So there is a lot of cool music being produced today; much of it is not mass market/chart topping/etc and so it doesn’t just get dumped in one’s lap like pop m

So there is a lot of cool music being produced today; much of it is not mass market/chart topping/etc and so it doesn’t just get dumped in one’s lap like pop music did in the era of radio. That said, a lot of music today is over produced- levels set too high, etc. Also, a lot of pop and r&b music today doesn’t seem very creative to me- pounding bass line, trivially simple melody, chanted, simple, explicit lyrics, and then depend on production to try to make it interesting. This obviously appeals to a lot of people but maybe not so much to others. Mass market music is intentionally formulaic; search the web for “Doctor Hook”. On the other hand, there are some super creative things out there. I like genre-bending remixes personally like Pentatonix’ cover of Fleet Foxes’ “White Winter Hymnal”, or Steven Seagulls cover of “Thunderstruck”. Point is, that the stuff that will fall in your lap is mass market and not as creative IMO as pop was in earlier generations. However there’s great stuff out there; you just have to look for it. Also the tools to find music you might like are better than ever, eg you can hum or sing into Shazam or Siri a snippet of a song you liked, online you have lyric searches. And all the music services have ML to find songs you might like based on songs you like.