It is by now beyond question that Elton John is a competent and classy entertainer. Few people who have achieved his popularity have succeeded in maintaining his standards for performance and professionalism.

Carole King's second album, 'Tapestry,' has fulfilled the promise of her first and confirmed the fact that she is one of the most creative figures in all of pop music. It is an album of surpassing personal-intimacy and musical accomplishment and a work infused with a sense of artistic purpose. It is also easy to listen to and easy to enjoy.

Bob Dylan was the source of pop music's unpredictability in the Sixties. Never as big a record-seller as commonly imagined, his importance was first aesthetic and social, and then as an influence.

The Who, England's most self-conscious band, have released 'Quadrophenia,' which in turn freezes in time our image of the mid-Sixties Mod sensibility.

Soul was the music made by and for black people. For most of the Sixties it was thoroughly divorced from white popular music, but by the end of the decade several artists with their roots firmly in both soul and R&B traditions had crossed over.

There were many stars in Motown's firmament - among them, Stevie, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves and Diana Ross - but I happen to have loved the Four Tops most of all.

To her audience, Janis Joplin has remained a symbol, artifact and reminder of late Sixties youth culture. Her popularity never derived from her musical ability, but from her capacity to link her fantasies of freedom and immortality with ours.