Why is modern pop music today so terrible?

" Debussy understood that a work of art, or an effort to create beauty, was
Always regarded by some people as a personal attack."

The Seduction of Claude Debussy, The Art of Noise

Good, bad, and indifferent has Always existed.  Sometimes genius is only seen in the rear view mirrors of time.  Remember that fist fights used to break out at the debut of works that we regard now as art.  We don't fortunately have many of those event follow-ups of late, and it's good to see that the company gathered Here is keeping a lid on it. ;) *G*

I have my favorites.  Y'all have yours.  Place your bets on who and what will survive the grindstones of time and tastes.

Will the aliens, after sampling the selections on the Voyagers, show up demanding more Elvis?  Or will they get more 'au courant' on their way here?  One has to keep in mind that radio waves are expanding at the speed of light and Veger 1 &2 are a little pokey in contrast...*S*

What if they want Sum 41?  Or the Black Keys ("You can go with this, or you can go with That...") ?  Will they be fans of Deadmau5?  Or Pussy Riot?

I gave reading minds....same 4 things, basically.  Predicting the future is a waste of time, which we don't have enough of....

"Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die."

Ellen McIlwaine, song of the same line....;)

I personally value music by artistic and technical effort no matter what style, genre or generation. Radio or media was always standard and limited to only certain music I guess at any time since I'm cognitive less few NPR radio-stations across the nation.
In today's radiostations the quality of music decreased, but not elsewhere outside of this 21st century profit drive of industries. Hopefully days go by and music will reborn with more real talents deserving to be heard on radio and seen on public television

Good points.  But, I think, if aliens are listening to some of our "modern pop music," they are coming here to kill us just to make it stop.

Pick any genre you want, I’ll take Country. There is what you hear on commercial radio and see on the TV awards shows, the entertainers the music business has decided to push. What they do is not actually Country, not at all. But at the same time there is an organization named the Americana Music Association which puts on it’s own awards show and has a website and Facebook page, all in the name of promoting real Country music. Artists like Buddy Miller, Jim Lauderdale, audiophile favorite Alison Krauss, Iris Dement, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, Gillian Welch, Jason Isbell, Kasey Chambers, Ricky Skaggs, Rhonda Vincent, Marty Stuart, Patty Loveless, and hundreds of others. They are all making fantastic music, and touring the country.

Schubert, it appears that you didn't quite get it regarding Elvis. I am not a big fan but do enjoy some songs. White people can sing, sometimes.
Elling is junk par exelance.

stfoth...*L*  Well, yeah, that's a distinct possibility...one might argue that 'suffering for art' is a consequence that has ramifications that weren't considered initially.  Hopefully one might get the opportunity to find out what selection pissed them off the most and render an apology before having the planet scoured of the 'sentient life forms' (sic) that were responsible for it....;)

Personally, I agree with Angus McKee in "So Beautiful and So Dangerous" that the only reason they'd visit is to pick up ball-point pens.  It's the only reason...other than we're famous for being so marvelously screwed up and better left to ourselves....on a beautiful planet we're thrashing as fast as possible...

You don't mess with your neighbors...neither do they....;)

Elvis has long been accused of merely being a white man who sang like a black man. Not so. What he did, what made him so revolutionary, was that he fused the Jump Blues he heard on "Race" records and radio shows reaching Mississippi and Tennessee, and the Hillbilly, Bluegrass, and Country & Western the white southerners were listening to on The Grand Old Opry and other radio shows. His Sun Records 78's and 45's had a Jump Blues on one side, and a Hillbilly on the other. No black man was singing Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon Of Kentucky", as Elvis did. He sang with the "hiccupping" style now associated with Rockabilly music, basically creating that music and style singing. No black man sang like that. Add in the Gospel he loved so much, and voila, you have Elvis.

I've somehow arrived at an age where-in I find myself at times lecturing the younger folk around me about how great music/radio was back during my time. It's difficult to check myself but I do.  I sound boring.  

