I've really been giving this topic a lot of thought. Everyone has made good observations but there's one thing that hasn't been really explored.
 
I feel that modern, commercial music, is really target specific. If you're over 30 and have hair on your back, then you are not the target for today's fashion oriented, beauty concious music business. It's all about beauty, power and money. Perhaps it's always been about that, but today they toss it in your face.
 
Before an album gets done they are thinking of how to market the artist. If you can't be marketed then it doesn't matter how good your music is. The veneer is more important than the substance because music isn't the final destination. They also want to sell clothing lines, cologne and perfume to the fans. Your number of Twitter followers is the current yardstick for success.
 
All of this is particularly true in America where they excel at corporate entertainment. Music and sports are both delivered in formats that are bigger, brighter and louder than ever before. 

Can you image being a parent (or grandparent) around 1950. Popular music went from big band orchestra to Rock n' Roll. "String of Pearls" to "See you later Alligator" in less than 10 years. That would have been considered a tremendous "dumbing down" of music at the time. I think that must have been very hard to accept as an adult.

Hey you kidz, get awf mai lawn.

codamedia
Can you image being a parent (or grandparent) around 1950. Popular music went from big band orchestra to Rock n' Roll. "String of Pearls" to "See you later Alligator" in less than 10 years. That would have been considered a tremendous "dumbing down" of music at the time. I think that must have been very hard to accept as an adult.

As it certainly was a terrible dumbing down. I love good old 50s stuff, but it was all sticking to a very simple formula. And likewise, blues. It's all very rudimentary. 
 
But then artists came that infused other elements into it. They developed it.
 
I feel like the last 10 years we went into the exact opposite direction. 

"Guitar?  Nah, I don't need one.  I've got an app on my phone!"
 
*Sigh...* 

You guys all realize that 99.99% of listeners are NOT musicians and have no musical training whatsoever?
 
So why should a music producer or A&R head care or be held accountable if what they push has no true artistic value?
 
If you only turn on your AM Top 40 radio station in your car, you can only blame yourself for the state of today's music.
 
/bapuRantOver

bapu
You guys all realize that 99.99% of listeners are NOT musicians and have no musical training whatsoever?
 
So why should a music producer or A&R head care or be held accountable if what they push has no true artistic value?
 
If you only turn on your AM Top 40 radio station in your car, you can only blame yourself for the state of today's music.
 
/bapuRantOver

 

I'm a pretty big hypocrite when it comes to this.  I'm also an old fart who regrets that, as far as "popular" music is concerned, rock is dead, as is musicianship.  Whatever happened to the good old days when talented musicians got together and played instruments?
 
Of course, as soon as I'm done listening to the "true musicians" of the good-old-days, I turn to my computer and use sampled drums and orchestra, record my intermediate-at-best guitar playing through an Eleven Rack, use pitch-correction when I don't quite nail a vocal performance as well as I should, etc. 
 
So while I'm not a fan of modern "popular" music and sincerely believe that many of today's popular artists aren't nearly as talented as the people I grew up listening to, I must acknowledge that I'm not that great of a musician either, and because of advancing technology, I'm now able to produce music that until fairly recently wouldn't have been possible without a group of talented musicians.
 
But ultimately it doesn't really matter I guess...I enjoy working the way I do, and I'm still happy with the music I create, knowing that I'll never be a terribly skilled guitarist or vocalist. And even if I'm not a fan of the state of modern music, I still have my "oldies" to listen to.

There was once a time when "buying a record" meant purchasing the sheet music from your local music store, and playing the thing yourself on the piano. When the wax cylinder and then the gramophone record came out, people said it would spell the end of musical talent and put real musicians out of business. Of course that was anything but the case.

In the late 70's/early 80's my school teachers were trade union Luddites who insisted that the personal computer revolution would cause mass unemployment and starvation, as the greedy capitalists would fire everyone and have silicon chips take their place. Again, they could not have been more wrong.

So I take this music industry Chicken-Lickenism with a pinch of salt too. New technology, changes in music distribution, business models etc - all will create new opportunities and possibilities in the long run. The accessibility of cheap audio technology may give rise to a proliferation of crap music, but will also give a musical voice to new talent which would have otherwise gone unheard. Think of how much musical talent in the 50's to the 90's was kept from the world because of the cost of making a record and the sheer luck involved in being "discovered."

Some more bands to consider:
 
Eloy
The Socks
Dirty Three
Greenleaf
Truckfighters