lol@people that only read the title of the thread and not the original post
Anyway, music started sucked in the 90s. More so about 94... when it became about either being really rich, or being horrible depressed. The 80s music was pretty bad, but at least it was all about the actual music back then.
The depressing music of Nirvana was probably a huge downfall on music as a whole. Although Nirvana are always going to be icons, the fact is, it was their talentless playing and bullshit "I hate myself" lyrics that spawned generations of kids who only know one chord on the guitar to become the next big "top seller".
I would also blame a lot of it on Metallica. They where the last true gods of metal and boy did they fall. Like everybody else, they're music got talentless, they sold their sound out to the highest bidder, they let their friends down, and on top of all of that... they're the ones that started the "don't download music because we need even more money" bullshit that's going on now. Not that I'm for piracy, but I do blame them for the start of the "Money is more imporant then the music" trend that is currently taking over today's music scene.
With metal dead, grunge an annoyance to anybody besides 12 year olds, the only real money making peice of music left is pop. But lets be real, pop never was about good music. When Michel Jackson released Black or White, the pop genra died a slow painful death. With the birth of boy bands put together souly to help the record labels make up for the loss of revue they no longer recieve from their metal and hard rock CDs the music scene took an even quicker turn for the worse. Talentless groups like 98 Degrees where popping up just long enough to make 13 year old girls lose their virginity to child molesting adults and steal what little money they had in their pocket before they dissapeared forever. But this quick turn around of easy money is what spawned shows like American Idol... that somehow also made millions. Which in turn just spawns more unneccessary crap music like Kelly Clarkson. They like it because the TV told them too a hundred times a day, not because it's actually good.
It's a combination of things that ruined music, not just one. And most of it is spawned when a classic group goes to shit.