I think they're bad and annoying, but I would be just getting old as well.

Boy bands typically are forgotten after a while. Does anyone today still listen to The Jackson 5?

You're welcome to your opinion. However, I disagree. It's easy to cherrypick classics from the past, but trust me it's just as easy to cherrypick successful bands of yesterday that mean very little today. All it will take is one trend shift and suddenly a forgotten band will be huge again. Look to how Take That rose, fell, then rose again to see what I mean.

Still, it's all largely irrelevant to my central point: the situation today is pretty much exactly the same as it has always been, just with different names being used to make each point.

I listen to Mt Eden Dubstep - Sarah McLachlan: Silence, other Dubstep.

That's because "music" those days is more about marketing and selling yourself through carefully created image then real talent and good voice. Having big publisher company behind your back with good ties into radio stations also helps ;)

The music is just bad these days and to make matters worse, it seems like the worst of the worst gets treated the best.

That horrible Beyonce song "Put a ring on it" won Song of the Year last year. It is just one stupid line repeated like 400 times with some "Oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh oh" thrown in between.

Sex sells?

I must say that I think there are multiple things happening at the same time ...

First off, age does play a factor but for very different reasons than it did for previous generations. Over the past 10 to 20 years music has been in a fairly static state where most new popular acts are just derivations of what came before them. If you're under 15 (or so) you probably would be oblivious to this, if you're between 15 and 25 you'd probably be somewhat aware of how stale things are, and if you're over 25 odds are pretty good that you're bored senselessly with everything that is being produced.

The second problem is that the music industry has become "American Idolized", meaning that the industry has stopped looking for established quality acts to sign and (mostly) focuses on finding young marketable groups to "develop". In the 80s and 90s many new rock groups were being signed in their late 20s after a decade of developing as musicians, while today most new groups are being aggressively marketed in their early 20s. While it may not seem all that important, a decade of discovering your sound and developing your skill will likely result in a much different product than 12 months of "development" from a studio.

Finally, part of being successful at on a wide scale is being generic enough that "everyone" likes you. While achieving popularity often means you're talented, and by many measures your product is probably high quality, it tends not to be particularly interesting for people who're looking for something unique or original. If you put it into terms of movies or videogames, very few of the top 100 highest grossing movies or videogames are particularly unique or original, and if you're looking for something a bit different you often have to look for it in less conventional places.

Transitionaly music generation. The younger like it because the older do not. If the older crowd liked rap and hip hop. That style of music would never have caught on. During certain growing periods(teens). The young seek to define themselves from their parents. Music has always been part of that definition.

Wanna make something uncool to your kids(if you have them). Dress like them, act like them and hang out like them in their hang out spots. Especially approach them. Oh and take pictures.

It's a mix of both.