Attended a wedding for a couple of millenials a few weeks back, spent most of the time sitting with a table of strangers, watching the "kids" dance and sing, scream while smiling into one another's faces their songs, their music. Wow. I remember doing likewise a few decades ago. 

I'm 60 now, way past the time when AM radio offered a surprising diversity. Hell, I don't know if there are even music radio stations on AM radio right now.   To paraphrase Public Enemy, "Elvis never meant sh*t to me", but I have friends for whom Elvis meant everything in terms of their personal rebellions against their parents' music. For me it was the Beatles, then Zeppelin, then...

Current pop for me is virtually unlistenable, but I have to respect the "kids" and their airtime/era. I don't belong there, I won't get it because I'm all growed up. 

Worsening matters matters are the "classic rock" stations pandering to my generation. I'd rather try to listen to current pop than wallow in the past. 

It doesnt necessarily "s*ck, it just ain't for me no more. 

Yes indeed Elvis did innovate the Rockabilly style. 

Passage of time doesn’t alter whether a musical piece is good or not .
What was an open mind at 20 would be an empty one at 80 .

I wallow in the past all day , every day , Bach is still perfection 400 years later ,

inna, there is a lot I don't understand , that's for sure .
One thing I do however is if I used your logic as a base 
 2+ 2 would equal 7 .

I thank God I knew a great songwriter who introduced me to J.S. Bach when I was twenty-four. For the "richest", deepest music, I turn to him, with increasing frequency and consistently as I have gotten older. One has to listen to him last in the day, as he is a hard act to follow!

I imagine if he were alive today, JSB would be deep into EDM.

You have a broken imagination .

C'mon, just picture a time-traveling Bach landing in some club with molly.

Surprisingly, I always liked Bach. Puts me to sleep easily, though. There were others in his time, however, don't remember the names. I heard their music too, Bach was better, to my mind.

Sir Sly - Don't You Worry, Honey
I think that's a great modern indie-pop LP.
If you haven't listened to it already, give it a whirl; might give you some hope for modern pop and the direction it's heading.
Also: Paramore - After Laughter
That's a little pop as well, but not an awful lot, it's pretty quirky :)

I'll go with one explanation that hasn't been proffered yet - changing taste in recreational drugs.

Back in the day, downers and hallucinogens sparked a more pensive or spacey (respectively) artistic impulse.  Today's turbo charged uppers produce 200 bpm EDM.  It's especially tough on us old guys who can't listen that fast.

I thought we're talking about popular music. 
Popular music has it's own agenda to be popular and targeted to uninformed crowd at all times. Any idea why Leonard Bernstein was NOT part of Boston Pops? I guess because music isn't really part of radio pop and it's definitely a separate meaning.
Tchaikovsky back in his days published piano pieces 12 Months in 12 journals so that casual and barely trained person could entertain oneself with relatively easy sheet music.
Today there's no need to know sheet music, because it could be heard on radio and radio is guilty of all charges to deliver popular music. I had music basics as a school curriculum to know basics of SolFegio, therefore I guess I value complexity and effort to play certain piece or perform. 
Did anyone enjoys David Rose or Ray Conif? That stuff will trigger my "wtf am I listening to..." phrase. It's pop.  

Can't stand most music that sells millions of copies ( or downloads or whatever) in any genre these days.  Can't stand the Grammy's or CMA Awards either.  But I couldn't stand "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got love in my tummy" or "Bang Shang a Lang" when I was younger, either.

Bad music is always around.  Even allowing for vast differences in tastes, it is puzzling why really terrible stuff is so popular.  Maybe consumers just don't seek out better music or don't seek to refine their sensibilities.  I don't know.

