On his latest album, The Blueprint 3, Jay-Z has a track called Death of Autotune. Would that was true.  I have been at a party, in fact I should still be there but I have slipped off home for an hour or two.  The DJ has been playing a lot of modern music, which is all characterised by two things: I have never heard it before and every vocal track is Autotuned to within an inch of its life.Worst of all, it made me turn into my Dad, muttering about all this modern rubbish, and how everything used to be better.

I used to think that being a DJ would be a cool job.  Not too many hours and not too demanding.  Tonight I realised it must be hell, because it is not your opportunity to force-feed your music on an unsuspecting public but you have to play what they want.  And what they want is, frankly, not my cup of tea at all.

It is not that I don’t listen to anything new at all.  I admit that a lot of the new stuff I listen to doesn’t count, not if it is the new release by an old established artist like Depeche Mode, Eminem, Motorhead, Radiohead, Jay-Z or Madness, but I do also listen to new artists – I just just didn’t realise that they are not the same ones everyone else around here is listening to.

The problem is that if it doesn’t appear on Later with Jools Holland, the Guardian Music podcast, Planet Rock or Absolute Classic Rock, or get mentioned in Word or Q magazines I won’t even know about it, so I just call up on Spotify whatever I have heard about from those sources.

I blame the BBC for getting rid of TOTP.  If that was still on I would probably watch it and at least be aware of what is popular.  It wouldn’t make me like it any more, but at least I would have heard it.

On the positive side I have achieved a long-held ambition and finally become a fully-fledged grumpy old man.

Talking of Autotune, have a listen to Baby by Major Lazer (here on Spotify) which actually made me laugh out loud, or LOL as the youngsters would have it.  Twice!  Once when the father comments on his baby’s Autotune voice, and again when he says “Imagine.  Just a couple of months ago you was in my testicles.”  The track is only 1 minute, 17 seconds so will not waste too much of your life even if you don’t like it.