Music on the charts is absolutely getting worse due to globalization, attention span, production, competitive marketing, margins, video/image/brand before song, definitely removal of the 'gatekeepers', lower barriers to entry, mass-market/direct audience.

Yes, yes, a lot of pop music has always been crap, but 'this time it's different'. Truly. It's more derivative, fewer chords, lyrics that don't make sense or inspire, overproduced, repetitive.

'Popular Music' is dead - it's just memes.

Think of these artists as just people 'wanting to be famous' and doing image, memes, publicity, fake celeb fights, TV show appearances - it's all the same thing. Some of it might have a song.

You know the 'processed food magicians' who manipulate ingredients to find the 'sweet spot' of sweetness/bitterness whatever ... that drives a lot of food to taste bland? Same thing. You have mega producers behind most artists' hits. The artist is a brand, the label does the marketing. That's it.

There is quite a bit of good stuff but it just doesn't get much publicity.

Also - one big difference - most 'good music' today is not very 'up' or 'hit' oriented.

Think of Van Halen 'Jump' - big, loud, stadium 'rock' sound, but also very accessible. Huge energy. Alpha chords! Most good music these days is much more subtle, it doesn't 'grab you' - which is totally fine, but it means maybe it's not as radio playable.

There's a lot of really interesting and weird artifacts of pop culture music, but most of it is totally unlistenable.

Tons of kids these days don't listen to Hot 100 either.