Every dog, or devil, has its day. I would be very happy to hear that rap and hip-hop are to be banished to the dustheap of history. I was just remarking last weekend, while being tortured in a pub wherein a DJ was playing hip-hop, that I was wrong twenty years ago to say that disco was the worst music ever invented.

Now, if we could only drive a stake into the heart of techno and industrial. The latter is well-named, since five minutes of it reminds me of midnight shifts at the paper mill amidst clanking and whining machinery. I understand that is the entire point of the genre. The only thing missing is the unholy smell, a mixture of steamed wood pulp, rotting bark, spruce sap, and hot oil. (Most bars can do pretty well in the unholy smell department, though. The concept that cleanliness is next to godliness has not occurred to many pub owners.)

I wonder why people would listen to "music" that is basically a computerized copy of factory sounds. Is it because they have never worked in a factory, and want to simulate the experience? It seems to be mostly middle class college kids too -- the kids who actually work in factories listen to mainstream rock and roll, country music, and sometimes even celtic music or blues when there is beer and chicken wings involved.