Old People Are Like So Cool

This story I'm a bit late on, but still, been busy etc., worth posting on anyway I think. Thurston Moore has been slagging off Avril Lavigne:

"I am playing with Yoko Ono, and she's well past 70 and she rocks. Neil Young rocks. It's certainly not John Mayer or Avril Lavigne. Those people don't rock. If that's the young generation in the culture, then (forget) it. In the underground, the old guys are cool. I like the fact that the older we get the more we can rock."

I know next to nothing about the music of John Mayer so I'm saying nothing about that but on the Avril Lavigne thing I just want to say - Is he insane?! Of course Thurston's cool. Love Sonic Youth. Got his new solo album and it's OK, though it hardly RAWKS, and it's hardly some sort of edgy avant garde thang, but it's pleasant enough (and I'm not doing some sort of ironic damning with faint praise thing: i do like the album). It's just that the comment sounds utterly bizarre. For one thing isn't what Avril Lavigne doing completely different to what Yoko Ono is doing? Why compare? Why make a comment about old people in "the underground" and compare them to Avril Lavigne, corporate rock chick? It seems ill-fitting.

The other interesting thing is that he doesn't seem to include himself in the category of old people. He splits it into two, the "old guys" and the "young generation". Where does he include himself?