M.E. Smith also used to say things like "I thought rock'n'roll was ruined when the students took over" - meaning Soft Machine and the Canterbury bands, which he said he always loathed.
I tend to stick up for the bourgeois contribution to rock - being bourgeois myself, partly, but also I think it's true - the middle classes did bring something when they showed up around 1966. I like Soft Machine, I like Pink Floyd (and not just the Barrett-era), I love groups like the terribly terribly English and diffident Caravan, or Hatfield and the North.
When I was in Reading for a conference a few months ago, one of the talks was by academics researching students and music, as it happens! They were trying to see if students could be construed as a subculture.
I didn't think so myself, not according to the classic definitions of subcultures, because of the lack of a style element. Then again, at any given era, a large proportion of students have a sort of look. it's not like being a skinhead or a mod, true, but there is sort of range with clothes and hair.
In the question time I broughtup this thing of student taste being equated with behind the times, and the academics (it was a duo, doing a joint research project) got a little defensive, pointing to the way that the college circuit had provided a space for a lot of interesting bands to play and earn money over the decades.
And that reminded me that actually during the post-psychedelic / progressive era, the university venues were vital - bands like Hatfield and the North could play there and get paid really well (the college entz secretaries had funds that came from student union fees, they were flush with cash and actually started to seriously compete with promoters and cause booking fees to go up across the board). It was such an important infrastructure for progressive music that Melody Maker had a regular column called Student Statement, with interviews with college promoters and bands big on that scene. I came across it when doing my glam era research, delving through years of music papers.
Unfortunately it got a bit boring, real quick. Because you'd have a band like Gryphon saying "oh we love the college venues, the audiences are so receptive. they're not just there to dance, they like to listen". You get that sentiment repeated over and over.
So you can see right there the IDM / "electronic listening music" reflex in chrysalis.
Meanwhile the Kidz were stomping their platform boots down the disco, to Suzi Q and The Sweet, or making the balconies shake as they stamped their feet when Slade played live.