And now the Warhols are next in line for the fifteen-minute commercial-star treatment, and good for them. I hope they make a ton of money, and I hope they spend it wisely — but not too wisely. There needs to be a little rock and roll excess in the plan. But at the end of the day, there also needs to be a plan. The plan is there for the band's sake; the excess is all ours.

The influence and direct effect that the advertising industry is having on the music biz, while still sort of a new thing, is one that in my opinion shouldn't be underestimated. It presents bands with both an opportunity and a risk. If bands are smart enough to use their leverage with advertisers looking to appeal to the coveted 18-35 demographic to their advantage, it can spell all sorts of good things for them. Cries of "sellout" should be disregarded as the plain and simple envy they always were. But even that isn't really the miracle I was talking about. It's related, but it's a side issue.

No, in the end the miracle I refer to is the creation of another perfect pop song, one with actual guitars in it, in an age when guitars are almost an amusing anachronism, like Grandma's snuff tin or Grandpa's garters.

The Dandy Warhols have scored a publicity bonanza with the song "Bohemian Like You," and it's a good 'un. It features a central guitar riff so Stones-like you almost expect to smell Keef's whiskey-and-cigarette breath wafting over your shoulder as he cracks that geezer grin in righteous approval. It's bouncy and infectious. It sports the kind of singalong woo-hoo-hoo chorus that only comes along at the point in time where we're all beginning to think that such things just aren't being made anymore, that they're as dead as the dodo. The entire song, not just the part used in the GM commercial, is a rollicking, hook-laden testament to songcraft and ingenuity. It's innovative, but only to a point, and it's the right point. It sounds at once brand-new and old as dirt. It is, in a word, pretty darned cool. You hear it once, and you can't help but want to hear it again.

I don't know much about the Warhols; I didn't spend a lot of time digging through their site. I just wanted to know what That Song was. And make no mistake, it is indeed That Song, and it will be for a while. Then, with any luck, another one will come along. And as I said, that's the miracle.

Just when you think Rock is well and truly Dead (and maybe some of you think: good riddance), along comes a jaunty little piece of silly pop nonsense that you just can't stop thinking about. How does that happen? How does a certain group of people in a certain space of time come up with something seemingly out of the ether that everybody just kind of likes, no matter their usual musical preference?