Can someone please explain to me America's fixation with not-so-great singers? I'm not talking about Kelly Clarkson, although pop stars as a rule usually do reach a level of suckage normally only approached the experimental prototype Bissell built a few years ago that runs on weapons-grade plutonium. No, I'm talking about actual "classical" singers, like Ronan Tynan and Andrea Bocelli.

I was just listening to a recording of Bocelli singing "Con Te Partiro," and it was, well, bad. I guess he must be putting all kinds of emotion into the performance that I can't sense, because all I noticed was that he kinda sounded like a 74 Datsun. He was wheezing, and hitting high notes with a technique that he clearly developed in an effort to sound as much like canine flatulence as possible.

Ronan Tynan, of course, is the famous "Irish" tenor that sings at all the important Yankee games. He also performed a few numbers at President Reagan's funeral, most notably a version of Ave Maria that put me to sleep. His voice itself isn't that horrific, but he sings with all the energy of a corpse. Not to mention that every time I see him he appears to have gained 30 pounds; if he starts waving around a snotty white handkerchief I'm gonna try to hire a hit man.

I do think that Josh Groban is pretty decent, although every time I hear about him I picture a massive lizard being interviewed by a horribly un-politically-correct John Candy with slanty eyes.

What I really can't figure is what's up with Americans recently that they're suddenly into this pseudo-classical stuff. The best I can figure is that it's all just pretentiousness, which is something I know about, because you don't get more pretentious than I. (I own leather pants.) I mean, get a person a Josh Groban CD and they're all "Wow! I've wanted to listen to him for ages!" Get him a CD of King's College Cambridge singing an evensong, and they're all "Uh . . . cool. I, um, sure do like organ music." What the hell, yo? I guess the average American just wouldn't recognize decent music if it bit him on the butt.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go sort my Toto bootlegs.