When Ke$ha tries to rap like L'Trimm, she sounds like any ordinary lonely teenage girl stuck in a nowhere town, singing along to her radio and dreaming of a party where she's the star. Ke$ha's greatness is that in her voice, you can hear both the loser girl and the star. All hail the Queen of Noi$e!

It was R.E.M. who showed other Eighties bands how to get away with ignoring the rules - they lived in some weird town nobody never heard of, they didn't play power chords, they probably couldn't even spell 'spandex.' All they had was songs.

One of the billions of things I love about Beyonce: The harder she tries to come on crazy, the less crazy she sounds.

Monogamous musicians are like vegan hockey players.

Seeing Taylor Swift live in 2013 is seeing a maestro at the top of her or anyone's game. No other pop auteur can touch her right now for emotional excess or musical reach - her punk is so punk, her disco is so disco. The red sequins on her guitar match the ones on her microphone, her shoes and 80 percent of the crowd.

I will always love the Clash, because I loved them so much when I was fourteen, and I love how you can start a conversation with almost literally any dude about the Clash.

One nice thing about growing up Catholic is it makes you open-minded about other people's religions, since ours is nuttier than yours.