Why is modern pop music today so terrible?

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 .