I found this discussion on NPR, today, very interesting. It was also frustrating because I found myself talking back to them, telling them how much we care about the language and the music, here at the Mudcat!:-) One of the examples they used for differences in music diction, etc. was Fred Astaire and Tom Waits.

Anyway, here's the blurb with a link so that you may listen and see what you think:

In his latest dispatch from the front lines of American culture, John McWhorter reports that the glory of the English language has been lost as speech surrenders to talk. Join host Neal Conan to talk about "the degradation of language and music and why we should, like, care."

Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care(scroll down) (Gotham Books 2003) by John McWhorter, Associate Professor of Linguistics at University of California, Berkeley, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.