I buy what I want

I buy what I want, far above what Wal-Mart stores and FM radio supplies.  I'm far too talented for average Wal-Mart shopper; therefore, they say "different"

You are talking about mainstream pop music - not the alternative music one can dig deep and find. You probably know where to find good music today but can’t avoid hearing popular music in public places. You are talking about the mainstream and on this account you are truly right; pop music has never been so poorly crafted and horrible to listen!

Unfortunately, when one goes out to buy something, or chances upon some music playing from a workplace radio, it is not something he or she can just turn off. Mainstream music is everywhere and the masses are programmed to listen and consume it. It is both annoying and sad.

The majority are not connoisseurs of “good” anything and do not take the time to go and find the best music from any era. They will eat at McDonald's, buy poorly crafted baked goods from Walmart and be happy drowning their food in corn syrupy low grade, sugar-filled guck. They will watch cheesy super-hero films that are 99% spectacle with lame story-lines and think what they saw was actually good. Same thing with music; most people just take what is served to them and believe it when they are told, “this is the now”. But the now has never been worse, despite all our advances in technology and production!

Digitization of music and corporate downsizing might be to blame as selling vinyl record units declined. Over the past twenty-five years corporations got rid of the A&R departments (Artist and Repertoire - those people who discovered, nurtured and signed new talent) in order to cut costs. Now they just go with the pretty face and the same five to ten producers who write and create our modern music (no wonder it all sounds the same!). Most people don’t even buy their music anymore. The masses no longer sit at home with headphones, savoring their favorite record albums.

Today the emphasis is on “cheap” and that is what you hear and see out in public. Cheap is built-in to the bland architecture of the modern Walmart and Home Depot and reflected in the plastic products we buy. Everywhere you go, people are wearing ugly aprons and looking rather sad as horrible music is played over their heads. It is what you might picture a sci-fi dystopia to look like! Everything and everyone must succumb to the “formula”.

Culture is dying and we live in a barbarous age filled with materialist consumers and robot-like workers and I blame the corporations and their lame, square-headed managers who keep lowering the bar. They only focus on money and profits and how they can manipulate the people in order to get maximal return on minimal investment.

Don’t get me wrong; I believe free enterprise is good. But is only good when it has real, not fictitious persons.

Good artists need time to develop. The greatest artists are not necessarily the youngest, prettiest faces. We have to stop selling the illusion that dancing super-models actually deserve their music career success. They are the Pat Boone's of today; they might believe themselves to be wonderful and work hard learning their choreography but they are not talented or even clever. As Keith says, corporate creations are just “wannabes”.

The good news is that vinyl and serious music collecting is making a return. In the past ten years we have vinyl record sales grow exponentially. Millennials realize that vinyl records sound better - not sterile, cold and glassy like CDs but warmer to the human ear. Good artists might be able to make a career of selling records that people can seriously listen to.

I have to agree with the answer wiki, there is better music out there. If you and others like you support it, maybe we can wrestle the music away from the corporate stranglehold.