This is what gets on my wick about the assumptions of Guardian music writers (I have known one or two):

Par from Beefheart's obit:

'Captain Beefheart was also a visionary in one other, often overlooked, way: he hymned the natural world in his own inimitably odd way on songs such as My Human Gets Me Blues and Wild Life. He was an ecological warrior long before it was fashionable. His death, after a long period of self-enforced seclusion, comes at a time when it is difficult to imagine anyone as eccentric – and as eccentrically gifted – finding a place in contemporary pop culture. In the era of The X Factor the old-fashioned showbusiness values that the 1960s rock revolution was meant to have swept away have returned with a vengeance. There is no place now in pop for the madcap and the beautifully demented, but there is always Trout Mask Replica. Approach with caution.'

In the era of The X Factor the old-fashioned showbusiness values that the 1960s rock revolution was meant to have swept away have returned with a vengeance.

No, they haven't returned. Old fashioned showbiz values meant the performers you see on X Factor would have been booed off. Simple as that.
'The 60s rock revolution' was balanced on the despised 'old fashioned showbiz values' in the sense that you had to have a talent honed through discipline, you had to be 'good'. You don't anymore and that is more a result of 60s cultural relativism, digging a pony as Lennon had it, than Cowell's shit-peddling.
I was sad to hear of Beefheart's death. I've long been a fan, even though I think he was a bit of a charlatan.