Well, the new year turned over a few weeks ago, and everyone else has their Top 10 lists out of the way, so now I can get to my own musings without feeling like I'm jumping on a bandwagon.

As the last year wound down, it occurred to me that maybe 2007 would be remembered as the year historians would finally agree that rock and roll really and for sure died. I started making up a top ten list, naturally, itemizing all the indicators like any good coroner would do.

But a strange thing happened - lo! and behold (as Bobby Z once said) - these same indicators, taken from a different vantage point, seemed to actually prove the opposite - rock and roll was just getting its second wind, an image particularly appropriate not only to all the aging rockers and their equally aging audience, but to the young up and comers, some of who sound a little like.... the old rockers.

Anyways, here's my list. Go ahead - you figger out what it means in the big picture - then let me know what conclusion I ought to have reached:

10) White Stripes tour 2007 - anti talent or anti boring? Ya love 'em or hate 'em but you can't do both. In some ways, they repolarized the rock audience much like the punks of the late '70s, but the Stripes lifted at least some of their licks from '70s rock gods, so it was hard to dismiss them out of hand - or easy, depending on your point of view.

9) Radiohead gives away their new album - it has since gone on sale at retail outlets, but originally, Radiohead really created a new marketing reality with this - cut out the middle man, and cut out the actual physical product. And cut out the consumer paying the band. And how do you make a profit? Volume, volume, volume, I suppose.