Beethoven and Goethe worked in a specific artistic context which is radically incompatible with industrial production that is characteristic of modern pop-music and marketing. Hence a facile quip like "Beethoven would be making techno in Rotterdam" is misleading and does not really engage with the subject matter. Yet, pointing this out and triggering an interesting debate gets reprimanded as "curmudgeonly" when the discussion was specifically about pop-music.

May I ask what is on-topic on HN these days?