a few years ago i could understand why the very popular songs were loved by many, I still hated the crap, but i could tell that it was catchy...

mainstream songs these days seem excrutiatingly bad

like the whiny vocals on 'i just wanna live' by Socrapithurts charlotte, and on that... what you waiting for song by gwen stefani...

is the music getting worse or are the mainstream listeners getting dumber?

you're getting older

yes must be it

i mean who can deny the genius of jojo?

only an...IDIOT!!

Perhaps it's just as bad as ever but it's being played 10x as much. It's an airwave attack of massive proportion and anyone without earmuffs will be lost.

If the consumers didn't buy such garbage it wouln't be shoved down our throats by the media.

I have a similar viewpoint, I know my musical tastes have changed massively since the late 90s or whatever, but I still recall the songs of that time being catchy and addictive, even if they were pretty crap, while now they're just plain bad and they don't stick in your head at all. I think that it is mostly to do with my musical taste evolving, but I still don't remember anything as god-awful as Britney Spears for example back in the mid-90s.

It's sad how people actually go out and buy such shitty music.

This is true, but the payola-induced radio overload came first. It's a self-fufilling prophecy. The problem is that people in general are not as discerning as many of us that gather here.

For example, I know someone, who turns 40 tomorrow, who has a VERY large catalog - of shitty pop music. It's damned impressive, in a fatal accident sort of way. She's handy in the sense that I'll play some quasi-hit tune from the 80's and she knows it (she is the only one I work with that recognized "The Politics of Dancing", for example), but worthless if I want to find out what's actually going on musically outside of the pop world. She's highly intelligent, a much better interior decorator than I am (her list of what to do with my apartment reached the floor), and doesn't have the slightest clue what she's missing when she listens to Top 40 radio all day.

This lady is the target of Clear Channel, and has bought 10 CD's already in 2005, or more to the point, 5 times what I, a more discerning customer, have purchased. Would she have bought that Destiny's Child disc if "Lose My Breath" hadn't owned the airwaves for two months? What about Linkin Park, or Evanescence, whose "refreshing approach to heavy metal" had been played on MTV, the radio, in movies, in Pepsi ads and in the background on the set of Survivor the day so-and-so was unfairly voted off the island?

People are letting it happen, yes. But unless you are going to buy a radio station, there's not much you can do about it. I could tell this person to stop listening to the radio entirely and go spend her time on forums and in small clubs, but music is not her sole focus when she raises two teenagers. Most people love music in general but are short on time to acquire it. The blame for how bad the music scene has gotten has got to placed more on the sholders of those who provide it to the people than the people themselves. That said, it's clear we're on our own now. Stay ignorant and you get what you deserve.

This is why I make more music than I listen to these days. Can't turn on the radio without some flange faced, mini skirt garbed minger/tart singing about how good/bad her relationship/life/sex life is/isn't. Pure rubbish. *fume* 'Cept the Killers are on sometimes. I like them...........

*notes that the pop section has disappeared in my absence - hehehehehe, mint*