The truth about why modern music is so awful.

Too much compression in most popular music. Kills the dynamic range.

I think Lyngdorf used to, and possibly still do a 'clever' cd player to cope better with compressed recordings - I recall reading it did a great job with the Muse album black holes and revelations in a HiFi plus review years ago.

For the most part, I agree with the overall dismal view of modern music and it’s production and recording - particularly pop.
While I ocassionaly come across a new artist that lights a spark, for the most part, they seem to be stuck on the same techno, syntho drum beat, with one or two short verses, with no story and a five word catchy chorus, repeated fifteen times. Most of today’s pop music seems over miked, over dubbed and edited, over mixed, over compressed and quite lacking of real instrumentation.
There are a few modern day pop artists I’ve come to like - Amos Lee, Ray LaMontagne, Sia (a little techno, but what a voice) and a few others, but moreover, I find a good deal to like about some of the modern music, in genres that still features mostly real instruments and somewhat decent recordings - Folk, Irish/Celtic Folk, Jazz, Blues and some R&B.
All N All, though, IMO there’s still, in many genres, some pretty fair, modern stuff out there, to set back and enjoy on a nice system.....Jim

@michaelgreenaudio,

You kind of hit on what I was thinking but did not know quite how to ask.

I have built my system over years/decades with not a whole lot of equipment changes. The more important changes have been room acoustics. In my case, all done by ear. My feeling is this approach allows me to experience most music in a way that's pleasing to me.