> Modern pop music is becoming trashier by the year.

...said everyone in every time period.

There's good pop music being made today. But most music being made in any period is bad. If you look back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, there's plenty of bad music that lots of people loved. We just remember the good stuff. The classic example is Like a Rolling Stone ('65) and Engelbert Humperdinck, who was huge in '66 and '67. Guess who we remember today?

I'll go further and argue that the only viable definition of "bad music" is "music that is forgotten". We can't know if music is good until we wait a while and see if it sticks around. Any other definition of quality is based on personal taste which is, no offense, worthless.

That's a good point, and I still hear music I like today it's just that absolutely none of it is on any popular radio station.

"The future of music is not music," meaning: every evolutionary stage of popular music is called "noise" and "that's not music." This goes back at least to the invention of the teenager in the Rock & Roll era, and it repeats at least once per generation. This doesn't mean that every kind of music you don't like is something cutting-edge that you just aren't down with yet, but it does sometimes.

> Pop music has always been trashy, but there's a big difference between The Monkeys and Cardi B.

Now try that with King Uszniewicz & The Usniewicztones instead of The Monkees.

Where do you find it?

Finding music becomes easier the more you practise, but a few things you can do are: 1) Follow the 'if you like this, you might like this' recommendations in your music program of choice. 2) Curate your own playlist/collection to better inform the algorithms. I use Youtube, SoundCloud and BandCamp a lot these days and keep a list of favourites on each site. 3) Go out and see bands if you have access to bars/venues, it's better in cities. See bands you don't know but sound good on paper. There's a ton of good music from bands that aren't signed to major labels 4) Talk to people, what do they like? Check out their recommendations, update your favourites lists, back to 1) and follow your nose. 5) Inform yourself about what labels release music you like. Following labels is often better than following artists, they each curate a sound of sorts and have some variety across that. Discogs.com is a great site for learning about artists, labels, etc and finding specific releases. 5) Listen to community radio. They often have DJs that are really into genre X or sound Y and are a wealth of information and great playlists. Popular radio stations don't exist to play music, they are just advertisement platforms.

What kind of music do you like? I can probably throw a few artists at you.

Super helpful comment! Thanks for taking the time to outline that so clearly.

I can unabashedly and arrogantly claim that the best radio station in the world is 'RadioNova' Paris - nova.fr. Then the BBCs.