But there have never been more good musicians as today.  In the past couple months, I have seen Lyle Lovett's Large Band, Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Branford Marsalis Quartet with Curt Elling,  Mark O'Connor and the O'Connor Family Band, The Brubeck Brothers, one day of the Rockygrass Bluegrass Festival, and Chris Eldridge and Julian Lage.  Monstrously good musicians, all.

Let others crowd stadiums to hear the flavor of the month.  I don't want to hang out with them anyway.  I will look for, and easily find, plenty of music that utterly knocks my socks off, recorded, broadcast and live.

Support live music, folks.

Styles change but there’s always an abundance of talent. Mahler once observed that "the younger generation is always right" after hearing a piece of Schoenberg’s (that he didn’t even like). Ed Sheeran, John Mayer and Jack Johnson, for instance, are tremendously talented. Do I buy their stuff? No, but there’s no doubt that the gift is there. Had they been born decades earlier (or had I been born decades later) I’m sure I’d have liked their music. And as someone pointed out, there’s always some stuff that seems ghastly. I heard a half hour of some really lame, unimaginative music courtesy of the local classical station this afternoon. Arnold Bax, Michael Torque (sp?)--really dreadful IMO. I would have preferred any of the 3 pop stars I mentioned earlier, actually.

"Pop" became a derogatory term in the late 60's, particularly amongst my counter-culture hippie contemporaries. I didn't let that stop me from listening to the "shiny", studio-produced sounds I still preferred to the overly-long (imo), extended solo blues-based ramblings of Cream, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Dead, etc. In the late 70's and 80's, my Punk and New Wave-listening contemporaries were bewildered by my love of ABBA and The Rubinoos. Their loss! Though looked down upon by my Country purist friends and associates, I even liked Shania Twain. Steve Earle called her "Nashville's highest paid lap dancer". A guilty pleasure, for sure!

A lot of pop is terrible, true, but not all of it.  Are there issues with sound quality?  Of course, but SQ and the music itself are two different things.  Now, if you include new music, not necessarily what is popular, there are many, many great new artists and bands.  Some of them even seem to produce their music with respectible, if not audiophile, quality.  In fact, there are so many excellent new artists in so many genres that I am finding it difficult to keep up.  I have a stack of notes on which I have scribbled the artist and song names of hundreds of great new music songs that I have heard on internet radio, and these cover many different genres.  So, while I value my record collection and still enjoy music that I've owned for 30 or 40 years, there is much more to discover and enjoy.  YMMV, of course.

Interesting...sort of...about the subject....
https://youtu.be/oVME_l4IwII

What you see depends upon where you are standing, or sitting .

Good post bondman!

I posted this to highlight the degradation of quality in what sells Today.

Music reflects the times it was recorded in.

There is still plenty of great sounding, good music now - however you have to seek it out! And it does not sell well.

In the past it was "out in the open"!

I second the recommendation on Anais Mitchell...incredible voice, great songwriter and guitar....I heard about her because I am lucky enough to live in an area with 2 classical stations, 1 new jazz station and a great college station with "free form" programming www.krcc.org    that has a hip music director....Anais Mitchell appeared here in Col. Sps. in a small venue ...fantastic evening....I've been following music for most of my 61 years...80% of people consume the music they are told to consume...good music has to be found by work and sometimes luck!

while there is tons of programmed bad pop these days, there is plenty of good music if one avoids conventional radio.
Tedeschi Trucks, Houndmouth, (the late) Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Wilco, Paul Weller (ex Jam), Neko Case, Wild Feathers, Kings of Leon, Band of Horses, Nicole Atkins, Margo Price, Avett Brothers, Lake Street Dive, Michael Kiwanuka, ....
Not everything gonna be Aretha, The Beatles, Stones, Chuck and Jackie Wilson.
When anyone can make a record in their house, and they do, it becomes a question of the lowest common denominator.  

Imagine dragons, the lumineers, of monsters and men, Portugal the man, mumford and sons, one republic, fun, death cab for cutie, cold play, arcade fire, amimee Mann, all American rejects.... a few examples.... all well produced, well done, musical and enjoyable.  some are available as MQA, most all as flacs and/ or vinyl.  

