The Decline of the Music Industry

The decline of music cannot be explained by only internal factors proper to this industry only...

The general decline of western civilization is linked to this musical industry decline...

Most people dont see this decline invoking for example booming new technologies...But empowering technology and technocacy is not culture nor science in itself...

This is the bad news...

The good news ia materialism of the last hundred years is terminated .... Humanity is at a forked road in evolution...

True science in all areas pointed to consciousness being the fundamental phenomenon not matter which is a fiction by now created by sense and habit....

We can predict then after the chaos of the actual uncertainty a Renascent creativity in all areas, music included, before the end of this century...

It’s true even in the early days of rock music artists were perceived as rebels, highly independent and not subservient to others. Then success and money kicks in and as we all know always  “just follow the money”. So much for artistic freedom.

If I might venture a guess, I think the difference between music now versus decades ago is that the criteria for judging talent has changed, not only for music but for the movie and TV industries as well.  I think today the singers and actors that get a shot are chosen first for sex appeal, including youth, rather than talent or experience (including life experience).  They haven't had the time or years of experience to develop what talent they might have.

Combined with the lack of talent in plot and story development, we get scenes with explosions, computer generated graphics, endless chase scenes and actors' knowing-looks instead of meaningful dialogue.  

In music, instead of well written melodies and clever lyrics, we get sexual innuendos and dancers doing stop-start antics and thrusting their limbs like they are warming up for martial arts action. "Its getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes . . It's so hot in here, I'm gonna take my clothes off!"  It's the aural equivalent of TV sit-coms . . all physical attraction, sexual innuendos and very little acting.

I think the difference is also related to the times. The 50's and 60's were more idealist, naive times with sincere love songs. By the 1990's, life and music and just about everything was about being wise to games, playing games on people and successfully manipulating and using them, proving yourself a playa.  I miss the old days when peopla at least seemed sincere. 

True there, @bob540 and kinda vapid post-Kardashian twerking, etc. but remember the Elvis hip grind was considered too risqué for TV back in the day? Sex definitely sells. It's certainly part of the appeal of music videos going back to the MTV era and earlier. With music delivered as part of an entertainment "package" of dancing, effects, etc., you aren't necessarily being asked to listen to the music, or the vocal abilities of a singer. (Perhaps that's one reason I don't listen to as many female vocalists these days as I did 20 years ago). 
At bottom, it's a business. And as someone pointed out above, there are the innovators and then the followers, hoping to cash in on a trend. Which leaves the A&R department (if it exists and isn't an algorithm at Big Data) trying to come up with something that is the same but different. That too was characteristic of the "good old days"---Doug Sahm was cast as a British Invasion rocker to garner radio time, but he wasn't a Brit and was actually pretty talented. 
I think we have all these niches these days, which may be a reflection of the society we live in. I won't use the "diversity" word, because it conjures up the social justice issues now associated with the term, but what I get a big kick out of is young people discovering old stuff for the first time. And for them, it's genre agnostic-- they can go from country, to metal, to jazz, to hip-hop. 
In some ways, that's cool, and contradicts the siloed nature of genre slicing. 
I know with friends that we have overlapping musical tastes like a Venn diagram-- areas where we share an interest and areas where I'm interested and they aren't and vice-versa. The biggest challenge for me in the last 10 or 15 years was to expand my musical horizons beyond my "comfort zone." I still can't get my head around some free jazz---it's just too cacophonous, but I've definitely become more accustomed to, and enjoy music that would have been too out there for me at one time. 

Personally I find most of the music that Frank Zappa did himself to be pretty much noise, which is probably why most people, even if from that "age group" can't tell you even one song he does. Perhaps he is not the best person to judge?