Is today's music horrible and if so why?

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There's still good music being made these days, you've just got to look for it in the right places. HINT: the radio isn't one of them.

If we're talking about today's popular music, I have to say it does indeed suck big fat donkey cock. It's vapid, insipid, meaningless and dull, and nothing but a cash cow for overrated actresses/actors.

QFT

If it's bad, then how did it get popular?

I've just discovered Last.fm, it's good for tasting new stuff that links to stuff you know. I haven't found anything new and good that wasn't made by the same people making it five years ago.

Of popular music though, I love Lady Gaga.

Because the media promotes it and many people are sheep.

Feel free to take this with a grain of salt if it really sounds outlandish, but, I've come to understand that people take music in in such different ways that it can be as far apart as night and day.

A lot of people out there simply look at it as social commodity - ie. whatever's popular; its a nonphysical form of clothing, its a badge of conformity; these are the people who'll diss anything that's not immediately popular - now - and will diss anyone who actually listens to music as music.

You also have people who confuse music with sports - hence they can really get overboard on a, technically, crap band because while their songs, melodies, and ideas are hackneyed, one cliche after another, they can't stop marveling at how good the drummer or guitarist is on a dexterity level or how great a show the band puts on live.

Truthfully I really get the impression that the amount of people who get into the ambience, the feel, the ideas, the headspace of songs, and really like music for music are, while a somewhat large minority, I'd give them maybe 35% to 40% of the population, are still a minority.

So how does crap get popular? Well, its only crap to people who actually *listen* to music, I don't know that there is such a thing though to the people who only like music as social currency, although these people do have one upfront rule that keeps intelligence off of the table much of the time - they hate deep thought in music, something about it kills their high. Hence, the most popular music - while not definitionally shallow (some band can slip past their radar) - more often than not it tends on the shallow side. Also music is marketed to youth, youth are terrified on the grounds of physical harm to break the rules. Who makes the rules? The people who are totalitarian haters of anything that isn't immediately stylish or doesn't enhance status. So - you have lots of people who hear music as Abercombie and Fitch, D&G, Diesel, or whatever brand of clothing is popular and these people, typically being the popular kids, have everyone else scared to think differently.

I haven't enjoyed anything mainstream or close to it since the turn of the century.

I was hoping it was just the style of the decade, but it seems the 2010's aren't getting any better :/

Oh well, I have tons of underground stuff and 90s to fill my musical needs.

Fleet Foxes are a great Indie folk band and Arcade Fire ranks as one of the greatest bands of all time in my eyes. Daft Punk is also generally pretty good, but I do find some of their songs extremely obnoxious. They Might be Giants and Jonathan Coulton are both some of the funniest artists ever.

Taken as a rhetorical absolute, the whole argument about whether music these days is good or bad is meaningless and irrelevant. Good and bad are in the eye (or in this case, the ear) of the beholder, which means that, depending upon one's personal parameters concerning quality, one can always find some of the good and some of the bad no matter where or when you look. This is a matter of taste, and therefore, a relativistic question. Personally, how any person can take the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Kanye West, Radiohead, the Black Keys, Tool, and Modest Mouse, and lump them all into a single valuistic judgment about "today's music" is beyond me. There will always be debate about each and every one of those artists-- some people will be diehard fans, and others will think they suck.

For those of you who think music of earlier decades was really that much better, I say: Look closer. For every Billy Joel or Carole King, there is a Captain and Tenille. For every Metallica, there is a Dokken. For every Nirvana, there is a Candlebox. And remember, Jimi Hendrix recorded "All Along The Watchtower" the same year that Richard Harris recorded "MacArthur Park".

Actually this is kinda cool. Y'all use last.fm already? I've ignored it for years. I'm 'scrobbling' my mp3 player and it's recommending stuff, and the radio feature could easily become one of my main ways of listening to music.

Here's some hints to help you get past a bad attitude toward music.

A - Quit listening to the radio. Radio does nothing but stunt your musical appreciation.

B - Get on the Internet and find stuff. Lots of stuff! There is ALWAYS something out there for everyone.

C - If you hate music to begin with, can't help you.

Most music has always sucked, and always will, because hardly anyone likes everything. Most only like certain genres. Most only like a limited amount of music that is out there at any given time.

Today, there is FAR more music available than ever before in history. There is absolutely no excuse, other than hating all music, to not be able to find anything you like. We not only have a lot more being released every day than ever before, but almost EVERYTHING that has ever been recorded can be heard today.

We have more music to choose from than anyone in history ever had. Is most of it bad? By individual standards, of course, yes. But there is also way more out there now than ever that you will like.

Ya gotta LOOK for it!

Most music has always sucked and always will?............not sure about that, I was under the impression there is more good music and that is usually the majority of mainstream music that sucks, but the mainstream music does not usually reflect most of the music for any given time period.

I like many genres of music, covering broad bases such as mainstream pop, indie rock, blues, folk, electronica, and some hip hop. The only genres I can't say I like is metal, and some of the more recent electronica subgenres to emerge ie. dubstep.

I have various ways of discovering new music. In order of how effective these are in my experience, these are
i) Last.fm and various other music streaming such as Youtube and Myspace.
ii) Music websites such as Pitchfork, FasterLouder and Triple J
iii) Live music support acts and festivals
iv) Radio

very astute.
your answer is the definitive one.
the emperors of vox populi aren't wearing any clothes and you could see this plain as day.

??

I'm not saying that this is the only factor, I suppose generations and what people grow up with helps create bias going forward (that's not even guaranteed). Trying to take a look at at topic like this without a few good generalities really just makes this a thread about people riding the high horse on each other and figuring out who's just a more mesmerizing/convincing brow-beater.