AM I A COMPLETE IMBECILE, or just old? I know that we lose points off our IQ as we age, but I figured I at least had a firm grasp on basic common sense. Then I see a person whose face is pock-marked with piercings, or a female with purple hair, or a woman covered in tattoos, or a man with earrings, and I realize that I must be in a new and different world. The status quo is neither status nor quo.

It is a struggle for me to come to terms with this. I guess I’ve never been a progressive individual. I remember “the old days” with fondness, not disdain. Popular singing groups had names like The Four Tops or The Pointer Singers. Now they have names that sound like hate groups. I saw an article this morning in a magazine about Daft Punk. That’s a singing duo. They are not the Righteous Brothers, I can tell you. I could tell from reading the article about their music that I wouldn’t want to listen to it. Even the reviewer, who apparently likes their new album, said “it is some of the worst music I’ve ever heard.” This musical conundrum, far from getting her to question her ultimate judgment of the duo’s sound, leads her to the ultimate absurdity. “This raises the question,” she tells us, “does good music need to be good?”

Now, I don’t know about you, but my answer to that question would be an unqualified YES (she concludes otherwise!). Of course, I plead guilty to believing that a phenomenon such as “rap music” is not, in fact, music. I have quality standards, irrespective of advancements in recording devices and diminishments in musical paradigms. Yet this Daft Punk reviewer, despite observing that some of the stuff on this album is terrible, still concludes it is “brazen and lush” and that Daft Punk “seem to know things that we don’t, and so we can’t be disappointed.” She is saying, I guess, that if she doesn’t like it, she must be wrong, she must not be hip (not to mention hop).

Who am I to say? After all, I listen to Renee Fleming doing an aria from Catalani’s opera “La Wally” and I swoon like a man with weak knees. I like Sonny & Cher. I enjoy MUSIC, but I can’t abide some of the crap that seems to pass as such these days. Then again, perhaps there is nothing new about my reaction. A wag once said, commenting about Richard Wagner’s operatic efforts, that his music was “better than it sounds.” Yesterday’s Wagner is today’s Daft Punk.