Céline Dion or why what we consider crap today may be a relic tomorrow.

It was in the wake of "My Heart Will Go On" and the famous flute from "Titanic" that pierced your ears and gave you nightmares at night. Canadians already hated it, but then the rest of the world started to. Céline Dion and her romantic ballad became the target of music critics for years and years, making it onto almost every list of the most hated songs in history. "The second worst tragedy caused by the legendary ocean liner continues to haunt humanity years later" and "I think a lot of people would rather be processed by an anaconda's digestive system than have to be Céline Dion for a day" were some of the milder reviews published.

Céline Dion's performance is perhaps one of the cases where music critics were most out of step with the public's taste, because the more hated she was, the more she sold. 18 million copies. Aside from collecting awards like the Oscar and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 1998 and four Grammys in 1999, Dion always seemed to come out smiling when she collected them, honoring that Dalí quote that says, "Whether they say it well or badly, the important thing is that they say it about me."

Carl Wilson recounts all this in his book , Shitty Music: A Romantic Essay on Good Taste, Classism, and Prejudice in Pop (Blackie Books, 2016). The book unfolds like an enemies-to-lovers plot, where music author Carl Wilson tries to understand what lies behind the success of one of the artists most hated by critics and most loved by the public. Throughout the essay, Carl Wilson will shake off his snobbery and classism, only to end up listening from a place he hadn't been able to before. To give a spoiler and avoid disappointment, don't expect a final kiss, but rather a kind of embrace on the bow of the Titanic, with Wilson stretching out his arms and Céline holding his hips.

One of the essay's most interesting points is how nostalgia turns the tacky stuff of the past into relics of the future. History is full of this: from Britney Spears to any song featured in Cachitos . I've been thinking about this these past few days, with the endless, insipid debate about what is or isn't a shitty song. Everything. Nothing. It doesn't matter. Time erases the mark of criticism, and all that remains is what made us enjoy a summer at a village festival. The dances. The divas. Kitt and the cars of the past. The out-of-tune flute. The gorillas.