During the past decades, I have witnessed the continual deterioration of popular music. By "popular" I mean what is commonly called the Top 40 or the type of music that would have been played on "Your Hit Parade."

I do not mean country music; that is a different genre.

Popular music has made a continual downward spiral until it now is debatable as to whether some of it rightly can be referred to as music.

One cannot say, "Well, I like this music and, because I like it, it is therefore great music." That is like saying, "I enjoy eating a triple cheeseburger with an order of fries and, because I like it, it is nutritious."

I know there always will be someone who will argue, "Well, what about that person or tune?"

I would agree that there can be found some music today that is not completely hideous. However, it is a matter of the juxtaposition of one of today's pieces with a number from an early era.

I realize people enjoy dancing to today's music, but that is a different issue.

It might come as a surprise to some that there was a time when record companies tried to produce what was artistic in popular music, not simply what made the most money, and radio stations programmed that music.

Songwriter Harold Arlen once was asked if he and the others knew that what they were writing was art. After a moment, he softly replied, "Yes." (I must confess that some music I did not care for in the 1960s now sounds like a paragon of good taste.)

I am quite certain that if somehow Mozart could have, for some brief moment in time, been returned from the dead to 1941 (150 years after he died) and played a recording of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust," he would have had no difficulty recognizing it as music: melody, harmony, rhythm and lyrics.

And, if there was improvisation in the recording, he would have understood what was happening.

Jamie Foxx is a fabulous actor. His portrayals of Ray Charles in the movie "Ray," and the one he did of Nathaniel Ayers in "The Soloist," were spot on.

But, I wonder what would happen if Hoagy were brought back to today (28 years after his death) and asked his reaction to a recording of Jamie Foxx's performance on American Idol.

Hoagy probably would liken the sound to someone suffering from dysentery, or to a disturbance in the yard of a federal penitentiary.