<b>BulletBob</b>, you say elitist like it's a bad thing. Those people annoy me too. Fortunately, I am better than they are.
The fact of the matter is that popular music sucks in large part because it is popular. This doesn't apply to any one song or group, but, as a class of music, what is popular today doth suck mightily. Yeah verily, and biteth that one which is called big.
It's safe music. It holds no surprises. It is boring.
The reason is that the folks responsible for making records (the companies, not the individual producers - though some are villians of the first water - and not the bands - though some would suck in any case - I'm talkin' to you Durst!) have realized that they can use a formula or two to make songs that will sell. Sell the song, sell the album (only takes one song to sell a teenager a whole record), turn a profit, pay the dividends, make the shareholders smile, raise the stock price, get even more money to use the formula again. It's the difference between Ikea and Louis XIV. They are risk averse, and have no reasons to take the kind of risk that generates good music until the formula stops working. Of course, at that point Kazaa will be blamed, so there will be a period where the formula is still being used, but isn't working any more. Execs will try to redirect blame, and it will work for awhile. Then something small will start somewhere where none of us expect (or maybe a very few of us do - but it's just wishful thinking at this point), that will present a viable alternative to the formulaic tripe, someone with some money will run the numbers and figure the risk is acceptable. Money will flow, music will happen, at length the formula will be found, and the whole damn thing starts over again.