Genuine Fake Real Life Top 10

Reading Tom Ewing, & then Sterling Clover, on Greil Marcus/Sleater-Kinney was definitely a great insight into what's bogue about Greil M., as if I needed more - like I realised that when he says stuff like how whatever rock band that not even all his readers have heard somehow tells us "what's at stake" I have never had any idea what he's talking about. I'd hate to have his job though - imagine having to listen to EVERYTHING from the POV of some common denominator of EVERYONE IN THE WORLD, it would be like being Jesus. Obviously most popular music that's, duh, popular has stuff in it that is universal-of-appeal, but that's the stuff you get out of the way quickly so you can talk about yourself, right? & you'd need some real major confidence in yr own understanding of the Zeitgeist, what're the concerns of a million million people you don't even know, all that, to step up on that podium in the 1st place, right? I personally wouldn't trust you. How 'bout you, what do you who think of people who think they've got their finger on the pulse of anything other than the specific piece of pop music they're writing about when they're writing about a specif. piece of pop music? or conversely, OK is there any point in anyone who *doesn't* think that ever writing anything about the stuff except, you know, in their diary or s.th.? should pop writing pretend to the universal when the writer doesn't even feel like it (or know what "it" is, or whatever)? Plus, anyway *is* there a "universal" that's neatly (or even not) contained/expressed/or something in pop music any more ? 'cause you know, it's not the fucking 1960s.
I apologise for not organising this question in a more comprehensible manner but I better go out there & see what's "at stake" in the "real world", does anybody need anything from the shops or anything?