Musical tastes are fragmenting more every day and they are likely to continue on that course. Too many of today’s artists are simply not very talented. I have no familiarity with Beyoncé’s music, or Bruno Mars or Eminem or Lady Gaga or Kanye – nor Justins Beiber or Timberlake – or any other “popular” artists.

And that is a good thing.

Today’s pop music cesspool is dominated by robot music, made by robots for robots.

There is a good reason that the music from the past is still alive and well and vital and still being listened to today. Those artists came up through the ranks playing five sets a night together for many years before they ever hit it big. They really knew how to play, how to play together, and how to make a musical statement that lasts.

The music that ‘artists’ are creating today is simply not very good, and ultimately it will not stand the test of time. Call them old hat if you like, but Pet Sounds and Revolver, Electric Ladyland and Forever Changes are still being listened to and talked about today – more than fifty years later. Thus far, they’ve passed the test of time. If I had to guess, I’d say people will still be listening to them 50 years from now, and probably for as long as humans have ears.

The key is that the truly great albums of all time were (mostly) written by the artists themselves. More than anything, that is what seems to be different now. A recent example: seventy-two people have songwriting credits on Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’…Beyoncé being one of them…or not, depending on who you believe. In any case, that song cycle qualifies as not being the work of a genius. That is the music of a corporation.

Nowadays, for the most part, the supposedly “great” albums come from corporate boardrooms. There’s no link to the artist; no context, nothing to hold on to or identify with. The vacuous songs are all about falling in love and dancing or whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is, the music isn’t meant to be listened to; it’s meant to be background noise for jogging or driving or dancing…and they are all conspicuous in their complete overuse of AUTOTUNE. People just don’t seem to get it that if you need to use AUTOTUNE to that extent, you just can’t fucking sing. So what’s the point? Anyone can do that…

Robot music for robots…marching around in circles with those goddam earbuds..!

In America, policing in the music industry over the decades has also been a primary concern for mom&pop because rock music represented a visceral threat to their “Christian values,” starting with the much-feared prospect of “race-mixing.” First with Elvis, then The Beatles – Americans in certain parts of the country viewed Rock&Roll as “The Devil’s music…”

Fuck – a lot of ‘em still do! After John Lennon’s famous “More popular than Jesus” remark was published in the US media, many Americans were outraged to the point of forever boycotting the Fab Four.

But for many ultra-religious Americans – mostly in the deep south – it went even further than that.

The USA was the only place where people actually burned BEATLES records in public. Think about that. Smack dab in the middle of the 1960s so-called ‘Cultural Revolution’ of peace and love – Americans in the South were gleefully throwing those evil Beatles records into a gigantic bonfire.

Just like a scene out of the Nuremberg rallies circa 1938.

But over time, Rock&Roll became more important and more relevant – and it helped kick-start the ‘cultural revolution.’ Music could still be important to furthering that process today, as it was in the ’60s. But in the end – as with cultural revolutions and the civil rights movements – the people themselves must reject categories and divisions and choose a more enlightened path. Music is the perfect vehicle for that conversation.

Ten or a hundred or a thousand years from now, people will still be listening to the Beatles, Stones, Who, Kinks, Hendrix, Zappa, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, Elton John and a host of other bands I can’t be bothered to name. Why? Because they were great musicians. They were great singers. They wrote great songs! No one really does that anymore. Like Morrissey said, “Popular music is dead.”

The problem is that we are currently living in a sort of mini cultural void; one of those ‘invisible’ decades. In the past, old music would be left behind. You know: “That’s so 60s / 70s / 80s…” etc. But today mediocre artists are still being talked about as relevant long after their 15 minutes are up.

I’m really not enthused by the idea of killing off the current musical canon to venerate mediocre talents like Janet Jackson Lady GaGa and Kanye West. Rolling Stone’s recent list of the ‘greatest’ songs of this century showed a willingness to move beyond ‘rock-centrism’, but to the benefit of lots of uninspiring, populist froth – stuff that only makes the music of past decades look so much more miraculously good…

But really, there’s just too much music available today and no fair way to compare and contrast the genres. To a degree, it was always thus. Like, “Who’s greater? Bob Dylan or James Brown?” It’s a ridiculous question – one is judged mostly on lyrical content while the other one on a groove. And never the twains shall meet.

And back to my earlier point: nobody really has the balls to call out artists who use samples to assemble a track. Artistically, they are not even remotely on a par with someone who actually writes songs and arranges them. A true artist who writes their own music uses his or her own talent. Someone who uses samples is using someone else’s talent. I mean, if you got no talent just use somebody else’s, right?

To my mind, anyone who claims to be a musical genius and performs to sampled backing tracks is basically nothing more than a karaoke singer. The hard part is when a group of people perform together, playing the instruments themselves – that it can be a transcendent experience on both ends when it’s done right. Live musicians are much better than karaoke singers. Or robots.

That isn’t to say that a track which uses samples can’t be mildly diverting on occasion. But what it does mean is that for music reviewers to treat Kanye West in the same way they treat Paul Simon or Jack White is simply ludicrous. They are involved in different professions and surely at some point the other shoe will drop and then music critics will have to admit that sampling is a lesser art form than songwriting.

Won’t it?