‘Why is it that the pop critical establishment has turned into a stronghold : for pretense?’

Rock ‘n’ roll started out as a protest against pretense and stuffiness--pure vitality and good fun, along with moments of emotional uplift and tenderness: Elvis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers. The Beatles, with their good humor, tender ballads and rhythmic vitality, continued that tradition.

Why is it that the pop critical establishment has turned into a stronghold for pretense--both a humorless intellectual pretense (suicidally bleak lyrics are a requirement) and an insecure machismo pretense?

Music must be loud and unmelodic. And to like rock with melodic structure, or rock full of vitality and fun or, God forbid, a ballad, is an unforgivable sign of weakness.

Good rock these days is still a protest against pretense--but now, paradoxically, a protest against the self-importance of rock critics; that is why Billy Joel’s superb “Storm Front” was on Pop Eye’s Jan. 14 list of the worst albums of 1989.

FERDINAND GASTELUM

Los Angeles

The Pop Eye list was the result of a poll taken among 40 writers, critics, deejays, record executives, managers, musicians and fans. Joel’s album was in ninth place.