I agree with the article in general, however it seems to be lacking in scope.

First off, the writer seems to completely forget the late 80s(like most music critics do these days) in which triumphant instramentalism was everywhere from prince to van halen to oingo boingo to metallica. The hot riff ruled the 80's, and the lyrics were just there to give drunks something to chant. Rock music 'wanking' eventually got downright annoying. By the time grunge came around, we were dying for cerebral, less songcraft oriented stuff that wasn't as inaccessable as the sex-pistols. Unfortunately that music was brought to us by suicidal junkies who couldn't really figure out how to stay relevant/alive

He also totally ignores the influence of hip hop. Some critics need to realize that hip-hop is the truly dominant music trend in america, and that is where most of the vibrant and interesting music is happening. The whole pop-rock/country thing is all but dead here. If you want good pop and rock, you have to go outside of america - particularly to latin america.

I'm convinced that the breathy-voiced retro/indie/ironic mac-commercial pseudo-music (e.g. tegan and sara, feist, decembrists, modest mouse) is just a withered vestigial organ waiting to be cut off by a trend toward global-pop music that is already heard pretty much everywhere but here.