Beatlemania

"If you really stopped to think about how vastly the Fabs' [Beatles'] body of work outshines anything being created today, you'd cry", whines Chris Willman, a music reviewer for Entertainment Weekly (who apparently hadn't stopped to think up to that point - 3 sentences before, he calls Lily Allen's (?) CD "the most exhilarating pop debut in years"!). In similar vein, BBC Music Magazine reader Patrick Briggs laments that "little of any value has been written since 1971. Compare this dearth with the rich repertoire from the first half of the 20th century...Elgar, Mahler...".
Research has confirmed the intuition that we are all especially receptive to music in adolescence and carry the music we hear then the rest of our lives. No wonder then that no one now compares with the Beatles, Stones, Britten, or Shostakovich. I'm guessing Chris and Patrick are well past their adolescent years; and I imagine the older generation in the Sixties were wondering where all the Glen Millers were, just as the codgers of Beethoven's time were bemoaning the lack of Mozarts and Haydns (throughout his life, Beethoven's most popular symphony was his first). So we should consult the adolescents - what are they listening to, that they will bemoan the lack of thirty years hence? Beyonce, Ludacris, Snoop Doggy Dog. Never heard or heard of them, right? Me neither, but I have heard Coldplay, Keane and Snow Patrol, all of whom have songs that I think can be put aside the Beatles' best and not sound too shabby. And if we bothered to listen, Beyonce and Snoop may have too! Classical is always more difficult to assess - apparently everyone's buying albums by divas ("divae"?) these days, but how about the symphonies of Corigliano or perhaps some John Adams (Shaker Loops anyone?). Not Elgar, for sure, but we are past our adolescence and so have to stretch our musical tolerance and try to listen to these newer works with teenage ears, rather than sobbing over the "classics" of yore.
OK I give up - I just listened to clips of Lily Allen on Amazon and my Thomas Ades CD never got past one play. Where's my copy of Enigma Variations...