Read and Discuss? What is the New 'Adult Contemporary'?

http://www.avclub.com/articles/what-makes-music-boring,65075/

I was listening to the Slate Culture Gabfest, and they were discussing this article, specifically:

The fine music critic Nitsuh Abebe of New York Magazine learned this the hard way when he recently wrote a piece arguing that Wilco and Feist have become modern equivalents of Sting and his “adult-contemporary” peers. Abebe’s essay drew a lot of criticism from those who interpreted “adult-contemporary” and the Sting comparison as cheap shots. “Adult-contemporary,” after all, is really just another way of saying “boring.” It is a descriptor that is now a criticism, just as Sting has gone from being the frontman of The Police to a go-to signifier of “meh.”