And they were for the most part correct. The 90's and early 2ks were filled with trash music. The only nice thing compared to the pop lists today is that those bands still actually played instruments.

I look back at what I listened to then and maybe a handful of those groups were actually anything good. The rest was appealing to an unrefined 13 year old, which really says a lot about how shitty that music is.

I listen to a lot of stuff from the late 60's and early 70's now, as well as newer stuff full of band names that would never end up in the top 500 lists.

My parents generation of music was undoubtedly more wholesome and serious than my own, and its not even a comparison to now.

If music is supposed to be a reflection of society, it's no wonder as society is such trash now.

I have some spreadsheets* that have every charting hit on the billboard charts. I haven't gone through the general charts that much, but I'd say the ones I have gone through are really surprising. We tend to think we know what the most popular music from the past is, but if you look at the singles that charted the highest throughout modern history you'll find a lot of forgettable crap.

*Technically the data is copyrighted, so sadly I can't share.

Even without a spreadsheet that's obvious if you spend 5 minutes thinking about all the popular songs you know from the past.

We only remember the interesting and original songs, we don't remember the bland and forgettable songs from previous years. People compare the songs we remember with the generic chart topper du jour and complain that all music these days is bland and forgettable.

People remember Michael Jackson's music not just because it was incredibly popular, but because it was unique. People don't remember that during the same time, songs such as Chuck Berry - My Ding-A-Ling [1] also grabbed the number 1 spot.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaEC-lWSlmI

I didn't think tabulated data was copyrightable

Facts are not copyrightable, collections of facts are, thats why you cant copy google maps but you can go outside and write down the same data from your own observations. They have to be significant enough to be covered by copyright. A top 40 is maybe copyrighted.

Collections of facts are also not copyrightable. What's copyrightable is the editorial decision to include or exclude -- or, potentially, arrange -- some facts. This is why phone books weren't copyrightable - there is no creativity involved in choosing what's included ("everything") or the order in which entries appear ("alphabetical").

"Every charting hit" is also a comprehensive list involving no creativity. Order them chronologically and call it a day.

Some phone directories were said to include made up names and numbers that could be used to copyright phone directories. i.e. Company A provides a phone directory with a smattering of nonsense data contained within, Company B copies that wholesale which gives Company A ammunition in a copyright case as they point to the nonsense data and ask Company B to explain why they are included (which they obviously can't without saying, "We copied your directory"). This may just be urban lore.

It is definitely true as to maps; terrestrial maps include streets that don't actually exist. (Nautical maps don't do this.)

I haven't heard of it for phone books, but it could be true.

Extremely serious and wholesome hit from 1960: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yw0bLHTOb0

Edit: by the way, you realise that your grandparents were probably moaning about the music your parents listened to? And their parents ditto, and so on. Nothing new about it.

  Extremely serious and wholesome hit from 1960

Wow, I know nothing of Stewart's work before Silly Wizard.

Compared to an autotuned stripper mumbling into a microphone, yes, it is.

They had the same kinds of reaction to Ozzy and his ilk.

It might be helpful to understand your perspective on this, but a quick sampling of the top albums of 1994-1996 shows almost all modern classics. The singles and one-hit wonders, maybe that's a different story.

I hated the popular music when I was young too.

There's part old subjective rant part truth in this; I've listened to countless hours of any genre of music [0] and this generation fails to appeal to any part of my brain most of the time it's flabbergasting. Every time I hear something that makes me feel 'yeah.. finally' turns out it was some old tune I just didn't know about. There's no feel, no harmonic subtlety, no grit .. I think the pop ethos of music died a few years ago, it doesn't represent something sacred for society, it feels like a commodity.

This happens to most: "I'm not getting old, the music is getting worse! Really!!"

Nope, you're just getting older and more out of touch, and your own out of touched-ness stops you from recognizing it as such. It's kind of like the Dunning-Kruger effect that way.

There's a ton of variety and good music out there if you bother to look. If you can't find any, that says something.

I think part of it is that people become more calcified in interests and habits as they get older. For example, when I worked at Costco I noticed how much more stubborn older customers were -- contrary to stereotype, younger customers were generally far nicer and more flexible. In high school, people my age were open to all sorts of things; now that I'm in my 30's, people have more established interests. My own wife has pointed out that I'm fairly particular about friends now sharing similar interests.

Meh, I didn't have to look before to get interesting music. And my interests are more diverse than when I was young. I span the whole music spectrum. From old to new, pop, kitch, complex, simple, classical, thrash, whatever. Today's mainstream is really poor.

to give you a weird example, some girl on youtube decided to cover knight rider's theme with violin's only, you can see how this simple tv show got very interesting harmonics and melodic emotional structure.