You find what what you are looking for.  There will always be the front facing commercially driven tunes....but there are artists out there of course.  Check Bandcamp for example......

either that or +1 on you're just old and a curmudgeon.....;-)

Simple: it is created for an audience that is almost entirely ignorant of music.  Imagine books if they were published for illiterates.  Instead of sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and a story arc, you might have page after page with just a single giant letter printed on it.  The "reader" would grunt with satisfaction over recognizing the letter.
Compared with today's pop songs, The Beatles were Webern.

While I do believe there is a great deal of vocal talent among the young artists of today, the problem I have with most of today's pop is it's canned and synthesized production. I still prefer the sound, air and performance of real horns, strings and percussion, combined with the signature of a fine or notable vocal. There are still a lot of fine productions and artists out there that still involve real instruments and meaningful vocals - just have to dig a little to find them. The fun with having a nice system is to be able to appreciate it when you find it...
Jim

Pop music isn’t just terrible today. Music has generally sucked since 1980, with the exception of certain groups or artists, and the country rock movement of the 90’s. Classic rock of the 60’s & 70’s is still leading the way 50 years later.

I blame the recording companies, sinking to new levels of filling an image or copycatting another label’s overnight sensation. They just started manufacturing artists to fit the flavor of the day. Unfortunately, it seems like talent was the last box to be checked off.

The really sad part of this is that I have heard so many local and regional artists that are so much better than the those getting the promo and air time. I have been scratching my head about this for most of my adult life. Why aren’t the right people getting the breaks? Blame the record companies!

A few years ago Billy Bob Thornton claimed that there was no great rock and roll produced after 1979.   Maybe he meant by any performers who began their careers after 1979.   I listen to Casey Kasem's top 40 re-runs from the 1970s on Sirius and though there was some mediocre pop music from that era there was also some great music.   I am disappointed in most contemporary music of all popular genres but people like Randy Newman and Paul Simon are still making new and quality music.

Just like pollution ,education,and music . People just do not know better

Blame the record companies ? 
They still make intelligent wonderful music that ignorant people don't buy.
 

Because it's recorded, mixed, and mastered to be played on the radio or a smart phone and cheap earbuds.  It is more often than not over-EQ'd and over-compressed.  Not meant for critical listening - background noise at best.

If you think pop just got bad lately then you didn't grow up with Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I've got love in my tummy) - 1910 Fruitgum Company

Great topic.  I think a fascination with music is what started all of us on the quest for in home reproduction systems that bring maximum enjoyment of our personal musical favorites. Music is intensely personal.  I think it was Jerry Garcia who said his goal was to make every individual in the audience feel as though the band was playing specifically to them, and only to them. Don't hold me to that quote.  The music that speaks to me won't do the same for much of the rest of the world and vice versa.  I often refer to myself as a music snob because I've pretty much always expressed a disdain for what has for decades been foist upon the listening public as 'pop' (short for popular) music.  Just as an example;  what is sold as 'country' music these days is hardly the music of Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, or George Strait.  I don't know what it is, but it speaks not to me.  As many have posted here, the 'best' music (in my opinion) is that which typically flies under the radar and which takes word of mouth (FM college radio, used record bins in dusty basements, small concert venues and clubs, knowledgeable friends) to reach ones ears.  A benefit of being a 6 decade, slightly more than casual music enthusiast is that I've heard a fair bit of what's come down the musical pipes.  When I ask someone who's listening to pandora or spotify 'country' collections on the radio if they've ever heard of Ian Tyson, Ry Cooder, Doug Sahm, Roy Buchanan, Guy Clark, Gram Parsons, Jerry Jeff Walker, or Billy Joe Shaver and get that blank stare, I don't even bother anymore to delve into other genres' under the radar stars. I just stop, let them enjoy what apparently speaks to them and silently appreciate the collections I've managed to salvage from the racks over the last 50+ years.  Its all just a matter of opinion after all, and I still work hard at resisting the urge to claim, while I agree with that position, the fact is my opinion is just better than yours! 

