With the floodgates open and waves of new music available online at sites like MySpace, consumers need lifeguards more than ever before. In other words, they need to be directed towards the good stuff before they drown in the polluted surf. There's so much junk to swim through before you find land.

So nothing's really changed. Rather than spend day after day slogging through the garage-rock dreams of the musically inept, music lovers are doing the right thing -- paying attention to their friends and taking suggestions for interesting finds. Just like they always did.

Another plus of the social networking sites is they are hard to corrupt. Nobody can accuse MySpace of trying to pull a fast one by force-feeding K-Fed or some other banal act on the public. Instead, kids send links to each other, helping to highlight intriguing music.

It's the way things are supposed to work in a democracy.