I didn't grow up listening to much pop music. I was always bothered by the fact that it is such a fickle genre. When you're a teenager there's a lot of pressure to stay hip to what bands are in and what bands are out; and you definitely don't want to be caught listening to something that the rest of the kids don't listen to anymore.

Honestly, I was too intimidated to really get into pop music because I just didn't know what was cool when. I was getting into jazz, but, being at a small school, I was just about the only jazz fan around so I kept that fact to myself. Unsurprisingly, I got a reputation as someone who didn't listen to music at all.

When I went to University to study music, I was exposed to lots of great music, but it was mostly classical and jazz. I began to become a bit of an elitist. I decided that people who listen to pop have no real taste in music and will never understand "serious" music like we classical musicians do. I truly believed that pop music was ruining culture and had no place in society.

I'm ashamed to say I held that view for quite a few years. That all changed when I started hanging around with people that listened to pop. I should point out here that by "pop" I mean all forms of popular music, not just Britney and the gang. In particular, I remember being introduced to Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, The Decemberists, The Cure, The Neins Circa, Destroyer, The New Pornographers, Radiohead, Roberta Flack, Eryka Badu, Arto Lindsay, and a handful of others.  

I began to realize that, first of all, pop music was a lot richer than I previously thought, and, second, it does indeed have a place in society and it's presence doesn't diminish the power of classical music.

That said, I do think that there is a lot of very bad pop out there. I think it's unfortunate that so much emphasis is now placed on image rather than musical quality but perhaps that's an inevitable result of the evolution of pop music. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, I find some music not just bad but totally offensive. I know that we all express ourselves in different ways but I have trouble accepting the value of some music that I hear.

By the same token, there's lots of lousy classical music too, and even more lousy jazz. But, music is meaningless without diversity of opinion and expression so I'm content to listen to what I like and avoid what I don't.