(Personally, my money’s on Electric X-Tron& The Zombie Wailers, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.)

An inevitable side-effect of all this musical discussion and comparison and debate is some good ol’ fashioned elitism. C’mon, admit it; we’re all guilty of musical snobbery. Maybe you’ve raised a patronizing eyebrow whilst perusing the catalogue on a friend’s iPod and finding they only possess Steely Dan’s “hits”. Perhaps you’ve rolled your eyes when noticing someone’s radio presets don’t include the local community radio station that exclusively plays independent local artists from the 1920s who were local and independent and homegrown and local. Maybe you’ve quietly scoffed to yourself upon hearing someone’s selection of an obvious B-52s track at a party. I mean, Love Shack is so pedestrian; you prefer the syncopation and breathy vocals of Mesopotamia, right?

Fo’ totes.

I think it’s important to adhere to certain standards when it comes to the kind of music we buy, play and enjoy. There is undoubtedly shit music in the world. Vapid, superficial, vanilla, boring, sexist, mediocre, cringe-inducing shit music which has been shat out of the arses of record company executives and reality TV show producers that adds nothing at all to the human collective and should be confined to the very least popular of elevators. Such bollocks should be discouraged and lampooned and dismissed and ceremonially burnt – it should not be described by Molly Meldrum as “great stuff” on Sunrise.

(Honestly, does Molly "not like" anything any more? He should take a leaf out of Bob Katter’s book. Now there’s a man with a ridiculous hat who knows how to be critical.)

But having said all of the above, sometimes I fear we’re maybe a little too quick to judge. I think that those of us who consider ourselves cool, radcore indie hipsters (i.e. people who aren’t very good at sport) sometimes wield a vitriol for sub-music that is so passionate it sees us dismiss some hidden gems. An exaggerated abhorrence for anything commercial, for anything at all that has mass appeal, really only restricts one’s ability to appreciate the whole colourful rainbow of the musical universe and undermines one’s critical credentials.

That’s what I think, anyway. I mean, I don’t know anything. This is just my opinion, it’s just my personal critique, is all.

Take, for example, Lady GaGa. Love her or loathe her, it is impossible to escape her influence in 2010. The art-pop diva has sold millions of records, she plays sell-out shows internationally and she even made this year’s TIME 100.

I understand if people don’t like the lady’s music; that’s just the basics of subjectivity and art appreciation. But to deride her solely because of the fact that she receives commercial airplay and garners a massive buzz about her person is somewhat missing the point. The world needs pop stars; escapist, melodramatic enigmas that make us dance and gasp, and you’ve got to give it up – GaGa’s got the goods. She is her mass popularity. Her act wouldn’t really work down at the Espie; it has to be larger than life and the centre of everything.

But not only that, the theatre surrounding everything she does, the dark themes of her songwriting and the breathtaking design of her stageshow and film clips really point to a truly unique and challenging artist who just so happens to be widely celebrated in popular culture.

Sure, you can’t get away with wearing a Little Monsters t-shirt under your chequered shirt with your thick-rimmed glasses, but I think it’s still worth taking the time to relax and shake your booty to Poker Face or Bad Romance.

Similarly, I consider Beyoncé to be one of the finest pop performers in the world. Indeed, a good (musically-knowledgeable) friend of mine once described her as the Michael Jackson for Generation Y (sorry, Justin Timberlake, you have to be more prolific). Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) is pure pop genius. Intrinsically catchy, texturally interesting, funny, descriptive and about as dance-inducing as The Jackson 5’s I Want You Back or Hanson’s Mmmbop, it’s a testament to what this woman with a powerhouse voice can do.

Also it’s a shitload of fun, and sometimes that’s all that music needs to be.

I genuinely think Robbie Williams is genuinely funny and can be a brilliant performer. He’s often derided as a soppy tabloid-chaser, the guy who produced an album so bad it ended up being used to pave roads in China. But Rock DJ and Handsome Man are truly funny, catchy, clever pop songs delivered with gusto and which culminate in a whole which is assuredly more than the sum of its parts.

I’m also repeatedly blown away by Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone, I think Katy Perry’s Hot ‘n’ Cold is a winner, S-Club 7’s Bring It All Back makes the hairs on the back of my neck tingle and I’ll even proudly get behind Good Charlotte’s I Don’t Wanna Be In Love.

Do what you will – slander my good name, tear apart my credibility, take away my job as a breakfast presenter on a cool alternative radio station; I care not, for these are my principles.

Eminem’s new stuff is properly shit, though.

The tendency to shun artists that “go commercial” also raises tricky moral dilemmas. I personally find ‘pop-era’ singer Kate Miller-Heidke to be as interesting, heart-wrenching and as profoundly her own now as I did when I heard her breakthrough tune Space They Cannot Touch; a track which triple j regularly championed. Now she’s widely known to the Australian public for commercial play of her single The Last Day On Earth and has disappeared from the triple j airwaves.

Now admittedly, I find The Last Day On Earth to be the most formulaic number from the album Curiouser, and sometimes triple j doesn’t play stuff because it just doesn’t want to, but one can’t help feel that commercial success can oft be a tarring brush.

Alternatively, there is a distinct difference between the sound of Kings of Leon pre- and post-Only By The Night, the record that saw them catapulted to phenomenon-status with songs like Sex On Fire. Perhaps some backlash towards groups like the Kings (prevalent in super-hip-indie circles and in the blogosphere) are fuelled by a desire to cash in on the sense of knowing bands “before they were cool”, before they “sold out”.

Man.

I don’t know for sure. But I sure as heck believe that one of the bestest ever things about music is its diversity, and in today’s whacky modern world, we get to be able to sample and appreciate a huge range of it. Why limit ourselves and our tastes? The Beatles, Madonna, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra – these are all “commercial” artists whose work stands up today, so to scoff at all entries in the Top 40 could be a little bit blinkered. I’d argue that artists like Kanye West, Lily Allen, Missy Higgins, Florence & The Machine, Jay-Z and many others manage to straddle both the mainstream and niche circles and possess a stronger musical impact for it.

Furthermore, while it’s awesome when music touches your soul deeply and expresses a profound truth about the human experience and makes you cry in your bedroom…it can also be a bit of cheeky fun. Barbara Streisand, the latest dance hit from Armand Van Halen and A-Trak – aka Duck Sauce – is a case in point, containing nothing more a pumping beat, a catchy refrain (“oooooooo-oooooo-oooooooooh”) and the words Barbara Streisand. See also Barenaked Ladies’ back catalogue (stuff other than One Week), Tim Minchin’s band Timmy and the Dog and The Whitlams.

Pop is not a dirty word, and nor should novelty, irony or comedy be when it comes to putting together an iTunes list.

So happy listening, readers, whatever takes your respective fancy. Forget about coolness or any kind of image you’re trying to achieve – trust your gut musical instinct and rock out with your cock out, proud and true.

Except for Adam Lambert, that guy’s a total douche and his music is lame.