The last time I commented on an article by New York Times music critic Jon Pareles, he was complaining about how today's popular musicians take comfort over ambition. Never mind that every decade has its fluff -- look at the top singles of the '70s, or the success of Don Johnson (the actor) in the '80s. Today's fluff, we were told, is supposed to be worse than yesterday's fluff.

A similar then-versus-now lament is woven into Pareles' article on how licensing is stealing the soul from music.

Thing is, Pareles explains the situation perfectly in the fourth paragraph. Musicians need to eat and they want to be heard. Pretty simple. Rather than suggest to listeners that they enjoy music without marketing tie-ins, today's over-30 music critics should accept the realities of today's marketplace. Marketing and advertising do not equal selling out. A new generation of music fans was not born when ZZ Top kicked the Black Crowes off its tour because it ridiculed the tour's corporate sponsorship (Miller Lite helped finance the tour). Kids don't know music without commercial tie-ins. To them, it's not any better or worse than how it used to be. It is what it is.

Critics tend to overlook how songs' inclusion in movies and on soundtracks have failed to devalue music. I don't recall anybody complaining of all the classic rock songs that will forever be remembered by an entire generation for their inclusion in the movie "The Big Chill." Yet we're told a song used in a Target commercial loses something due to the affiliation.

So don't worry, music supervisors and marketers. You're not killing music. Keep on making money for music creators and owners. The other option is for people to spend more on music so artists and labels won't look so much to licensing revenue...and that isn't going to happen any time soon.