When I was in high school, the nastiest thing you could say about someone's taste was to call it "poppy."

"Pop" was the worst thing you could be. It meant lightweight, slight, insignificant, of-the-moment and not at all serious.

Isn't the worst thing you can be accused of as an adolescent is a lack of seriousness?

This comes to the fore for me now as I ponder placement of albums in my year-end list, consider what a co-worker said to me about my tastes and read reviews of a new album.

My album of the year at this point is Mandy Moore's "Amanda Leigh." It might be the addition of co-writer and producer Mike Viola, whose work I've admired for years, but Moore's effort is melodic, memorable and lyrically intelligent, and it makes me tap my feet when it's not breaking my heart.

Moore recorded her first album at age 15. She also recorded an album of covers of songs by some of my favorite artists, including Todd Rundgren, John Hiatt and XTC. I didn't despise anything I heard, but I didn't like any of it much either.

I listened to "Amanda Leigh" for the same reason I listen to a lot of things: Someone whose opinion mattered to me (a musician or a writer I respected) said I should. As I listened, I keep looking at the output display on my iPod, trying to convince myself this was the same Mandy Moore whose previous efforts left me unimpressed.

Still, there's that little part of me that keeps thinking of Moore as a teen pop star (even though that was 10 years ago), and I can't consider a TEEN POP STAR's album as my pick for best of the year.

Nevertheless, with just a few weeks left before publishing that list, No. 1 is exactly where Moore remains. Repeated listens reinforce its quality.

One of my favorite artist debuts of the decade was Mika's "Life in Cartoon Motion" two years ago. His blend of Elton John's piano pop (there's that word again) and Freddie Mercury vocalizations was an immediate hit with me and in Great Britain. (Less so here, although his single "Grace Kelly" was downloaded a half-million times.)

But his second album, "The Boy Who Knew Too Much," has sparked a backlash overseas, with mediocre reviews and one music magazine suggesting the original fuss over Mika was overdone, particularly if this is the end result.

As I read those reviews, I shook my head. How am I so out of touch two years later? To my ears, "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" is a better album overall, even if it lacks the splashy hit. Mika is showing some depth, adding some stylish George Michael touches to his bag of tricks.

But for some reason, his pop has fallen out of favor.

Doesn't matter. Mika still makes my top 10 this year.

All this introspection - pop, Mandy Moore, Mika - came as I was in the midst of a stretch of listening to some old live recordings of Frank Zappa, Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. And as much as I like those bands, and even though my favorite album is the Beatles' double "White Album," which runs 93 minutes, I came to a couple of conclusions about my tastes in music.

A 45-minute (maximum) album with 12 to 15 songs is about ideal, which leaves us with a lot of songs less that four minutes in length. That suits my taste and my attention span.

In other words, if you have a seven-minute song, you'd better be saying something really important or have a great guitar solo.

I'm practically a lifetime removed from my experience of seeing the Beatles on their first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," yet in many ways I continue to search for that same unexpected thrill.

If loving hearing three-part harmonies singing "Yeah, yeah, yeah" is wrong, I don't want to be right.

timcain@herald-review.com|421-6908