Originally Posted by Frownland

What Chula said, the mainstream music industry is far more monopolized than ever before. There's also the fact that a lot of people turn to pop to listen to something fun and don't want to be weighed down by heavy issues. I believe that someone else mentioned it here, but I think that the democratization of information through the Internet also plays heavily into the change that we see in the mainstream. Back in the days of yore, the population that knew of the music world outside of what the radio played was an incredibly miniscule part of the population so there was more of a burden on the artists to bring this stuff to the public's attention if the media wasn't going to do it. Now niche markets are becoming the norm in music, and major labels have their system down pat. There's not too much overlap in the audience that wants to hear about social issues and the audience that wants to hear pop, especially when social issues are all the rage on social media.

There are other sources for the public to inform itself on these issues, which is why a socially conscious song is no longer seen as powerful because often times these issues are already well in the public eye.