Why does all new pop music sound the same?

All new, rock and pop music, as good as any old fogy music

Will anyone still be listening to those groups in 40 to 50 years? Probably not, but it could happen.  Will anyone get out their old rap records when they're 50 and play them for the grandkids?  Not likely.

The comparison of today’s hit factories to Motown is a little off target. Does anyone think that those two guys that write so much of today’s pop have the songwriting talent of Smokey Robinson and Holland - Dozier - Holland?

Motown didn’t use autotune. Smokey, Marvin Gaye, David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Diana Ross, Martha Reeves and Gladys Knight, to name just a few, all had the ability to sing a song all the way through without overdubs or sweetening. The house band, The Funk Brothers, could play at a level and with a variety I don’t think many of today’s hit factory bands could match.

Humanity is being taken out of music today and being replaced with computer generated effects. As Bob Seger put it, "Today’s music ain’t got the same soul."

I understand that young people want their own music, not their parents’ music and that there is plenty of good music being made today, as there always is, but I think musical quality has kind of been on a downward trend since Mozart and Beethoven, and the downward trend is picking up speed.

@whart +1

Actually, this thread wasn’t meant to be about all modern music, despite its somewhat inaccurate title. It was primarily aimed at the WKTU and equivalent radio stations’ playlists, which consist of exactly none of the artists mention on Kennovac’s long list and, for the most part, written by the same two guys. Obviously, there are plenty of acts around with musical value, but that is always the case. Every era has good and bad of course. You should watch the you tube videos with Jack White and Edge watching "geezer" Jimmy Page play Kasmir. They look as if they have seen god. How can this be?  

@chayro - that movie, of the three of them, was entertaining. I went with a guy who had at one point played with Link Wray. He was rolling in the aisle when "The Edge" claimed he invented the power chord. Pagey and Jack White are both OK in my book. 

@Whart - I think maybe one needs to actually be a musician to realize the contribution the rock musicians of the 60's and 70's, i.e, Page, Hendrix et al, made to the music coming later.  But again, the discussion sort of morphed from a discussion of pop music, which it was meant to be, to a discussion of all modern non-classical stuff, which it wasn't.  
But the White/Edge videos are great, as are the Leslie West videos, showing him talking about his days with Mountain and hanging out with Jimi.  Living in the past?   No - just talking about the past.  We all live in the right now.