Social commentator MAL FLETCHER critiques the excess of acts like Lady Gaga and Britney Spears

The Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini once said that, 'Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind.'

I wonder if he would respond the same way if he were taking part in the current debate on the over-sexualisation of music aimed at young teens. Today's teen music industry may not be boring, but is it healthy?

This question was raised again this week by Mike Stock, former pop impresario and the man responsible for launching the career of Kylie Minogue.

Mr Stock is no longer the force in music production and promotion that he was in the 1980s when he was part of the influential triumvirate Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

Yet his views still carry weight, coming as they do from someone who, in his time, was not averse to using sexuality - albeit a gentler kind - to sell his wares.

'The music industry has gone too far,' he says. 'These days you can't watch modern stars - like Britney Spears or Lady Gaga - with a two-year-old.'

'Ninety-nine per cent of the charts is R&B and 99 per cent of that is soft pornography. Kids are being forced to grow up too young.'

So, are music lyrics and the associated video and magazine images becoming more sexualised or is the teen music culture much as it ever was?

There's always been a sexual element in pop music. Ever since Elvis and his fellow-rockers subverted the music of the black American south, sexuality and sexual magnetism have been a part of the look and sound of music aimed at teenagers.

From the mid-'50s, marketers were quick to seize on the power of sexuality to sell music and musicians as products.

Where teenagers are concerned, of course, the sexual element holds a powerful attraction. They're keen to explore their own emerging sexuality and quite like pushing the envelope of 'respectable' behaviour.

That much has always been true. Yet there are some differences in today's music scene.

Firstly, the music and the image-making that surrounds it are being pitched at younger and younger children these days.

Secondly, music is now just one component in an entire 24/7 celebrity industry, which ensures that kids are surrounded by these images everywhere they look. Sexualised images aren't just for album covers and teeny bopper magazines any more.