Unflappable

So, in this week's list.in.to.chicago I had this to say about Wire:

If I had the time, I'd look at Jim DeRogatis' takedown of the new Oasis record and his praise of the new Wire record and see if they're functionally the same, except that he likes Wire and doesn't like Oasis. I just have this hunch that he would laud one band for doing something, and criticize another for doing the same.

Now, you would think this would perhaps be an incisive criticism, or the kind of thing a critic might try to avoid, lest he be seen as either painfully inconsistent or a hypocrite. You would be wrong. DeRo practically brags about it in his review of the new AC/DC record:

An argument could be made that, if you own "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" (1976), "Highway to Hell" (1979) and/or "Back in Black" (1980), you really don't need another AC/DC album--and that is certainly true of any number of other formulaic rockers. (Hello, Oasis!) But these blue-collar heroes, much like their spiritual brethren in the punk genre, the Ramones, are a lot like beer: There's no such thing as having too much in the fridge.

So, when is "formulaic rock" okay? When Jim likes the formula. I needed 362 words for that?