of Fame as a profiteering “piss stain.” That’s the spirit, lads.

The Sex Pistols’ attitude toward the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has often been echoed by discriminating rock listeners who are offended by the notion of an “official” registry for artistic greatness. The idea of a “hall of fame,” these critics argue, should be reserved for fields such as professional sports, in which individuals can be ranked according to scores and statistics. Popular musicians, whose achievements are subjective and defy quantification, do not fit this mold. Therefore, opponents of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame say, there cannot and should not be any “final word” on who the true geniuses of rock are.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has also come under fire for its loose definition of “rock and roll,” which permits artists from non-rock genres such as jazz and hip hop to be inducted. This year’s induction of Madonna, alongside more traditional “rock” icons including John Mellencamp and the Ventures, drew harsh criticism from strict constructionists of rock. Previous controversial inductees have included hip hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and jazz trumpet master Miles Davis. For many, it seems as though the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is degenerating into a disjointed who’s-who of music-biz celebrities.

In a sense, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was doomed from the start to be controversial. Whether or not it intends to do so, the institution seems to uphold its inductees as infallible deities. And in the community of self-proclaimed rock critics, nothing is sacred. Rock fans thrive on the thrill of a good argument, challenging prevailing views about greatness and influence and offering up their own takes.

Try asking some popular music nerds who started punk rock. Some will say the Ramones. Others will cite the MC5 or the Stooges. I say the Kinks and the Who had plenty to do with it. The beauty of an argument like this is that it has no definitive answer. The goal of having the discussion is less to prove a point than to probe the knowledge of fellow scholars and share some nuggets of rock lore. These arguments may uncover more common ground than new quarrels, but music nerds maintain just enough discrepancies to pick up the conversation right where it left off.

But what happens when you give a nerd the power to announce the names of rock’s geniuses to the world? My guess is that besides having millions of dollars and a museum at their disposal, the geeks who choose the inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are no different from the geeks found lingering in record stores around the world. They have their version of rock history, and I have mine.

Walking through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was like picking the brain of a fellow rock enthusiast. I soaked up every song and story, whether or not I already knew it by heart. I nodded my approval when an exhibit struck just the right chord. I grimaced when things seemed to fall out of tune with my way of thinking. In those cases, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I would have to agree to disagree. And by that measure, it was one of the best arguments I’ve ever had.

It’s no coincidence that when political banter veers toward more light-hearted fare, music tends to dominate the conversation. In a country of wide economic gaps and deep cultural subdivisions, an affinity for music is one common thread between all factions of American society. Even with the record industry in decline, Americans still consume music at a prodigious rate, and chattering about favorite musicians remains a national pastime. Any presidential hopeful who does not outwardly care about music risks appearing out of touch, even un-American. But in the heat of the electoral race, even a topic as innocent as music could turn controversial if the candidates fail to watch what they say.

Where musical leanings are concerned, Senator Obama has been the more forthcoming of the two major candidates. In a June interview for Rolling Stone, Obama said that his tastes are eclectic, ranging from jazz to folk to hip-hop. The senator lavished praise on a few of his musical heroes, but he avoided the appearance of having a single “favorite” genre. Whether or not Obama’s statements are genuine, they represent a politically savvy effort on his part to make himself more likeable to Americans of all musical creeds.

In the case of hip-hop, Obama seems acutely aware that his attitude toward the music could have a real impact on his public image. Given that most rap listeners are young and the most popular MCs are generally African American, an Obama endorsement of the genre would help play down concerns that he is not “cool enough” or “black enough.” However, he also runs the risk of alienating older voters, many of whom regard hip-hop as crass and offensive. In his Rolling Stone interview, Obama walked the line cautiously, citing Jay-Z as a favorite artist but also expressing concerns about inflammatory lyrics in hip-hop. “I am troubled sometimes by the misogyny and materialism of a lot of rap lyrics,” he lamented.

Senator Obama also tempered his enthusiasm for music with hints that while he may be a fan, he is hardly a fanatic. Talking about his affinity for Bob Dylan, Obama mentioned that he has “probably 30″ Dylan songs on his iPod. (This reporter has 234, counting live and alternate versions.) He also indicated that his iPod contains only one Dylan album, Blood On The Tracks, in its entirety. Music nerds may recoil at this news, but Obama seems more than happy to distance himself from those “elitist” snobs.

