I see a difference between "observing and writing about what is going on" and caring in a moralistic way about what others enjoy. I care very much about some things that some people are doing. But I write mostly about politics. What people enjoy falls largely in my zone of indifference. Indeed, I wrote my comment because I care about what you are doing, viz., dumping on what I am enjoying.

Creating art is a talent, but so is appreciating it. We are not all moved as you are, just as some are not called to God as others are. I like clever "art," and I am not about to stop liking it just because it doesn't stimulate in me what the art you prefer stimulates in you. Yes, I am missing out. (I can't find the nuance in wine, either.) But maybe I don't have the genes for it.

It's not that I disagree entirely with your assessment. Change the medium, and I share your take. There is no comparing Mozart's Requiem to P.D.Q. Bach. But what do we do with Haydn's musical jokes? Are they just jokes? Or are the jokes Easter eggs embedded in great music? And was it not OK for Papa Joe, and his audience, to have some fun?

I cannot find a call to action at the end of your article. You seem to assume that artists who offer up mere cleverness have something more to give and can be faulted for not giving it. My guess is that anyone who can paint like Monet would paint like Monet. It ain't easy. And it's more than craft, so urging it upon an artist seems to me a futile endeavor.