While I do think those guys are out of touch for a variety of reasons, I aslo think the canon you are talking about give a decent idea of the critical *and* general status of various acts and since those rock-critics more or less have created the canon, it's not irrelevant even if *I* don't care; I doubt I'll ever see Slayer or Gang Starr or whoever in there to name some personal favorites. Still, when you look at the best of-lists and shit and see how those impact the general taste of later generations regarding older music, stuff like this feels important even if the availability of all music nowadays hopefully make the canon less-and-less relevant. You can't tell me that the reason "Kind of blue" is the jazz-album "everyone" has is independent of status. Or that Velvet Underground-in spite of being unsuccessful-has become this massive cult-band;that is almost purely on the critics and band namedropping them and their place within the canon because I sure as fuck never heard VU on the radio or TV... It's not irrelvant IMO.

And "modern-day", internet-created canons are currently being created by sites like rateyourmusic where Radiohead's "OK computer" is ranked as the greatest album of all time which pisses me off but what can I do? I just hope peopleignore it but they don't if you read all the thousands of reviews on that site which have people saying "I picked it up because y'all say it's so great and you were right/wrong".
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>And I don't understand what's being measured by this
>institution. Like, okay, the Stooges are in, but why not MC5?
>Why not New York Dolls? Why not __________? Where and why is
>this line being drawn?

My guess is that M5, for all their proto-punk tendencies still sounded a bit too rooted in a late 60's rock'n'roll aesthetic that actually make them appear not THAT different from Grand Funk Railroad or Brownsvill Station. I love MC% but I would never put them on the same level of importance as the Stooges; the latter just sound more "punk"/grunge/whatever to my ears and thus were more ahead of their time as opposed to MC5 who were more *of* their time; more "goodtime" boogie and Stones- and Who-influences...

As for NY Dolls, you only need to listen to the Sex Pistols album to hear their influence and only look at the band-pictures to see it on later glam-bands. My guess is that they were too transitional/late while simultaneously not "early" enough (Ramones came only shortly afterwards but the difference in music feels like years, I'd give even Dictators a nod over them due to less Stones/Boogie in the sound)...

Anyway, these are just my guesses; I don't know for surebut Stooges have gotten more props in the past 25-30 years in my experience; in the mid-late 70's, I suspect the Dolls would have "won" fairly easily and in the late 60's, MC5 were KANGS in that scene...
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