Aside from the astonishing amount of ephemera collected in the Hendrix gallery, EMP's "meat" is the Milestones exhibit, an elliptical look at rock's defining moments. This is where EMP starts to get interesting -- not to mention dark, the better to see all those video screens. Once you adjust to the crepuscular atmosphere, you'll find that the lion's share of space is given to rock's origins, from jump boogie to hillbilly music. Bonus points to the curators for noting that Bo Diddley was playing rock 'n roll three or four years before Elvis showed up, and for showcasing the longstanding sliminess of radio programming, from payola to racial discrimination. Swoon-worthy artifacts include the guitars of Muddy Waters (a Guild Thunderbird) and John Lee Hooker, and a soundie machine, a jukebox-like device that played an early version of the music video for a dime a pop.

But cool as it is, there's still a downside to the Milestones exhibit. Like your fifth-grade social-studies textbook, it categorizes and simplifies to an insulting degree. Whole genres -- funk, reggae -- are sidestepped, and there are crater-sized lacunae in what is there: The '60s are boiled down to Dylan, Janis Joplin, and Eric Clapton. There's no Iggy and the Stooges, save one passing mention in the punk video documentary, and no MC5 at all. There's no Woody Guthrie, except as a footnote to Dylan. There's no Prince or George Clinton. No Beatles. No Stones. There's no Led Zeppelin, or any of its heavy metal spawn. The punk exhibit is anchored by a Vivienne Westwood bondage outfit, but is otherwise lacking in visual interest: a menu from Max's Kansas City is amusing, but singles by the Jam or a copy of the Pere Ubu album The Modern Dance don't qualify as "artifacts" -- any decent record store has them. If EMP could nab one of Dylan's acoustic guitars, it shouldn't have been too hard to get ahold of John Lydon's safety-pinned sweater. The Amerindie scene fares better, with a wall dedicated to the early LA punk scene, another covering Minneapolis, and an extensive look at the skate-punk aesthetic narrated by Mudhoney guitarist Steve Turner.

By contrast, the hip-hop exhibit should thrill even the most jaded fan, with everything from trophies and plaques won by the Cold Crush Brothers and the Brothers Disco in the late '70s and early '80s, to Tupac Shakur's handwritten lyrics of "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death." One wall is an enormous glass case, holding clothing from the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Queen Latifah, and Busy Bee. For once, the Meg narration, by Cold Crush Brother Grandmaster Caz, is right on the money.

The building that houses all these wonders is a series of metallic gold, purple, and tarp-blue blobs designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry. Allen has often told reporters that he put no limitations on Gehry aside from requesting "something swoopy." During the three years of EMP's planning and construction, Seattle was consumed with curiosity about Gehry's plan, and the final product has been embraced, but with reservations. The main problem is the building's blatant groveling to tourists: it only looks really good when you're standing at the top of the Space Needle next door. From the sidewalk, it resembles a beached mechanical whale.

Gehry meant the building to look like a smashed guitar, but as with Allen's grand-opening shenanigans, it's not a guitar smashed out of frustration or rage or rebellion. The EMP smashed guitar is the splintered wreckage of youthful exuberance, and inside it is a classy Hard Rock Cafe complete with a gift shop full of embossed fleece jackets and mouse pads. Even tragic ODs get treated with the perk and uplift of a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland movie. To paraphrase the Meg's bright-eyed view of the lessons of punk: "Rock has a place for everyone, even weirdos!" Now, thanks to EMP, even weirdos are safe for family viewing -- as long as the family wears rose-colored glasses.

Jackie McCarthy is the former music editor of Seattle Weekly, and writes about music and other topics for CMJ New Music Monthly, Seattle Weekly, and Resonance on paper, and CDNow and Wall of Sound on the web.