What makes good or bad music? Be it classical or popular, music has the power to divide as well as unite. This book explores the roots and branches of these conflicts.

"There are only two kinds of music: good and bad", said the late and great Ray Charles. This book explores his instinctive opinion. Some popular musical forms and performers are universally reviled by critics and ignored by scholars - despite enjoying large-scale popularity. How has the notion of what makes "good" or "bad" music changed over the years - and what does this tell us about the writers who have assigned these tags to different musical genres? Many composers that are today part of the classical "canon" were greeted initially by bad reviews. Similarly, jazz, country, and pop music were all once rejected as "bad" by the establishment that now runs courses on them. This book addresses why this is so through an eclectic series of essays on different musical forms and performers. It looks at alternate ways of judging musical performance beyond conventional criticism and academia and suggests new paths to follow in understanding of what makes some music "popular" even if it is judged to be "bad." High brow, low brow, no brow - this is the book for you.