I gave up on the mainstream in the late years of the 90's. By then, all music was produced by sweaty white guys and it was exactly what people wanted to hear without any creative or tasteful influence at all. Same goes for most movies and cartoons. Some people even argue that pop has it's own distinctive sound and genre now, which is bleeps and blops and ghetto beats and a dumb whore who just lip syncs at her concerts and has someone write all her music for her while she looks hot.
and i found rbf's cover of "take on me" to be quite good.