The rock critic Simon Reynolds in his new blissblog on Wallowing Shamelessly in Technostalgia:

Yesterday the CD coming with the German Rolling Stone was a sampler on post-punk (which I know I like but don't know too well) including tracks by the Au Pairs, Modern Lovers, Teardrop Exploders, Fall, Slits, X-Ray Spex, Fat Gadget, Gene Loves Jezebel and someone I had never heard of called Reininger. I found this early new wave stuff so much more original, powerful and challenging than any of the bands hyped today which I won't mention again. It clicked with me immediately and now I am not sure if this is because of the quality of that music or a kind of diffuse nostalgia. I write diffuse here as I didn't know most of the tracks and even the ones I knew like It's Obvious by the Au Pairs had a complexity and diversity about them I hadn't noticed before.

I ask myself the question why this is so. Is it my age, I am approaching 40, and do I settle for calmer music now? Or is it the fact that I have listened to a lot of rock music of the last forty years and therefore only hear the rip-offs in the new music? Or could it be that my nostalgic feelings are hurt by bands who do more or less the same as bands 15 or 20 years ago? Don't I listen closely enough to the new stuff to detect the hidden qualities? Or aren't there any and are the new bands really bad pale copies of the past heroes? In one question: is it me or is it them?

Listening to Loveless in 1991 or Heaven or Las Vegas in 1992 (as so often I was late) were revelations which haven't been matched for a long time. I'd like to know if there are other people out there who feel the same.

By the way I am really happy that I do not have to live on writing about music I don't like.