Missing also in the young person’s musical diet is a love of (or even mere exposure to) classical works. No allusion to the classics can be found in any — and I mean none at all — pop or jazz or showtune since 1968. This is something that must be remedied.

Sure you might find an exception to prove this generality technically wrong, like Disco Beethoven in 1976. But the point is this: the older writers of sophisticated popular music listened and learned extensively from great tradition.

Here is an example of wholesale copying! The music is ascribed to Paul Weston, but it’s clear where it comes from. When it was issued, I think most laymen who considered themselves musically literate would have known it is Chopin. And of course, the musicians, the composers, well, surely they did.