If Obama has been self-conscious and calculating in his statements on music, he is only willing to carry this tack so far. On his Facebook page, Obama lists Dylan, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Johann Sebastian Bach, and The Fugees as his favorite artists. This list may exude fine taste, but from a political standpoint it leaves much to be desired. Neglecting country music means a missed opportunity to appeal to southern voters, and Dylan’s peacenik image will only reinforce the fears of those who see Obama as “too liberal.”

One comment from Obama’s Rolling Stone interview was far more risky. Asked to name a favorite Dylan song, the senator picked “Maggie’s Farm,” a classic that marked the beginning of Dylan’s controversial switch from acoustic folk to electric rock. “It speaks to me as I listen to some of the political rhetoric,” Obama said of the song. To be sure, “Maggie’s Farm” is overtly political, and its lyrics are often interpreted as a rebuke to the capitalist institution. If Obama wants to improve his rapport with moderate voters, he would do well to clarify that he doesn’t take “Maggie’s Farm” as a call for socialism.

Senator McCain, while not as outspoken about music as his rival, did issue one bold proclamation: the dude bops to ABBA. True to his maverick persona, McCain has stood by the Swedish pop group since October 2007, when he told reporters in South Carolina that he does not subscribe to the “rank hypocrisy” of ABBA-bashers. “Nobody likes them, but they’ve sold more records than anybody in the history of the world, including The Beatles,” he said. The factuality of this statement is questionable at best, but Washington rhetoric is seldom immune to hyperbole.

If ABBA is not the best-selling of all music groups, it might be the most polarizing. While music snobs deplore the band as an embodiment of the 70s in all their glossy excess, droves of fans still revel in the effortlessly catchy songs. Many ABBA enthusiasts may prefer to lurk in the shadows, but someone must be buying up all those tickets for Mamma Mia!, the ABBA-themed hit musical that made the jump this year from Broadway stage to silver screen. McCain is taking a chance on ABBA Nation, hoping that his love of the group will please more voters than it offends.

McCain’s courageous declaration about his favorite group represents a departure from his fellow Republican, current President George W. Bush. Bush has usually played it safe when speaking about his favorite songs, picking simple classic rock hits like John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” and Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” Choices like these fit neatly into Bush’s self-styled image: down-to-earth, none-too-cerebral, All-American.

Meghan McCain, daughter of the Republican presidential nominee, appears to be looking out for dad’s best interests when it comes to publicizing his musical tastes. In January, she told MTV that her father does not listen only to “really old music,” but also enjoys younger artists such as Lauryn Hill. Ms. McCain issued this comment as part of a claim that her father, despite his age (72), is in touch with the American youth.

Although Senator McCain and Senator Obama seem to take pleasure in music, both men appear to lack any musical ability of their own. Several previous presidential candidates have been eager to show off their chops on an instrument, and have done so to mixed results. Former president Bill Clinton, for instance, scored points for likeability by playing the saxophone on national television during his 1992 campaign. Senator John Kerry tried to emulate the strategy in 2003, when he took up an electric guitar and joined a local Boston band onstage for a Bruce Springsteen cover. Unfortunately for the Kerry campaign, this move did little to negate the senator’s image as stuffy and pretentious.

Ultimately, the fact that neither McCain nor Obama openly plays an instrument may prove immaterial. The American electorate, by and large, is above the need for a rock star president. But the people do yearn for a president to whom they can relate, and, above all, whom they can trust. Whether or not they realize it, plenty of voters are more likely to have faith in a candidate whose musical tastes they can respect. If a record collection really is a window to the soul, the glimpses Senator McCain and Senator Obama give us could have real implications for how we see them as potential leaders.

# # #

That’s an opportunity I would gladly take, were I not otherwise engaged. But as a musician in the Westchester Klezmer Program, I am responsible for laying down the tunes that drive the high-spirited party. While the congregation dances and parades through the aisles with the Torah scroll, we pound out the music of our Eastern European forefathers.

