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That quote came via Victor Hugo, the French writer, as channeled through between song banter Saul Williams delivered during a rare acoustic performance he gave at the tail-end of the South by Southwest Festival. While taste is something which is clearly subjective, is taste and genius co-mingled? I have many acquaintances with fantastic taste, but the genius trait is a stretch.

One could argue that SXSW caters to higher musical tastes and the tastemakers who feed off the flavors. But if you look at the pop charts, R&B and hip-hop dominate, with many fans & critics publicly bored with the genres.

A chart which displays a level of taste this week is the iTunes top downloaded song chart. We reported earlier that Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” as performed by the late Jeff Buckley was the #4 most downloaded song the day after the song was covered on American Idol. It is now #1. That is an astounding realization considering the homogeneous state of pop music.

Members of the JamsBio gang was fortunate enough to have dinner with Jeff Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert, one night during SXSW. With congratulations of the news also came the reality that it was very much a surprise to Mary that this was to happen. She had no notice other than a friend in another timezone tipping her off an hour before the show. In an interview Mary gave to E! News, she mentions that this may be a way for people who embraced “Hallelujah” to also find their way to such unique and inspired voices as Van Morrision & Nina Simone, both of whom Jeff has covered on various releases.

Some people would argue that music licensing tends to highlight the mediocre songs, the low-hanging fruit of culture… but when a great song is licensed, it comes with the notion of “selling out” or overplay. In a time when radio effectively is painfully dry of moving music forward, it is shining moments such as this which give hope to taste overwhelming the fluff culture.

With SXSW now over, I would like to thank the organizers of the event for another year of solid work, preparation and… taste. Big thanks to my colleagues at JamsBio/Mouth Watering Media for their support and not only holding down the fort in my absence, but developing something great to show many enthusiastic people before leaving our private beta and showing the world what we have been working on in the lab.

And to my girls at home for their patience and understanding as I trekked from show to panel and panel to show. ‘Til next year…