Music means different things to different people, but to me, music is something you listen to. So if you take away the distractions and all you have is the voice and the accompaniment, then you can tell if the music is good. Or not.

So if you need 20 gyrating dancers, flashing lights, fireworks and revealing costumes to sing, maybe what you’re doing isn’t really singing. Good music doesn’t have to be propped up.

Who gets to say what is music and what isn’t? There isn’t an answer to that, but here are some opinions.

And they may be the opinions of people I know or live with.

Usually, the music coming out of singer-songwriters qualifies. If it’s really good, it makes you feel something. Sometimes good music can make you cry. Sometimes you have to get up and dance.

I like music to work by that energizes. Mop the kitchen listening to Aretha Franklin sing R-E-S-P-E-C-T. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you finish and how clean the floor is.

Is rap really music? Not in my house. It’s poetry, chanted, with heavy emphasis on the beat. But the melody is missing. Maybe the people rapping really can sing, but who can tell.

There are some beautiful Psalms that would be easy to convert into rap. Mother Goose makes great rap. Most anybody can write rap. Mama used to do it after the dishes were finished at night after supper.

This was before rap was invented, and she’d sing it in a mock operatic style.

“I have finished washing the dishes.

“Now that is truly delicious.

“There’s nothing better, I think

“Than no dishes in the sink.”

When our daughter was 8 years old, she wrote this one:

“I’m an eye donor.

“I give people my eyes,

“But when they come to collect

“I give them olives instead.

“They don’t know the difference

“They just put them in their head

“They say everything looks red

“Because they see pimentos instead.”

I rest my case.

Who are my own favorites? I love Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Trace Adkins, James Taylor, Louis Armstrong, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cook, Annie Lennox, Norah Jones, Gordon Lightfoot, Willie Nelson, Prince, Etta James, Queen, Luciano Pavarotti, Patsy Cline, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Otis Redding, John Berry and too many more to list here.

During the Grammy performances on Sunday, my favorite was Hozier’s “Take me to Church,” with the incomparable Annie Lennox singing “I Put a Spell on You.” I really like Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran.

They feel their music, it comes from the heart and that’s the kind of music you remember.

There are some old hymns I love because they have a tune. If it doesn’t have a tune, I don’t want to hear it and I certainly can’t sing it.

So, I suppose, like most things, what draws you to any kind of music is probably a matter of personal taste. Still, anybody who says they don’t like Stevie Wonder has got to be tone-deaf.