Wolfi65

Observations:
A lot of 'popular' music is indeed very formulaic, seems like every new style produces maybe a handful of artists/bands that are actually any good/innovative, the rest are clones.
Pretty much every female singer since the late 80's has tried to sound like Whitney Houston, musical style almost irrelevant.
My dad used to describe music that developed after the 1950's as 'nothing but crash-bang', I think he was referring to the (sometimes very heavy) overuse of drum sets. It is a little sad that EVERYONE has turn EVERYTHING up to '11' AT ALL TIMES just to be heard over the boom-boom.
When studying sheet music from different periods, most modern stuff is indeed almost embarrassingly simple, until you add 756 different electronic effects, that is.......
Have some middle-aged guy play a 30-minute Shostakovich sonata from memory on a harpsichord - only seniors will be interested.
Have a hot young guy strum 3 chords over & over while voicing 'oooohhh, Bay-Bee....' - millions of screaming, fainting fan gurls ('He's SOOOOOOO talented!!!!)