Sunday’s New York Times declares the Denton music scene super-cool, which makes it official. The Travel section piece is a good example of swoop-in/swoop-out journalism. The writer obviously spent some quality time in the North Texas college town. My guess is a few days.

The details he gathered give the article a nice texture and an overall tenor of authenticity (though he missed Strawberry Fields’ bump in the road). But he also trots out the usual cliches about Texas and the South as a kind of shorthand for the reader while straining to make lofty comparisons to other hippie-hip cultural enclaves. Is Denton really Berkeley with a twang?

Local reaction runs the gamut. We Shot JR mocks the story’s stereotypes. DC9 at Night celebrates the recognition. UNT points out that the jazz scene is barely mentioned. And Front Burner’s take is short and sweet, by which I mean a single sarcastic sentence. What do you think? Did The Times get it right? Does it matter, or is it enough that we locals know what’s up?