When you can wake up Monday morning and find the results of Amy Winehouse's Friday afternoon court-mandated urinalysis, it's pretty much official: that gulf of mystery that once existed between superhuman pop icon and just-regular-human pop fan is either completely gone, or has been so successfully bridged by emerging technology that it might as well be. And that's where we're at. You might have to wait out the bullshit, or dig a little deeper than the initial posts on your favorite Project Celebrity Watch sites and blogs, but if you really want to, you can know more about somebody whose song you like than you know about your parents, your sister, or your lover.

Once upon a time, rock stars could be anything they wanted. Perfectly adjusted womanizers, or stylish, intellectual drug addicts who worshipped a devil that always had ample supplies of hot bodies and blow. Even – if you can believe it – a Starman, a Bat Devil, another Starman Who Was Also A Playing Card, and a Curiously Incurious Cat-Man. And fans ate up the fantasy as easily as they devoured the attendant music.

As a musician and writer, I was let behind the curtain before the computer-literate masses. Not too long before, mind you. But just early enough to be granted a rude awakening with regard to the differences between the ideas and realities of the musicians that so heavily influenced me. I opened for bands I'd waited years to meet, only to find out they were dicks. I interviewed people to whom I couldn't wait to speak, only to find out they were dicks too.

And I began to wonder exactly how much my personal knowledge of the artist influenced my opinion of that artist's work.

One of my old bands played with Seaweed. They booted us out of the backstage area and didn't remember us when we drove to Orlando to see them the next night! But it didn't really affect my love for their music. I did a horrible phone interview with The Melvins' Buzz Osborne, one I swear he timed so he could mutter garbled quotes through the gristle of his dinner, and I never listened to the band the same way again – maybe he made the cagey distinction between “press” and “fan,” but I didn't.  I can't hear Stoner Witch without thinking, “God, Buzz Osborne is a tub of cocks.”

Now every fan knows everything about every artist he or she might be considering for the soundtrack of his or her life. Not only that, but they've got to sift through all manner of half-truths and outright lies – none of which are exactly endearing – on their way to forming a picture of said artist that isn't – um – roughly as accurate as a blind Argentinean’s charcoal sketch of a polar bear in a snowstorm.

So how much does this onslaught of “information” about the human beings who create this music influence our opinion of the music itself?

I'm not sure, but I'd wager it's too much. I've loved The Frames for years, and I'm perfectly willing to admit that the attention attracted by Glen Hansard's recent Oscar win makes me nervous. It might not affect his songwriting at all – it probably won't – but the idea of paparazzi suddenly taking interest in a brilliant and heretofore obscure artist curdles my stool. Not because one of my favorite unknown acts has suddenly been shoved into the spotlight, but because of the ripple effect notoriety has in the pop culture pond.

Twenty years ago, I just thought Tommy Lee was the skinniest, craziest guy in Mötley Crüe. Now I know he's aggressive, pathetic and almost clinically retarded. None of that has much to do with the soundtrack of my life. So let me ask you, was I better off not knowing?