Whenever I want to listen to some music, but don't have a particular song stuck in my head, I'll generally turn to classic or melodic rock and metal. Alice Cooper and Bon Jovi and Def Leppard and Aerosmith and Guns N Roses (or just Slash) and Motorhead and Iron Maiden and Enuff Z'nuff can usually please me. Having said that, there's a vastly wide range of music I like. I have Beatles and Kinks and Zombies CDs, a slight deficiency of glam rock but only because I can't afford it, a lot of punk, a large variety of what the 80s spurned and a good selection of indie and alternative. I like 90s pop, up to and including The Spice Girls' less soul-ly material. People always ask why I have a RealAudio file of "Mmmbop" taking up valuable space on my hard drive, and I answer that I like it: it's a cheerful (if nonsensical) song. I love Ian Dury And The Blockheads and have a collection of Enigma MP3s. Goth clubs got me into electronic and industrial, and I appreciate the latter's crossovers with techno, drum'n'bass and trance. I'm currently listening to "No Limits" by 2 Unlimited, one of the first albums I bought. Whether someone likes dance music or not, they considers 2 Unlimited to be its worst, most commercial and cringe-worthy exponent. But parts of it are mule-esque in their kicking capabilities. If the lyrics were in German, it would be taken a lot more seriously.

The only thing all these genres have in common? They all existed and died out before 1998. There's not much music from before then that I can't tolerate, only commercial dance really. I've even danced to complete bumph like "Boom Shake Shake Shake The Room!" at The Venue. But after 1998, the charts have contained fewer and fewer songs that I like. The only album I've bought in the last year by a popular recently-established band is "Hooray For Boobies" by The Bloodhound Gang, which transcends categorisation and is atypical of chart music due to its unique sound and clever if sick lyrics. Considering I've probably bought more than fifty albums in the last year, current material doesn't account for much of what I listen to.

I can't be bothered listening to the charts anymore, but I receive a list of the top twenty singles each week from Dotmusic. It's depressing. It seems to be comprised entirely of novelty records (Bob The Builder), pop bumph (Hear'say), re-releases (Westlife shall not get away with this! The worst thing is, I'm not convinced that the younger generation knows that they didn't write "Uptown Girl"), garage (I'm sure "ReRewind" started as a joke, but it's created a monster), rap and R'n'B (it's not the fact that it says nothing to me about my life that irks me me; it's that white kids take to it on the grounds that it's "cool"), Really Annoying Dance Music (I don't care who let the dogs out, just put them back in again), nu metal (which I'm starting to like, through repeated exposure to it, but whatever happened to metal with no rapping, no swearing and five minute guitar solos? [Stealing Iron Maiden riffs doesn't count.] It was far superior), and quickly-nerve-grating indie ("Buck Rogers" and "Teenage Dirtbag" spring to mind). When a band like Ash or the Manic Street Preachers release a single (or two in the latter's case), they'll be listed for a week only.

It never used to be this bad, did it?

It's not that there's no talented bands around anymore. I review new singles for the university radio station, and although most of them are from hopeless cloned forgettable mopey jangly indie thoroughfare, I've discovered some really good stuff. There's this band from Liverpool called Se7en20 who rock; The Contrast, who, in three tracks manage to sound like Elvis Costello, The Stranglers and a sixties folk band; and an Australian hiphop / punk / metal outfit called 28 Days, who I [hart]. Sadly, I suspect the appeal of the first two, at any rate, is limited among the record-buying public.

I'm starting to get the feeling that people will buy anything that the media speaks favourably of. I can't wait until I - sorry, we - rule the world . . .