+1

When I'm asked "Oh and what music you like?" I'm like "uhhh, let's say that not the one you like". And I leave it at that.

Mainstream or otherwise, its pretty much all crap these days.

But I do hate it when particularly untalented artists end up being the most successful.
Fergie for example, is probably the biggest thing in music right now, and she sounds like a bag of cats getting crushed by a steamroller.

Maybe they are mainstream because a lot of people like them?

Well, they likely have some (See, a lot of) marketing behind them, but exposure leads to people liking you. Gee. Shocking.

I do, I hate people that are different than me.

For a lot of people, music is a social phenomenon; it's as much about sharing a feeling or an event with a friend as it is about the actual music in question.

As such, lots of people tend to like the music their friends like -- not only because they actually have occassion to hear it, but because it's fun to be able to talk about music, share music, and go to shows together.

Which explains why music is so top heavy, with the top 200 bands at any given time having 75% of the listening audience, and the other 1000000 musicians in history getting the other 25%.  

why would anyone??...

I guess the important thing is to listen what you want to listen... who cares if walf of the world like crapy music that is their problem...

I think every genre is about 20% pretty good, 5% great, and 75% good-terrible.

In my opinion, about 1% of the great music is on the radio, the other 4% you have to find.

People pick on rap but there is some really good stuff out there. ie: black star, blue scholars, a tribe called quest, el-p.

Also, there is some really good folk music. Folk being countries older, more detail oriented brother. The mountain goats are amazing.

Thank god I don't listen to English music =/

The rap talk got me thinking about one slam poet/hip hop artist I truly admire. His name is Saul Williams.
go here to hear some pretty interesting stuff.

http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=18275&start=0#end

I pretty much don't listen to the radio, but I do get annoyed when people try to pass talentless crap off as something good. case and point I listen to metal, and I have had people recommend all sorts of "metal" bands to me. I say "metal" because it usually turns out to be a "underground" aka indy hardcore or deathcore band which are NOT metal or good. usually these bands end up sounding like complete crap, like someone screaming over a drum machine...and don't get me started on the kids that think stuff like MCR is metal....

for instance compare these two songs:

these guys are "Job for a Cowboy" which to me sounds like chewbacca taking a crap.

Even if you compare them to a deathmetal band like Cannibal Corpse, CC is still a lot better and more musically trained despite the comparable heaviness.