The act of criminally underrating the work of an artist is frequently overlooked by law enforcement agencies, who consider that they have more pressing social issues to attend to.

However, I predict that as profits from music sales shrink, the record industry will seek punitive legislation on the issue, in a bid to recoup revenue lost from this increasingly common practise.

Underrating an album begins first and foremost in the mind. You might put on the newish Oasis long-player - Dig Out Your Soul - and find yourself thinking: ‘It’s a bit meh,’ or ‘It’s alright but I’d rather listen to Empire Burlesque by Bob Dylan instead’.

The problem is that when you privately underrate a record, you are less likely to pass on those all-important word of mouth recommendations to your friends and peers. You are unlikely to drive around with it playing loudly on your car stereo. You won’t be purchasing a ring tone and you probably won’t be attempting any boorish renditions of the songs on your journey home from the pub.

All of this apathy effects sales. Your despondent aesthetic judgements permeate into a general lack of enthusiasm, which in turn leads to a dearth of action. Slowly the dividing line between critic and criminal is blurred, until you are effectively withholding money from the fruit and flower budgets of major record labels!

When it comes to punishing criminal underraters, many senior figures within the music industry favour the short sharp shock of prison. They reason that the indignities of slopping-out are as good a cure as any for the massive public indifference displayed towards the second Fratellis album, or the impending debut by whichever act won that dreadful Orange Unsigned competition.

A more popular solution is a compulsory four week ‘Review Writing /Poster Creation’ workshop, in which offenders hone their graphic design skills in order to big-up a failing artist on the EMI roster. In the writing part of the course, ex Melody Maker hacks, well versed in the arts of hyperbole, would be on hand to teach offenders the verbal skills necessary to enthuse over albums that might previously have been dubbed poor-to-mediocre, and not really worth the £16 that HMV is charging for them.

Habitual underraters – those who cannot or will not change – could well find themselves forced to become Goths. This unusual punishment is founded on research proving that society expects Goths to be dolefully unenthusiastic about everything, and so doesn’t take their opinions too seriously.

In the future “I sentence you to five years of being a Goth” may become a common pronouncement in criminal courts the length and breadth of the UK, with the parents of the guilty party weeping openly, as their cherished offspring is borne away on a cloud of talcum powder, to the strains of Driven Like The Snow by The Sisters of Mercy.

- What records do you consider to be criminally underrated?

- What records are you personally guilty of criminally underrating?

- Should individuals be punished for criminally underrating a record? What about organised gangs and cartels?

- Has anyone ever forced you to become a Goth? (Terrorists perhaps, or a capricious aunt – posthumously, through the terms of her will.)