THE POTENCY OF CHEAP MUSIC

The Tiniest Trefusis has discovered pop  music. She has one of those 'Now That's What I Call a Cacophony #1650' CD's, watches back to back Taylor Swift videos on You Tube and keeps switching the kitchen radio from Radio 4 to Kiss. It's driving me demented, partly because I'd not expected the pop thing to happen quite yet (she is seven), and partly because I realise I'm a massive old fart.

I remember, as a child of the eighties, forcing my parents to retune the car radio from Radio Four to Radio One and insisting that China Crisis or Duran Duran or Hayzee Fantazee or Echo and the Bunnymen were the sine qua non of musical loveliness, and my father saying, very grumpily, 'it's all just noise'. Now it seems I'm my father. It is all just hideous noise. I know this is a generational thing - I still love the music of my yoof and I don't hate new music - London Grammar and Bear's Den are brilliant, for example - but pop now sounds like fingernails down a blackboard. Actually, Taylor Swift is fab, but on the whole, pop makes my ears bleed.

I was given a very swanky pair of Beats headphones for Christmas. I'm wearing them wrong, of course; my observations in West London suggest one must sport a beanie and wear the headphones over the top. I'm listening to Beethoven's Choral Fantasia in C Minor, which I'm sure isn't at all the sound Beats were conceived for, but it makes my soul soar. 

Next time The Tiniest T puts Kiss on the radio, I'm going to pop the headphones on and listen to the Goldberg Variations. If you can't join them, Beat them (or something like that).