That music is called klezmer, a Yiddish word that means “vessel of song,” and it consists of wordless melodies – bulgars, freylekhs, horas, turkishers – meant to inspire dancing. Klezmer is not a religious form of music in the sense that Christian Gospel music is; rather than communicate a message about God, klezmer appeals to our sense of connection as Jews in the cultural sense. “We’re all family here,” we shout louder with melody than we could with words. “Bring out the chair.”

A love of the idiosyncratic is all but a requirement to thrive in a klezmer group, so it’s no surprise that strange instruments of all shapes and sizes show up in our ranks. I’ve spent most of my five years with the Westchester Klezmer Program playing the electric cello. There was also a brief stint on the electric ukulele, which made me the proud holder of the “weirdest instrument” belt until someone showed up with a superbone. What’s a superbone, you ask? It’s a trumpet-trombone hybrid that has often anchored our brass section.

Members of the Westchester Klezmer Program range in age from roughly eight to eighty and in skill level from beginners to concert soloists. We will play – and have played – just about anywhere: synagogues, private homes, libraries, hospitals and nursing homes have all been among our chosen venues. We shout out the Yiddish names of songs before we play them and let the grandmothers in the audience offer up a translation. We engage crowds in a two-word sing-along: “Oy, Tate!” We once played a show on St. Patrick’s Day and opened with an Irish jig. Any time we can bring some smiles to faces Jewish and non-Jewish alike – and do it with chutzpah – we can go home knowing our work is done.

But seldom does anyone have more fun than the band members themselves. Having played with many of the same musicians for years, I have the benefit of old friendships that transcend mere musical partnership. There are inside jokes, often at the expense of band members. There is gossip enough to fit the old Jewish stereotype. There’s even a welcoming (ok, hazing) ritual for new members at rehearsals: they must introduce themselves with their name, their synagogue, and their favorite Chinese food. Wrong answers are not treated lightly.

Often, those new members find themselves further confused by our foreign practice methods. When we tackle a new piece of music, the process begins not with a written score but with each person’s ear. We listen to the tune as our bandleader plays it on the banjo, then sing the wordless melody aloud. And once we can sing it like it’s been engrained in our DNA for a thousand years, we move to our instruments and feel for the notes.

When sheet music finally does arrive, we treat it not as holy writ but as a mere reference to be amended, rearranged and outright mangled at will. Once, we introduced a tune with an opening riff that we pulled straight from the 007 theme music. In an especially strange turn of events, I once found myself in an offshoot of the Westchester Klezmer Program, a hard rock-klezmer fusion band called Black Shabbos. The freewheeling approach leads to sonic mayhem at least as often as it creates moments of magic, but it amounts to a kind of freedom that is anathema to the more disciplined world of classical music.

Truth be told, most of today’s klezmer musicians arrived at the genre with a classical background. We’re used to the certainty and precision of the structured format, and it can be culture shock to try playing any other way. But klezmer is folk music at its core, and all folk music should live up to the promise of its title: it comes not from the mind of some deified composer but from the spirit of ordinary people – the folks.

At its best and purest, klezmer – indeed, all folk music – is music without ulterior motive. When I play klezmer music, I know I’m not playing it to win over college admissions officers, to impress girls, or to sell records. I’m playing for the part of me that loves the sense of culture and belonging that comes with being a Jew, no matter much or how little of the religious doctrine I may choose to accept. That part of me needs a voice, and I know just one way to give it one.

Like all music aficionados, I take a certain pleasure in a good music argument. We may agree that Dylan ruled in the mid-60s and that Billy Joel can’t write a song to save his life, but let’s dig deeper into the gritty details of our respective tastes. Which is the greatest Beatles album? Was Marvin Gaye better with or without Tammi Terrell? Which of Eric Clapton’s many bands best represents his talents? (My answers: Rubber Soul, without, Derek and the Dominoes.) We, as nerds, buy just a bit too much stock in the idea that we can, and should, make small judgments about one another based on the ins and outs of our record collection. Truth be told, it’s fun, and those prepared for a verbal beating won’t suffer any permanent emotional damage. So let’s dive into it. I’ll call you a plebian neophyte, and you can call me a self-righteous snob. Sound fun?

I give credit where credit is due. Novelist Nick Hornby, author of the film-adapted novel High Fidelity, is responsible for the most effective device ever designed to start a music argument. The Top Five List, a format so limiting that it not only allows but requires heretical omissions, cuts straight to the core of our musical leanings. Here, I offer just a few of my lists, and I invite - indeed, challenge - everyone to tackle the same questions with their own lists. I look forward to exchanging verbal abuse.

