My freshman daughter was getting pressure from a senior to like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Of course, I encouraged her to like what she likes.

This also started an interesting conversation about definitions of “good” and “essential”. And why her friend was right about the bands in a categorical sense but wrong about them in an art-is-art sense.

The fact that Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones (and the Beatles, Bob Dylan, etc.) are seminal acts of their era is obvious. Anyone interested in rock music really does need to listen to them. Yes, because they’re good. But also because so many other musicians followed them.

Knowing how they influenced others is valuable. So, in that sense, you don’t have to like them to appreciate the work.

And yet, their music was inspired by earlier sources. Why should we treat the Stones as more important than the blues they cribbed from?

So in a race to listen to the most “essential” listening, this senior is not all that further along.

This is the flaw in the “most essential” frame. It derives most of its gravitas from treating music like evolutionary biology. While often declaring a moment (for most of life, it is has been the 1960s) as a genesis era. Why? Mostly because we like it.

It all seems disturbingly arbitrary. Perhaps not as arbitrary as “I like it.” But, in surprising ways, also not that much less arbitrary.