I’ve never got along with music critics.

I read about music a lot. I’m sure most music critics are wonderful people in real life. I’m sure they’re polite to retail workers, and that they’re patient and conscientious drivers, and that they’re silent and respectful of their fellow passengers when using public transport.

But in my experience, in their writing many music critics come across as miserable hand-wringers at best, or smug, self-righteous and self-serving sadists at worst. And no matter where they sit on this tedious spectrum, most music critics seem driven not by a desperate, obsessive love of music, but by an inexplicable desire to drain all the joy from the most vital, universal, and transcendent of artforms.

And yet, I often write about music. I’d do it more often if I had the time. How do I sleep at night?

In recent months, I’ve read a lot of Ted Gioia. He’s a jazz critic, and a former consultant, and he describes himself as The Honest Broker. Before I came across his website, I’d never heard of him. This isn’t surprising. Our man’s so reclusive that, legend has it, he once sent his own brother in his stead to an award ceremony. Nobody noticed.

Like all of us, Ted’s disillusioned and discouraged by just how bad things are in the world of art and culture. But he’s done better than anyone else that I’m aware of in pinpointing just what’s gone wrong.

There is no counterculture to speak of. Instead, says Ted, we are living in a “Parasite Culture”.

Nothing’s new in a parasite culture. Nothing’s real. Everything’s regurgitated and reheated. Nobody’s happy. The biggest winners are “the parasites” – the streaming apps, the social media platforms, the tech giants, and the media goliaths. They create nothing, and instead focus on “serving up fake culture, leeching off the creativity of real human artists.”

Elsewhere, he’s suggested that we’re living in a “cultural doom loop”, in which “anything exciting or fresh is punished – or sometimes eliminated completely.”

Yet despite being a “Gloomy Gus”, he’s optimistic about the future.

A lot of his optimism is based on his paying close attention to certain trends. For example, people appear to be abandoning the social media platforms, which he predicts are the dead malls of tomorrow. Instead, they’re craving the sort of REAL experiences that you cannot get on a screen of any size.

But he also has an eye to the past. And he realised that the stuff that stands the test of time does so for a reason: Because it’s good. It has merit. What this merit is will vary from piece to piece and artist to artist. But if it’s there, the work will survive. And if it’s not, it will be forgotten.

“Most of the bad stuff disappears without anyone worrying about it. In fact, it disappears for that very reason—because nobody worries about it.”

To illustrate his point, he lists the Billboard top 20 songs from the end of 1952. I recognised some of the musicians in this list (The Four Lads!), but none of the songs. Few would consider any of these songs to be “canonical”, or “immortal”, or whatever. He’s not saying they’re “bad” songs because they haven’t been remembered. He’s just highlighting how the music that lasts is not necessarily the most popular music of its day:

“It doesn’t matter what I think—or what you think. These songs have disappeared from the public’s consciousness, and no critic had to lift a finger to make it happen. Meanwhile, the 1950s recordings by Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, and Charles Mingus will still be cherished a century from now, despite the fact that they were far too smart and ambitious to get on the Billboard chart when they were first released.”

It’s oddly comforting to consider that any music you find repulsive today will eventually be forgotten. Yet there’s an unfortunate downside to this trend: “Although bad music will disappear,” Ted argues, “not all good music survives.”

We’ve all loved bands who never quite made it. We all have favourite songs that we’re convinced should have been hits. But in listening to these songs, and sharing these songs, we’re keeping them alive. And in keeping this music alive, this music that we perceive to be “good”, we’re doing our bit in the ongoing fight to escape from the doom loop.

And anyone who writes about music, says Ted, has a special part to play in this fight:

“Music writers have a greater responsibility to write positive music reviews about outstanding works than negative hit pieces on bad music. The bad music will go away on its own. But good (and even great) artists often need a helping hand if their work is to survive.”

I’ve never liked writing about stuff that I dislike. I like to stay positive on this blog. A large part of this is because I realised, long ago, that prolonged negativity is spiritually and emotionally draining. Yet Ted’s writings have made me wonder. In refusing to write about stuff I dislike, am I contributing, in my very small way, to something greater than myself?

“We don’t need to destroy the bad stuff, because there’s some kind of quasi-evolutionary process at work that will eliminate it anyway. But goodness is more fragile, and needs our support. I’m absolutely convinced that’s true of music. But it just might apply to everything else too.”

More recently, Ted’s defined the role of a good music writer as follows:

“To promote creativity and vitality in the face of the institutional stagnation that’s so damaging to the music business right now (as to so many sectors of the culture).”

Am I promoting creativity and vitality when I write about old festival lineups, New Age Grammy nominees, and Snow Patrol DVDs? Who can say. But in carrying the torch for the stuff that I believe to be “good”, maybe I’m doing my bit to ensure that some of this good stuff will be remembered, one day.