Top Five Side One, Track Ones:
(This one is straight from High Fidelity. For those not vinyl-savvy, side one, track one is the first song on an album.)

5. “London Calling,” from The Clash’s London Calling
4. “Astral Weeks,” from Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks
3. “Like a Rolling Stone,” from Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited
2. “Come Together,” from The Beatles’ Abbey Road
1. “Gimme Shelter,” from The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed

Top Five Debut Albums:

5. Are You Experienced? - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
4. Greetings From Ashbury Park, N.J. - Bruce Springsteen
3. My Aim Is True - Elvis Costello
2. Funeral - Arcade Fire
1. Grace - Jeff Buckley

Top Five Guitar Solos on Studio Tracks:

5. “The Thrill Is Gone” - B.B. King
4. “Blue Sky” - The Allman Brothers Band (guitarists Dickey Betts and Duane Allman)
3. “Sultans of Swing” - Dire Straits (guitarist Mark Knopfler)
2. “Shoot Out The Lights” - Richard and Linda Thompson (guitarist Richard Thompson)
1. “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” - The Jimi Hendrix Experience (guitarist Jimi Hendrix)

Jeff Zalesin

Take, for example, the case of Green Day. Prior to 2004, the trio built a solid reputation for playing simple, standardized punk rock with an above-average sense of songcraft. Enter American Idiot. It was an ambitious concept album that explored post-9/11 America in the “rock opera” format first popularized by The Who. It was not a pure punk rock record, nor did it pretend to be. The new Green Day emerged as an energetic, intelligent pop-rock band with plenty to say about the world around them. While the general public ate it up, making American Idiot the band’s fastest-selling record ever, many punk purists went into mourning. The record was simply too catchy, too cleanly produced, and too popular for many fans of their established style. What’s worse, singles like “American Idiot” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” were abusively overplayed by radio and MTV until even the most loyal fans began to cringe. Before long, the name “Green Day” became synonymous with “sellout” for cynical listeners everywhere. What’s easiest to forget is that American Idiot is excellent on its own terms. The songs are as original as they are anthematic, both lyrically and sonically. And the supporting tour that followed was an electrifying and engaging spectacle of rock and roll. Take in the whole picture, and you’ll start to see a band that unfairly became a victim of its own success.

Green Day, of course, had the distinct misfortune of being not only a popular band, but a popular “punk” band. Hardcore fans of punk rock have an exceptionally low tolerance for those who dare sell too many records. The banishment of popular punk bands from their own community is not a new practice. Punk icons Bad Religion, for example, took heat for mixing punk energy with mainstream hooks in the late 80s. Even the legendary Clash angered many purists in the late 70s, when they began to polish their production and incorporate pop, reggae, and arena rock into their sound. It seems that the most devoted punk fans have always wanted to preserve their beloved style as it was conceived, without interference from the world of popular music. And anyone with the nerve to venture outside the boundaries of punk and explore that world can only be called a traitor.

Punk rock is not the only genre in which popularity is a taboo. Last year, the Decemberists expanded on their indie-folk sound to incorporate 70s-style rock, angering loyal indie fans. In 1991, fans of hardcore thrash-metal couldn’t choke down Metallica’s mainstream-infused “Black Album.” Even back in 1965, Bob Dylan’s switch from acoustic folk to electric blues-rock was greeted with violent rage from the folk community. And what do all these famous “sellouts” have in common? They all crossed genre lines into more widely popular styles, and paid the price with their original fan bases. It seems most likely that if these artists had played in the more popular style from the beginning, they never would have heard the cries of, “sellout!” After all, who ever thought of calling The Beatles “sellouts” for playing their melodic pop-rock? In their case, nothing else was ever expected because popular music was their indisputable core.

So, fellow music geeks, I ask you this question: when we judge an artist’s newest release, should we expect it to sound like the artist’s older work? Or should we take every album on its own terms, regardless of what came before it or how many copies it sells? Next time you open your mouth to call an artist a “sellout,” think twice about whether the title is fair. Unless you’re talking about Rod Stewart. Then it’s ok.