Is there any research on how music "quality" depends on its popularity?
 

Sorry for such a stupid question and my bad English.

Suppose, we could arrange all music by its “quality”, influence on people, etc. Suppose, there are some music compositions which are better than the others, some are really bad, some are good. Suppose, this does not depend on the popularity of the music composition.
Is there any research that confirms that most of “really good” music compositions are a (very?) little known? That confirms that most of the well-known music compositions are pretty “bad”? (I used a word “well-known”. I don’t know, can I say “popular”, I think it’s confusing because of the genre “pop-music”)

If there is some research that confirms that, should “really good” bands stay unknown in the future? Will their music be worse if they will become well-known (mainstream)?

PS. I don’t relate this question to popular pieces of classical music.

Some great music ends up being popular.
Some bad music ends up being popular.
Some great music never gets past cult status.
Some bad music is quickly forgotten.

It's all a crap shoot.

The progressive rock band Yes had six albums that made it into the top ten of the US Billboard charts.

The song Macarena reached number #1 in 15 different countries and sold over 4 million copies.

Yeah, hard to believe progressive rock could ever be popular. Gross.

How could quality possibly be measured in any scientific way?

You're gross.

We finally agree on something.

Are you implying a song about a girl getting double teamed by her boyfriend's two friends is not a classic?

^

Everything sucks and if you like anything you have ****ty taste. Art is dead. Buy my ****.