Dear Alex,

Genius! You’ve hit upon the best idea I’ve ever heard: a wedding accompanied by the music of Kraftwork… we can all dress up as robots, and all dance like robots, and all eat like robots and… Sorry. I digress.

Thank you very much for your letter. Since I had to read it in Romanian there is the possibility that I completely mis-interpreted what you were saying – there’s a slight chance you were in fact telling me to bugger off back to England and stop polluting the pages of this magazine with my mindless nonsense – but I’m going to put my faith in my primary-school reading level, and reply to what I believe are your intended questions.

I definitely liked your comparison between films and music. I disagree, though, over Jame’s Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” being a melodrama with an ‘unhappy ending’. I can think of no happier ending in the world than James Blunt being pushed into the sea, hopefully to a slow and painful death. However, if there was any justice in the world, there’d also be a huge shark down there waiting to slowly tear him to pieces, and someone standing by to throw salt into his wounds as he shrieks for forgiveness for his god-awful, bowel-churning excuse for music.

Sorry about that. As you’ve just seen, people become unaccountably impassioned when you start talking about what’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in music. People get angry, and defensive, and upset. Is music really that important? Is there objectively good and bad music?

I’m certain that there’s no such thing as “good” and “bad” genres of music. There’s good pop, there’s good folk, there’s good Hip Hop. Hell, there’s even good Manele – I’m not kidding. I once heard a Manele version of Dragostea Din Tei and I almost had an epileptic fit of excitement. So again, I think your analogy with movies holds true: we can enjoy a bit of everything without having to pledge allegiance to one kind of music.

I too love pop music. Twenty years ago, it wasn’t the kind of thing you could say and be taken seriously as a music journalist. Twenty years ago, music was a battleground. You were either with The Smiths, or with New Kids on the Block. You were either with us or against us. Pop, in Britain , in America , in the West, was political. Liking Kylie and Jason was almost like saying you loved Thatcher and Reagan, loved greed culture, loved everything that was bad about the 80s.

And though I miss the warlike antagonism of that period, there’s something liberating in the fact that you can admit like Paris Hilton’s new album because, at the end of the day, it’s only music. And, just to clear up any doubt about the matter, I really wasn’t joking when I said that I like the album. So, to come to the point I was hoping to make, the fact that you listen to (mostly) pop is no bad thing. I know that I spend a great deal of time in my column being scathingly sarcastic, but you just have to trust me when I say that pop music is a wonderful thing.

However, just as you probably think it’s a bit tragic to meet someone whose seen Titanic one hundred and seventy six times (an ex-girlfreind of mine saw it one hundred and seventy five times) and yet doesn’t know who Derek Jarman is, I always think it’s a little bit sad when people know the words to every Backstreet Boys song and but haven’t heard of Can. The only problem is that most people who own a Can record still live with their mothers and have panic attacks when they think about meeting with a member of the opposite sex. That’s the way it goes: obscure music is generally a crutch for the socially inept. Only use it if you have to. Far too many of the people who are really passionate about sorting out what is “good” and “bad” in music are blind to the real joys of pop. Too much elitism can only be a bad thing.

All the best,

Tom

Reviews:

A few months back I wrote a rather rude article suggesting that I didn’t like ANY of the music I’d been sent. I’d just like to point out that this article appeared due to a mix-up at the Elle offices, part of a dirty-tricks campaign launched by Roxana Volosenuic to tarnish my reputation as a journalist. Of course I like all the music I get sent to review! I adore it! In fact, if the truth be told, I live for the day that I arrive at the Elle offices, and run home with my bag of CDs like a thirteen year old boy borrowing hardcore Danish pornography. This week, just to show I mean it, I’ll be writing only NICE things about the music I’ve received. Thankfully, my job has been made a lot easier by the fact that I’ve actually been given a pretty good selection… and for once, I’m not even joking.

Cream: 48 de Ore. As I’ve written before in this column, when you’ve got Mr Moga behind the mixing desk, you’re rarely disappointed, and he’s done exactly what he’s best at on Cream’s new LP. Dirty-sounding pop music, which is exactly how pop music should sound.

Alex: Yamasha. Spare a thought for Marius Moga, who obviously didn’t have a very good Christmas – he’s been too busy in the studio, working on yet another extremely competent album. There probably won’t be a better Romanian RnB album this year…

Spike: Relatii cu Publicul. Now there’s no way I’d ever consider writing anything bad about anything released on the Hip Hop label “20cm Records” – have you seen the size of those guys? Fortunately for me, this is another absolutely rock-solid release, with Cheloo from Paraziiti on production duties – a kind of Hip Hop ‘guarantee of quality’ if ever there was on. Guaranteed to make your head nod.