I so do not 'get' the Dead and Phish---what IS the attraction? Reminds me of an old joke:
What did one Dead-head say to another when they ran out of acid? "Man, this music REALLY sucks!"
That about sums up the contribution of both. Repetitive, mundane and banal. Inventiveness, creativity, and plain old talent seem to be in short supply. Will 'Truckin' ever be covered by new talent in, oh, say, 30 years? But the classic geniuses will be emulated and imitated---Buddy Guy, Irma Thomas, Nat King Cole, Robert Johnson, Aretha, Dinah, Lady Day, et al.
Musical tastes being so subjective, it's hard to say why one person digs a certain genre and not another. Most of it relays back to what your parents or teachers played when you were young. If it was Lawrence Welk, you're probably more prone to listen to much different music than someone whose early musical influences included Sam and Dave and James Brown...I guess that's what makes horseracing!
Big D
