What is it about pop music? How can one name describe such a variety of music as, for instance ballads, dance, reggae, rap, techno, grunge, dance, house, r'n'b, hip hop, heavy metal, the list goes on? It's a lucky era for contemporary music fans.

So why is it that most people lose interest in the latest music by the time the reach about 30? Beats me! I'm "old enough to know better" and i still listen to the lot. I grant you there's no shortage of garbage among the pearls but if you don't listen how can you know if it's good or not?

The British alternative comic Alexei Sayle once said "i despise people who stop listening to contemporary music once they get past 25" or words to that effect. Now Sayle, although a very funny man is well known for "depising" stuff: in fact you could probably say it's a main plank of his rather twisted schtick, but though the comment is rather harsh i have to broadly agree with it.

Having grown up on a diet of classical music i'm just as happy listening to any of the popular classical pieces when the mood takes me. Yes, i can "rock-a-fat-one" to Motorhead or Mozart, Bach or the Beatles. Different as they obviously are, the common factor is a good tune. But i "despise" the discordant crap beloved by many so-called "afficionados" of classical music: you know, the stuff that sounds like somebody dropped the cutlery drawer on a broken cello.

But keeping abreast of modern culture in general, and music in particular helps you to keep in touch with the fast-changing world in general, which does no harm to anybody.

And when you get to middle-age the real bonus of all this is your "back-catalog"; a vast pool of "golden-oldies" to wallow in, and this site is the ideal place to do just that. OK so your only 20? Don't tell me you don't love to hear a lot of what was in the charts when you were 16 ;- )

Pop music is the soundtrack to our lives. Much of it is good, some is great, and of course some is just garbage. But which is which, and who should decide? Why me, of course! OK then, you, in your house. Let's be honest, one man's meat is another man's Meatloaf!