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Kongfucius on 16 February 2014
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episteme said:

I think it also has something to do with extremely loud mastering since the mid-90's. Many remastered versions of classic albums sound as boring as the new ones.

It's very hard to find a mainstram album with good sound quality nowadays.
Take Metallica or Red Hot Chili Peppers as example. They had some of the best produced albums in the early 90's and some of the worst produced albums in history in recent years. But the songs itself aren't that bad, it's the mastering that ruins everything.

I don't listen much to pop music, but the Bruno Mars albums produced like the original mastering of Michael Jackson's Bad (2001 SE and Bad 25 suck) would be amazing.

Though he's not the only one doing it, when it comes to RHCP and Metallica that's mostly Rick Rubin's fault. That said an aggressive, compressed mix is actually suitable for certain music in my opinion, there are bits on Californication where I prefer the official release (Parallel Universe, Around the World) and others where I like the "quiet mix" you can find on youtube (Californication itself, for example)

To address the OP's point I certainly understand where you are coming from, as someone who listens to a lot of music that was made many years before I was born (I'm actually listening to The Cure right now, for example) the overwhelming majority of modern popular music does absolutely nothing for me, but people are right to point out that, even if you have to look a bit harder for it, there is lots of great new music out there.

If you can try listening to some less mainstream radio stations, the type who tend not to be swayed so much by chart positions and just play what they like because they think it's good. That said a lot of my music on my iPod is older, and if I was asked to list my all time favourite albums I think the most modern is still from 2001 (Muse - Origin of Symmetry), most well before that :)