I agree. Personal taste is not a sufficient criteria for establishing the value and meaning of a piece of music.
I'm reading a book by Julian Johnson: Who Needs Classical Music? - Cultural Choice and Musical Value, that tries to address just this issue:
“Debate about music, even technical debate between musicians, has always been an attempt to wrestle with this conundrum: music flows from individuals to other individuals and yet seems to be shaped by supra-individual forces. The basic model of that conundrum does not change whether it is understood in terms belonging primarily to magic, religion, mysticism, natural science, philosophy, psychology, sociology, or politics. This debate has an important ancillary presence to that of music itself, and its marginalization today should provoke some reflection. This discourse was a way of thinking not just about music, but about the way music mediated ideas of the world. It was thus a way of reflecting on our conceptions of the world, which is why musical theory was for centuries inseparable from theories of cosmology, natural science, and politics.
The lack of serious discourse on music today implies an absence of this self-reflection about music and its mediation of the ideas by which we live. This might give us some cause for concern. Argument about music has never delivered permanent answers; rather, its significance lay in its role within the continuous process of social change through a self-critique of cultural ideas. The absence of such musical debate today suggests a stasis underneath the rapid surface movement in contemporary culture. It also suggests an unquestioning acceptance of current musical practice and a passivity in relation to its products. This, in turn, suggests a certain lack of concern about music—a sign, perhaps, that music is not as important as it used to be even though it is far more ubiquitous. Argument, discourse, and debate point to things that are of importance, that wield power, that influence and impinge upon our lives. What doesn’t matter to us, we never argue about.”
When I consider the French music of the late 19th and 20th centuries I appreciate—that touches me most deeply—I'm going for Debussy, Ravel, and from Les Six... it's Poulenc, probably because I sense a meaningful continuity with those first two in their deep, for their time, explorations of texture and expansions of harmony... pushing boundaries... things the French approach to classical music seems notable for since at least Perotin's melismatic music and on. At the other end you see it in the contribution of the French contemporary composers to the development of spectral music—more explorations of texture, timbre and harmony. I obviously value music that pushes the boundaries, that points a way forward.... I just don't hear that in Auric. Sure, it's lyrical. But I don't go there for inspiration on the way forward to a future music. One could argue that the music of Philip Glass is informed by the proposal for a music of simplicity coming out of Eric Satie's practice, and influenced by an awakening to the music of non-Euro-American musical traditions. He did, after all, study in Paris with Boulanger while assisting Ravi Shankar with his film scores.