Now, I'm often heard to complain about the crass marketing of rock music in all its forms. I despise the way massive corporations gang together to narrow our choices and force-feed us banal and neutered pap. I resent having to go so far out of my way to find music of substance, passion and power, to escape the empty-headed likes of Stereophonics, Feeder, Ash and all the other miserable runts of this year's rock'n'roll litter. I will not suffer silently.

And I'm also aware that I do not suffer alone. We fans of contemporary music - rock, pop, indie etc - are used to the sickening tactics of major labels. We can take it on the chin and fight back. But imagine being a fan of classical, or other old stuff. Imagine if your sonic drug of choice was Mozart, or Baroque, or Gregorian chants, or even heavenly church choirs. You'd feel pretty damn classy, wouldn't you? You'd feel more educated about the finer things in life, removed and elevated from the masses, more steeped in the musical traditions of the last two thousand years. And I would not deny your feelings of superiority, because I understand the power of classical. I know that the true fan of Black Sabbath or Soulfly or Nine Inch Nails could so easily turn to the multi-mega-tonne weight of Mahler or Tchaikovsky. These guys were the real deal. Check out Apocalypse Now, with the helicopters piling in and Wagner's Ride Of The Valkyries pounding out across the killing fields. How rock'n'roll was THAT? And what about Amadeus himself? All fire and music, drink and drugs and sex - that guy could ROCK! I had a friend once who said the only music that truly summed up the state of his brain was Mussorgsky's Night On Bare Mountain. You can't argue with that kind of ROCK. And what about Pavarotti? He's eaten everything the world has to offer and he tells the government to stuff their taxes. ROCK!

So, I'm there with the classical bods. I love their elitism, their jealous secrecy. I love the fact that they might feel they have to go back 3 hundred years to find a musician capable of expressing their humanity for them. I believe that their feelings run as deep as mine. And, today, I feel their pain. Because, today, the object of their affection is being systematically smeared with excrement, by the same loathsome corporations who have systematically smeared ours. Today, I saw Becky Taylor, the new Charlotte Church.

Unlike us, the classical community hasn't had to endure too much of this. They've felt the odd pin-prick: the proles picking up on Ravel's Bolero because of Bo Derek and 10: Nessum Dorma and the World Cup: Freddie Mercury and Monserrat Caballe: Aled Jones and his Snowman song: there was Nigel Kennedy, with his stupid haircut and loatish hollers of "Monster! Monster!" But these really were just pin-pricks, just the classical equivalent of Joe Dolce's Shaddup You Face and The Birdy Song. They've never faced a concerted effort to dismantle, demean and control. Not like we have.

But now they're getting it in the face. Becky Taylor (whose tagline I'm sure will be "The voice of, er, ANOTHER angel") is clearly an attempt to bring blank-faced wholesomeness to classical, in the same way that Steps and Hear'Say bring it to pop. And it's an attempt to break down the boundaries between genres. She SHOULD be singing hymns. Instead - as Eva Cassidy is dead and consequently unavailable for PR appearances - they've got her delivering a grimly mediocre version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Hateful stuff. We NEED boundaries, we NEED artists to specialise and excel, that's how music moves FORWARD. Otherwise it all collapses into a mush of samey nothingness. Otherwise Tom Jones and Robbie Williams and Lulu and Charlotte Church and all those other cabaret clowns will rule forever.

And it gets worse for our classical-loving friends. They also have to contend with those corporate pig-dogs reducing their music to sex. And not just any old sex, but vaguely paedophile sex. I'm not talking about Church and Taylor in their cute little cassocks now, I'm talking about Bond and Vanessa-Mae. With their hot-pants and bare midriffs and wholly unnecessary make-up, exactly how YOUNG do these girls look? And what point is being made here? That classical music is just a money-making resource that possesses no integrity and deserves no respect? That we men will buy any old shit - even leaden classical interpretations with shitty dance backings - just because we want to sleep with young girls (and the younger the better)? Could we or our music be degraded any worse than this?

Yes, they'll say, but it's just a way of popularising music that many people feel is beyond them. Like, we're taking this music from snobby professor-types and giving it back to the masses. That's what Mozart wanted to do, wasn't it? Well NO, it ISN'T! Mozart, like any other artist, wanted his work to reach a huge audience, but would he have dragged out a 10-year-old in skimpy underwear in order to get it (possibly, being as he was such an animal)? Classical music should be for the people, it IS for the people. And we can appreciate it - we're not catatonic dunderheads, for Christ's sake. Classical music has a deep history and exacting standards, and we the people can rise to understand that history and meet those standards, and we DON'T need a pre-pubescent in a French maid's uniform to help us on our way, thank you very much.

I feel for classical fans, I really do. Just like fans of rock, they are watching an awe-inspiring and beloved edifice being pulled down around their ears. For money, of course. This is a grotesque dumbing-down that we MUST FIGHT. We must read, and talk. We must love and respect the sum of human achievement, and add to it if we can - not dress it in stockings and suspenders and leer at it. So, all you rock fans, spare a thought for your classical brothers and sisters, squirming like you beneath the jackboot of corporate tyranny. Better stand up for them or, as the saying goes, there'll be no one left to stand up for you. Yeah, check out their beloved Mahler, and Tchaikovsky, and Sibelius, and join them in the fight. Do the opposite of what you're told to do - RAISE YOUR STANDARDS.