It’s tempting to like Dazed and Confused for all the wrong reasons. Yes, the film appeals as a pitch-perfect period piece that captures the anti-style and anti-authoritarian ethos of the Seventies. Sure, it was billed as the ultimate stoner movie, and the copious and relatively consequence-free indulgence of alcohol and marijuana throughout the film leaves it ready-made for drinking games. Of course, it’s an easy introduction to an array of actors who would go on to popular success in future Hollywood and independent films. Last, and perhaps least, it’s beloved as a standout high school genre film. These may be reasons to appreciate any number of movies, but they fall short of the respect that should be afforded Dazed and Confused.

Call it a mood, a vibe, or a groove—Dazed and Confused has got it, and it is this musical quality that separates the film from its peers. As much as Linklater has been celebrated for his memorable dialogue and clever pop philosophy, Dazed and Confused may be the most accessible film he has written and directed because he tempers his familiar meandering structure with a cohesive mood to create an experience that more closely resembles a five-minute rock song than a feature-length film. Eschewing the familiar trappings of the Hollywood narrative, Linklater instead weaves together the threads of many separate yet contingent characters. Rather than establishing a clear protagonist and narrative problematic, the film only loosely favors one storyline over another. Like in his earlier Slacker, this “plotless” structure yields a sketch of a time and a place, an evocation of an era, and a refusal of the didactic pretensions typical of narrative cinema. As smooth as a rhapsody, Dazed and Confused offers truth through attitude, style, and a poetically fleeting exploration of life. Indeed, such an approach may be the only way to understand the American high school experience in the rock’n’roll era, as popular music has become a dominant expression and frequent salvation of teenage existence.

On the surface, Dazed and Confused deploys the songs of the era as notes in an overall composition on Texas teenage life on the last day of school in 1976 (a year corresponding with Linklater’s own high school years, but also falling nicely between the liberal awakenings of the Sixties and the conservative crackdown of the Eighties). Like its predecessor, George Lucas’s American Graffiti, Linklater’s film is filled wall-to-wall with music. Thirty-one rock songs are heard over the course of this 97-minute film, including era-giants like Aerosmith, Kiss, Peter Frampton, ZZ Top, and Alice Cooper, as well as pointed contributions from War, Bob Dylan, Nazareth, and Seals & Croft. Whereas the songs in American Graffiti were so woven into the film that they literally took the form of a separate character, Dazed and Confused mixes and matches the music, so that it occasionally comes through headphones or car speakers but is more often used as a structuring device to introduce a scene or lend coherence to transitions. Even before the first frame of the action the low-end rumblings of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” give a sense of the groove that is to follow, a feeling that doesn’t let up until the closing pulse of Foghat’s “Slow Ride.”

But it’s not simply the inclusion of a series of iconic songs that fashions Dazed and Confused’s overall musical quality. Like the sometimes spiritual experience offered by transcendent music, the film provides a gentle buzz through its synchronization of character, composition, theme, camera, and soundtrack. This might seem like a strong claim for a film primarily concerned with pot smoking, beer bashes, freshman hazing rituals, and teenagers trying to define themselves amidst the familiar forces of peer pressure, parental oversight, and community expectations. Yet Dazed and Confused offers a more profound take on these tried and true concerns by framing these issues as simultaneously mundane and crucial. The party at the moon tower is just another party, but it’s also the first party for Mitch (Wiley Wiggins) and the other freshmen who find themselves there. The film doesn’t make much of Mitch’s first beer, first joint, first kiss, first run-in with mom after a long night out; instead these moments are included as simple eventualities occurring in tandem alongside hundreds of other minor events. Mitch’s particular circumstances aren’t given narrative prominence; Dazed and Confused instead suggests that he’s just another kid trying to get by and figure out who he is, and perhaps getting a little corrupted by the high school hierarchy in the process.

If Linklater ultimately favors any one theme over another, it’s the perennial high school dilemma of living in the moment versus living for the future. Cynthia (Marisa Ribisi), one of Randy’s dorky friends, clearly states her frustrations with her life: “I’d like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor, insignificant preamble to somethin’ else.” Near the end of the film, Matthew McConaughey’s Wooderson offers his take: “You just gotta keep on livin’ man. L-I-V-I-N.” The best that these characters can do is have some fun, make some friends, and enjoy a little youthful rebellion before the consequences of their life choices start quickly piling up. Nothing here is make or break, life and death—just the routine pains of growing up in America. Linklater is able to achieve this balance by keeping the film loose and flowing, skimming the surface of his subject, without trying to force it into a familiar structure or make any character into a hero. He just finds a groove and jams.