Because it is POP music   

One reason could be the growth of video.I remember when I listened to songs,decades ago and didn't even know what the artists looked like.Now,it's all about video and how the performers look.So,less about the music.

I was trying to think of a quirky/ half-hearted response, but in the end, I agree with bdp24.

Put some blame of whos
Recording this stuff.  Tin
Ears 

@bondmanp 

+2 for the post by bondmanp. If you think ALL modern pop is bad, perhaps you have not listened enough. If you look, you'll find it. Get a free Pandora membership, put in some bands you like, and get ready for some discovery.

Hell, Van Morrison has 46 albums to his credit and I'm only familiar with at best half of them, why spend precious time wading through 'pop' music in an attempt to hear something that even approaches his genius?  Yes, it may be there, somewhere, hidden in the 'pop' sound waves, but damn! It's almost like swapping gear, again and again, in search of the 'perfect' sound when all along what you really like is right there in front of you.  Yes, I'm an old man, just like the one Neil Young sings of. I feel a certain vindication of my starchy point of view when my grown children ask if I'll put some Dead, Allman Bros, or Joni Mitchell on the TT; maybe it's respect, maybe it's pandering, but in my heart I want to think it's because they truly like it, for its originality, it's vitality, or the way it speaks to them.  Oh, hell, I'm going to have one more scotch and turn up volume and listen to the Wailin Jenny's! They are new to me and I dig it! 

First off, music is pretty subjective. Besides todays music isn't for you. You don't get it because your not suppose to. Last thing kids want is their parents, or worst their grandparents to be tripping on their music. Have we gotten so old we don't remember our parents. My Dad ( God bless him, he's no longer here but still love and miss him ) didn't like The Beatles, couldn't stand Stones, hated Alice Cooper use to call him the freak. What I'm trying to say is, welcome the club Grandpa. Ah Grasshopper, the circle is complete, we've become our Parents. 

One word... Compression :/

"Why is modern pop music today so terrible?"

Because it's an honest reflection of the times that we live in: pop music for mass consumption is superficial, artificial, meaningless and 100% disposable.  Here today and gone later today.  It wasn't always that way imo.  

It is what it is.  And most of it is God-awful and execrable.

There.  Spoken like a true Old Fart.

I'm not an old fart lol, but I agree with that statement as far as the music itself and not the actual recording process. It's cheap and the easy way " 2 takes and we will fix it in post" most the time the music itself in prefabricated and auto tune inhanced vocals laid down on top, You look and the garbage sampes supposed artist like Diplo, sleepy Tom, M82, the weekend are laying down. even that Justin temberlake dude and honestly you would think he would know better as long as he's been an artist. It's just crappy home studio garbage. you will notice that there is some that do, do a good job spend massive amounts of time in the studio to get it right. But they are really few and far b/t. 

One of the truest old sayings is" The Good is the Enemy of the Best !"

If you settle for good it inevitability becomes fair which over time degenerates to bad

Bach is Best .

While I agree with most of you guys about modern top 40 pop, I definitely come at my disdain for this music from a different angle..

I love electronic music. Experimental, abstract, dubstep, house, ambient, noise.. I have found tracks I love from almost every sub genre. Right now, there is so much incredible electronic music out there, inventive and fresh. That's what drew me to it after a childhood of listening to never ending classic rock on the Jersey shore.

I'm disenchanted with pop right now because it borrows its sounds and production values heavily from the producers pushing the edge, but does so in a way that crushes the inventiveness, making what could be incredible tracks into milquetoast mush. That said, there is the occasional track that I fall in love with only to find out it is a big hit 'out there'.. on those rare occasions, my faith in humanity is momentarily restored.