Back in book seven of Plato's Republic, the Core Curriculum darling writes about censorship for the good of the city-state. In Plato's utopia, he outlaws sappy, weepy love poetry — it turns the citizens into a bunch of kolpoi — and for reasons known only to classicists, he also bans music in the Lydian and Phrygian modes.

Now, I've listened to Z100, "New York's Number One Hit Radio Station," to find myself in complete agreement with Plato's analysis. You've gotta understand that amidst the incredible variety of similar-sounding songs that define Top 40 popular music, there's a surprising paucity of non-sucky songs. And Z100 makes a point of never playing one of them. Instead, Z100 plays Ashlee Simpson approximately nine-hundred times a day, only pausing for screaming used-car salesman commercial breaks. When I become world dictator, this is going to stop.

Sorry, insipid people who still hold up signs outside MTV's studios when "Total Request Live" is filming, even though Carson Daly has been replaced with some random guy. When I'm in charge, we'll be corralling you and putting you to use as human speedbumps.

What I don't understand is why the hell anybody even considers listening to, much less paying for, this Ashlee Simpson crap. What's going through their incredibly dense minds? "Well, she sounds like she's in desperate need of a lozenge, but her sister doesn't know the difference between tuna and chicken. That's gotta be worth eighteen dollars and change."

I bring all this up because I was listening to Fordham's radio station, WFUV 90.7 FM, which, if you've got good taste, you'll take a listen to by clicking here. That's where I discovered I'll Be The One by Alice Peacock, which will never make mainstream radio because it's a perfect example of what teeny-bop actually ought to sound like. Besides not being totally vapid, Alice can sing like there isn't a giant phlegmy hairball lodged in her trachea, which is a trick that Ashlee, not to mention the Duff sisters, might try mastering before an entire generation of music fans goes totally deaf. Which would actually be a bit of a relief, come to think of it.