Bands such as U2 probably would not make it past their second album if they were starting today, he reckons. He didn't say the words, but the codgerly sentiment was: "It's not like it was in my day."
Mick should not get so steamed up by the karaoke freakshow of Pop Idol and X Factor. They are barely more relevant to popular music than Opportunity Knocks was during Mick's own childhood.
As for the music industry's "nurturing spirit" of old, I wonder what Mick means. Could he mean Col Tom Parker who bled dry Elvis Presley for years, while making woeful career choices on his behalf?
Or perhaps the Genghis Khan-like figure of manager Peter Grant, who - anxious not to lose the appearance fee - once sent a hopelessly drunk Gene Vincent on stage supported only by a microphone stand rammed up the back of his jacket. (The hapless singer fell flat on his face before he could even utter the first line of Be-Bop-A-Lula).
Maybe even Cheetham Hill-born Don Arden who, legend has it, held rival manager Robert Stigwood over a hotel balcony to resolve a business dispute.
I'm not sure there was much evidence of "nurturing spirit" when Berry Gordy ran the Motown studios with the ruthless efficiency of Detroit's automobile production lines.
And Fredric Dannen's book Hit Men tells how much of the American music industry was, for decades, so rife with greed, corruption and Mafia connections that today's record executives seem like pussycats by comparison.
Wealth
And, if you believe the record business was more gentlemanly in the UK, I have come across several wizened English pop stars who barely saw a penny of the wealth generated by their greatest hits.
I will concede that careers blossom and wilt quicker than once they did.
But it's not just that the music industry does not "nurture" talent any longer, it is that we, the listening public, have so much music coming at us from so many sources that we easily tire of it. Pop is like fast food.
Hucknall also complains that culture today is too derivative of the 1960s and 1980s. There Mick has a point, but as rock 'n' roll has now passed its 50th birthday, it's hardly surprising that nothing seems new.
I am older, and perhaps grumpier, than Hucknall, yet every single week I hear new music which, while it wears its influences on its sleeve, still enriches that old beast rock 'n' roll.
The new album by Manchester's own Oceansize, for instance, may have the occasional whiff of Yes or Genesis about it, but it still sparkles with freshly-minted genius.
As for whether Oceansize's career will match U2's longevity, who knows? The music business has always had the nurturing instinct of a great white shark. It nurtures only so long as it is getting fed. Tweet
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I agree with Mick - you only have to look at the vast majority of new bands who are hitting the limelight. Apart from a few young bands who have the privelege of living in London, most new bands who are making it are over 30. Their years of effort come cheap to record companies. Young bands have this to contend with, not to mention old boy networks living from yesterday's glories. There are exceptions here in Manchester, such as Nine Black Alps , but they're a straight-down-the-line,safe bet (and they reeked of corporate over nurturing at D percussion). Young bands who wish to set a different agenda face a long hard struggle, not too disimilar to Oceansize's, who, after all, have been grafting at it for years.
Paul Taylor confuses me you critisize Hucknall with your headline yet largely agree with most of what he says.Are you a grumpy old man yourself? I'm in a Band and am 18 and Hucknall has done more for music than you ever have.Plus my Mum loves him!