Music, music, music, where have you gone?

As I was finishing up my undergrad studies, I had to spend plenty of long nights in my computer lab (since that was the only time it seem I could be productive). One of the ways for me to stay alert during these late hours (other than countless and numerous Jack-n-Box runs) was to listen to music. Some of my fellow classmates had pretty extensive music collections loaded onto the lab computers and/or downloaded onto the computers and would play (whether I wanted to be subjected to their taste in music) loud in the computer lab. So on nights that I remembered to bring headphones, I would engage in hours of ear blasting and ear drum thumping of my kind of music (which happens to be a lot of different kinds of music). A friend of mine's tuned me onto the Pandora music channel which I found pretty cool. Before Pandora, I had to depend on yahoo music and their radio player but I became annoyed with yahoo music channel and gradually stopped listening to it. But on Pandora, you were able to create your own music stations and they played songs similar to the artists channel that you had created. Being the kind of person that I am, my station had all kinds of musical channels (jazz, classical, r&b, classic soul, alternative, rock, salsa, meringue, etc.) but it seemed that the only station I found myself listening to the most was classic soul (i.e. Marvin Gaye, Temptations, Stylistics, Dramatics, Aretha, Jackson 5, Martha Reeve and the Vandellas, O'Jays,Otis Redding, you name it) because these songs would make me feel good and focused. Mind you that I am only 24 years old, but I might as well have a musical tastes of people 40 and up. As I grew up in the mid 80s, I thought the music I heard was cool because I used to listen to the new wave and alternative and whatever synthesized beets were created and fused. My uncle had a diverse taste in music and it basically impacted and molded my musical styles. Of course I would listen to alot the artists of the times during the 80s and 90s but at least they were still churning out great music (cue in Jodeci, Boyz II Men, New Edition,112, Sade etc). But now it seems music is just full of crap that stinks worse than someone's dog who had nonstop diarrhea and halitosis. You know music is down the toilet when you have to get today's artists through American Idol. Now granted there are a few artists out there today in 2009 who know how to put out good music but they are so far few and in between. Why? Conspiracy (key in my conspiracy theory)to shove down young's people throats undeserving and highly unqualified "singers" to sell to today's youth that these are real artists, real singers, real rappers, real whatever else of the 21st century. Puh-lease. Its no coincidence when you listen to certain radio stations that cater to certain audiences (urban, youth etc) the frequency upon which you hear the same type of song, the same type of beat, the same type of track over and over all day long. After awhile, its start becoming dull and quite nauseating. And record companies wonder why no one wants to buy music anymore but instead engage in pirating and downloading illegal music. After my extensive CD collection was stolen during my junior year of college, I waited almost 4 years before I even began to think about rebuilding my music collection. And even as I have re bought music at about 65% of what I used to have, I have become downright fickle about what kind music I would actually pay for. Ask any of my friends, and they question the age of my soul because of my collection. At least I still have Youtube (when copyright blockages are not utilized) and Pandora radio. I hope that people of my generation and the generation coming up behind me that what you are fed day in and day out is not real music but systematic brainwashing; and if they happen to listen to music, even as late into the mid and end of the 90s and work their way backwards will they realize how much the music curve had declined tremendously. I still have hope that a music revolution will ensue soon in which the consumer demands better product, not for the sake of what they pay for, but for the sake of their ears (because god knows you are only given one pair to work with and need to make the most of through listening to music).