So the Mountain Goats are coming into town today. Mountain Goats Day (as it forever shall be known) marks the end of any sort of critical stance that I bring towards music. Today, in honor of my rabid devotion to John Darnielle, I will give everything I hear an reflexive enthusiastic thumbs-up. Britney Spears pumping from Jamba Juice while I walk to class, bracketed by bulky-ass headphones? I love her. Give me more. Truly, my dear, you are a diva, capable of manipulating both men and music anyway you see fit. How bout some Cheap Trick sung by a housemate while he scrubs a stubborn pan? I want you to want me indeed. I like this new stance. After all, nothing needs my approval. If it exists, and somebody out there likes it, the music is justified. I’ll keep my rubber stamp in the drawer. Sure, I recognize that if something is crass and released solely to milk some abominable cash cow, I should decry it with all the air in my lungs, and beg the public not to feed this atrocious beast, but right now I’m not concerned about the STATE OF MUSIC. On some level, music is so pure and simple, and it is unnecessary to drag convoluted political and economic considerations into it. Look at that guy bobbing his head to Ashlee Simpson. Keep it up, my friend. You get something out of her that I don’t, sullied as I am by non-musical considerations and the burden of illusory taste, and frankly that’s beautiful in its own way. Damn, the world is full of music, and Ashlee is for him. As for me, I’ll be up front, starry-eyed, yelling out “GOING TO GEORGIA!” in between songs.