there is a pervasive knee-jerk habit of calling thoroughly mediocre music groundbreaking simply because of where it came from.

to Buk's point, it has the extremely unfortunate result of either encouraging the technorati not to try, that they are supremely talented when really they aren't, or both.

that said -- we just as often try too hard to super-qualify music. there's music that is going to change something significantly for you, change the way you look at things, and then there's music that you're just going to dig... bob your head, tap your foot, makes you feel good and that's it. not a damn thing wrong with the latter.