There was a great article in Rolling Stone not too long ago about the shift in pop culture trends over recent years. It used to be that pop culture was controlled by celebrities and media companies and things like that. The people that bought into it and fueled it were typically people in their late 20's to earlier 30's. These were people who were old enough to have decent paying jobs so they had money to spend, but were young enough to still want to be cool. All of that has changed.
Modern pop culture is now heavily influenced by 13-16 year old girls. These girls have more money now than ever before. They get it either babysitter or working (when old enough) or just get it from their parents. These girls then spend that money on things they think are cool and it helps create a trend. If the new hot item is a brand of clothes these girls run out and buy it up. They are brand loyal, until the next fad comes out, and if one of them has it they all want it. The same goes with music. Britney Spears was put on the map by 15 year old girls. She was everything they wanted to be and they bought up her albums as fast as they could. All the other labels instantly tried to find their version of her.Today the 15 year old girls love Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers. Their loyalty to those acts has made them huge. And it makes every other record company scramble to find something like it. So the market gets flooded with like garbage. They have no interest in putting out something with quality, they just want it to have a good beat and a chorus you can sing.
15 year old girls will change on a dime. What they like now they may hate in 6 months, but if they like it now it is going to be huge. A friend of mine has a daughter who is 14. Last summer she was a fanatic for High School Musical. She was in love with Zac Efron and had watched the movie a million times. She knows every song by heart and every word of the movie. Her entire room was High School Musical stuff. She spent every spare penny on that stuff. Now it is all gone and has been replaced with Twilight. If you ask her about High School Musical she says, "It is dumb." When you say, "But you used to like it." She just says, "Well, not anymore."
Add into that the ADD nature of TV, Radio and the internet and nobody has any kind of attention span these days. The record labels have stopped trying to develop bands and are now just marketing singles. They want to sell the 15 year old girl the hot new song, the ringtone for that song and hopefully a ticket to see that artist when they come to town to play that song. The artist knows they have a limited shelf life so they put out a clothing line and dvds and anything else they can sell you. By the time they are sick of that song there will be another one out. It is all disposable so there is no heart or soul needed because it is just a product not art. And that is sad.
Sorry for the rant
